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Salsa has replaced ketchup as the most popular condiment. A mosque has been erected around the corner. The local hospital is staffed by Indian doctors and Philippine nurses, and the local grocery store is owned by a Korean family. A single elementary school may include students who speak dozens of different languages at home. This is a snapshot of America at the turn of the twenty-first century.

The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, shaped by successive waves of new arrivals. The most recent transformation began when immigration laws and policies changed significantly in 1965, admitting migrants from around the globe in new numbers and with widely varying backgrounds and aspirations.

This comprehensive guide, edited and written by an interdisciplinary group of prominent scholars, provides an authoritative account of the most recent surge of immigrants. Twenty thematic essays address such topics as immigration law and policy, refugees, unauthorized migrants, racial and ethnic identity, assimilation, nationalization, economy, politics, religion, education, and family relations. These are followed by comprehensive articles on immigration from the thirty most significant nations or regions of origin. Based on the latest U.S. Census data and the most recent scholarly research, The New Americans is an essential reference for students, scholars, and anyone curious about the changing face of America.

About the Author
Mary C. Waters is M. E. Zukerman Professor of Sociology at Harvard University. Reed Ueda is Professor of History at Tufts University and author of Postwar Immigrant America. Helen B. Marrow is a Lecturer, Committee on Degrees in Social Studies, Harvard University.

Reviews
An exhaustive new work by more than two dozen American scholars...It's a careful, learned work aimed at educating us all as to who Americans really are these days...For those reporting on, working with or leading this increasingly diverse nation, The New Americans will serve as a thorough primer to the nuances, challenges and opportunities at hand. -- Robert Behre * Charleston Post and Courier *
The book is a useful primer; at once a wealth of information and a telling snapshot of current academic opinion on that all-important topic, assimilation. -- Tamar Jacoby * New York Post *
There is not a weak or disappointing essay in the book...Waters and Ueda have succeeded in their goal of updating The Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. My copy of The New Americans now sits next to that venerable old guide, as it should for any scholar of the American immigrant experience. -- Peter Kivisto * Ethnic and Racial Studies *


Awards
Nominated for Theodore Saloutos Memorial Book Award 2006 and Waldo G. Leland Prize 2011 and John Hope Franklin Publication Prize 2008 and PROSE Awards 2007 and Otis Dudley Duncan Award 2009 and Thomas and Znaniecki Book Award 2008.



Book Information
ISBN 9780674023574
Author Mary C. Waters
Format Hardback
Page Count 736
Imprint Harvard University Press
Publisher Harvard University Press