Immigration Books

From 1853 to about 1929, more than 200,000 children and several thousand adults were sent west on "orphan trains," leaving crowded urban areas on the East Coast behind. Holt's book focuses on the placing out system--from its creation to its demise--instituted by the Children's Aid Society of New York. Estimates of the number of destitute children living in the streets of New York in 1853 ranged from 10,000 to more than 30,000. Charles Loring Brace, who became secretary of The Children's Aid Society believed there was no better place for vagrant or outcast children than "the farmer's home." Placing out removed destitute children from the streets of New York City, placing them with families in the west. The system was intended to provide Christian homes and families for orphaned or abandoned children while fulfilling the demand for workers on farms in America's heartland. The author also discusses other charitable organizations that imitated Children's Aid Society initiatives. She uses oral histories, institutional records, and newspaper accounts to bring the orphan train era to life in this balanced account, highlighting both the positive and negative aspects of the placing out system. Her discussion of social and economic structures of the 19th century help readers view the topic in context. This is a "must read" for anyone conducting further research in the topic, or readers who are simply interested in this lost chapter of American history.

Bryan Tomasovich grew up in Wisconsin and now lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, where he teaches at Antioch University in Seattle. Ouisconsin: The Dead In Our Clouds is a poetic investigation by Tomasovich into the public history of his home state as revealed in the private lives of his people. His verse is fused with lyrical memories of his family's struggles to become American as they lived and worked in the upper Midwest. It's not often that you see a volume of poetry enhanced with a Bibliography of recommended readings by other writers. This is a collection of poems that grace the mind, stir the soul, and reveal small windows of insight into the human condition that is universal to us all. Skunk Frank Episodes: Skunk Frank's fishing hole on the Flambeau River is marked/by an alert pine draft/when standing in the ruins of the old Indian feller's shack./Go make yourselves at home/our Grandpa Frank'd say...log frame/tin billboard walls, tar paper/tumbled down and mossy/as the river but colder/home-canned jars, melted fork/bottles plenty, granite chimney shards/but not a feather.//Friends like this...our grandpa Frank is a real puzzle.

Evening Standard, 14 March 2005
A fascinating book...a splendid piece of social history...Mann's witness deserves a distinguished place in 20th-century history

Literary Review, March 5, 2005
'this splendid account of...children in the Second World War provides us with a unique and valuable historical document'

Glasgow Herald
'Mann's book makes for a read that is illuminating and sobering, riveting and sad.'

The Telegraph
'Neither the evacuees nor the reader could ask for a better chronicler than Mann.'

It is good for people today to read of the experiences of refugees of W. W. II. Lest we forget!! The Quakers (Friends) were the salvation for l85 refugees l939-45, assimilating them into American culture and referring to them as guests rather than refugees.

ms. lydersen looks into the real effects of "globalization." and the real people being affected most directly by it. she lets what she finds speak for itself.

she also lists web sites at the end of each chapter so the reader can continue exploring some off the issues she brings forth. definitely one of the most useful, "enjoyable," and well-written books i have come across in quite a while!

kari lydersen is helping set the stage for global understanding and true justice. this book is an important piece of history.

The political insights in the contemporary Italy are scrutinized with admirable fruition, through a timely, opportune and intelligent approach.

Totally recommended for all kind of readers due its noted relevance.

The year is 1905, and, hoping for a better life, eleven-year-old Su-Na, her parents, and her two younger sisters have traveled from Korea to Hawaii. But life there is not all that they have expected. There is no school, and the low wages paid to immigrant laborers are barely enough to survive on, especially after a new baby is born. After a year in Hawaii, the family travels to the town of Riverside, California, where Su-Na and her sisters attend school while their father works as a fruit picker. But after two years during which Riverside begins to seem like home and another baby brother is born, their life is shattered by violence and prejudice. Once again the family must move, this time to the mining town of Idria. The work there is very dangerous, and Su-Na, now an independent, headstrong teenager with dreams of her own, constantly quarrels with her traditional parents. This was an excellent addition to the American Sisters series that brought to life the conflicts that exist in immigrant families, between the traditional parents and their increasingly Americanized children. I highly reccomend this book to young readers who enjoy historical novels, such as the Dear America series.

...do not be misled by the publication date. Peretz's writing on the refugee dynamic continues to be quite relevant to the conflict. He traces the development of the refugee problem, and explores myriad instituitions conceived of and implemented to deal with the refugees. Peretz also offers a series of explorations of the potential solutions to the refugee problem: something that is only now becoming more widely recognised by the policymaking community. A very fine analysis, recommended for serious students of the conflict and/or region.

A great resource for anyone interested in the Chinese American experience or the development of the INS (Immigration & Naturalization Services). Many defining aspects of the American Chinatown culture and psychology is surprisingly the result of the Paper Family subtefuge. This unique journey of the early Chinese immigrants is recounted with clarity, scholarship and understanding.

Pasquale will travel on a ship with his mother, brother and sisters to join their Papa in America. Although this is fiction it is based on a true story that the author heard from her father all her life. Will Pasquale get his own pair of shoes in America?