Book - BookDetective

Name: Impossible Subjects

Full name: Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America

Author: Mae M. Ngai
Year: 2003
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History, Award winners

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ISBNs:
9780691160825
0691160821

This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy'a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century. Mae Ngai offers a close reading of the legal regime of restriction that commenced in the 1920s'its statutory architecture, judicial genealogies, administrative enforcement, differential treatment of European and non-European migrants, and long-term effects. She shows that immigration restriction, particularly national-origin and numerical quotas, remapped America both by creating new categories of racial difference and by emphasizing as never before the nation's contiguous land borders and their patrol. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

This book is part of the "Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America" series. Here are some other books from this series:

"State of the Union"
First published in 2002
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"Suburban Warriors"
First published in 2001
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