Unguarded Gates: A History of America's Immigration Crisis

By Otis L. Graham Jr.

Book Overview

Throughout America's history immigration policy has always been a controversial and complex topic, going to the heart of what it means to be American. Now, with terrorism as a new concern, Americans have begun to look closer at the effects of rising immigration and porous borders.

In this cogently-argued work, immigration scholar Otis L. Graham, Jr. examines the history of immigration pressures and American policy debates and choices. He begins with the first "Great Wave" of the 1880s and traces the effects of the system of national origins, enforced from the 1920s through 1965. The reforms of the 1960s ushered in an era of large-scale legal and illegal immigration, resulting in a vast social experiment in demographic transformation. In assessing the past, present, and future of immigration, Graham shows that the failure to control the influx of foreigners is leading America toward further security risks, unsustainable population growth, imported worker competition with American labor, and, ultimately, social fragmentation.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0742522288
• ISBN13: 9780742522282
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 242 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

As Good As It Gets!

Professor Graham provides the reader with a master's class in American immigration history. Cutting cleanly through a lot of the emotional hokum that surrounds this volatile issue he presents American immigration history with an eye to debunking popular yet false myths that have cropped up over the last several decades. A must read !

A must-read on immigration

If you don't think 400 million people living in the US by the year 2050 are too many, then I guess you don't have to read this book. But if, like me, you are tired of gridlock, crowded everything, degraded schools, unpaid hospital bills, crime, etc., to say nothing of the loss of civic duty and responsibility, then Graham's book explains how we got here. The last part of the book is expecially good at explaining how elites and vested interests keep the discussion of immigration control out of the public forum. Every poll says Americans want less immigration, but it never happens. Why? Graham explains why. Surprisingly, he also explains why 9/11 hasn't made that much difference in the immigration flow.. What is it going to take for the public's voice to be heard? He discusses the entire issue very convincingly. This is a great book. If you read only one book on immigration, this should be it.

A Corrective

In Unguarded Gates Professor Graham provides a much needed corrective to what passes as the history of immigration restrictions from the 1880s to the present. Any suggestion in the current debate that perhaps the lifeboat of immigration is nearing capacity is sure to be greeted by a reminder that the Statue of Liberty stands as a permanent testament to our historic invitation to the world's "huddled masses yearning to be free." In truth, in the view of the generation which placed the statue in New York harbor it was seen "as a symbol of America as a model to inspire other lovers of freedom," rather than some sort of illuminated welcome mat. It was not until the 1930s, Professor Graham informs us, that journalists and history text book writers began to link the statue not with liberty but with immigration. Such distinctions are particularly relevant as the nation again comes to come to grip with the consequences of virtually unchecked immigration amidst emotionally laden charges that any suggestion to moderate the flow is akin to racist exclusion policies of the past. Indeed, the book shows that there was much more than racist exclusion to account for immigration limitations in the past and that the authors of the 1960s immigration reforms got much more than they bargained for on this account. The book is a must read for anyone interested in where we came from, and, more importantly perhaps, where we are going as a nation of immigrants if the discussion is not properly addressed.

A new look at immigration history.

This is a very interesting book, particularly on the early restrictionists. It gave me a new perspective on why Americans restricted immigration in the early 20th century, and gave me historical insight into today's immigration policy crisis.

review of UNGUARDED GATES

Brilliantly new! An historical perspective that you don't get in history classes, and it explains and probes the present mess we are in. Also musical to read.