Eithne Luibhéid

A very well-researched and thorough look at specific cases and how these spoke larger truths about immigration law and its enforcement, and how this affects the nation's rights and histories as a whole. The first chapter makes a compelling argument of how early immigration laws targeted women - often non-white and often lower class - in an attempt to create a very specific American populace in the face of perceived threats from outside the borders. This is an argument that she carries throughout the book through increasingly specific - and often increasingly disturbing - case studies and histories that aren't likely to be heard in survey history classes. She uses data to make a convincing argument on how the government essentially created and/or enforced specific classes we now know today as prostitutes, homosexuals and heterosexuals, in part by an enforced (and often subjective) judgment of the moral character of people screened for entry into the U.S. She also does a good job of showing how the control of immigration connected to a control of what was deemed the American character - how, e.g., federally inscribed moral preferences for heteropatriarchal families led to an increase in first immigrant wives and then (non-white) children which led to a perceived menace that led to laws singling out and eventually excluding immigration from certain countries that were deemed threatening.

The book is very well-organized, making it easy for researchers to read the beginning of each chapter to see what she plans on discussing, but a cover-to-cover reading is even more beneficial since she does a great job of giving theoretical and historical foundations for her assertions. She also makes great use of [a:Michel Foucalt|3901687|Michel Foucalt|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]'s works, particularly [b:Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison|80369|Discipline and Punish The Birth of the Prison|Michel Foucault|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170981805s/80369.jpg|1946946] and [b:The History of Sexuality: An Introduction|1875|The History of Sexuality An Introduction|Michel Foucault|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1275673175s/1875.jpg|5991], but graciously doesn't make it required for you to read them as she quotes where necessary.

Ultimately, Luibheid seeks to challenge the notions of immigrants as inferior due to aspects of race, class, sexual orientation, etc. and to suggest that the debate over immigration goes much deeper than the commonly touted stories that fill the news rooms. It is an important work that compiles a lot of historical data in ways that hasn't quite been done before.… (meer)