1. Introduction; 2. Foreigners and borders in British North America; 3. Logics of revolution; 4. Blacks, Indians, and other aliens in antebellum America; 5. The rise of the federal immigration order; 6. Closing the gates in the early twentieth century; 7. A rights revolution?; 8. Conclusion and coda.
This book connects the history of immigration with histories of Native Americans, African Americans, women, the poor, Latino/a Americans and Asian Americans.
Kunal Parker is a Professor of Law and Dean's Distinguished Scholar at the University of Miami School of Law. His first book, Common Law, History, and Democracy in America, 1790–1900: Legal Thought before Modernism was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011.
'Kunal Parker has accomplished the remarkable feat of challenging
us to think differently about concepts - what it is to belong, what
it is to be alien - that once seemed simple. Untangling the
complexities of immigration from the Pilgrims to the Dreamers with
a brilliant clarity, [he] traces the way that changing meanings of
citizenship have been accompanied by paradoxical redefinitions of
what it is to be foreign. As we struggle in our own political
moment to reform immigration law, Making Foreigners offers
indispensable perspective.' Linda K. Kerber, University of Iowa
'In Making Foreigners, Kunal Parker shows how American law defined
alienage and citizenship in ways that have confounded simple
oppositions of insider and outsider. [He] provides a powerful
analysis of how various groups 'native' to American territory have
been constructed as 'foreigners' in both law and society. Making
Foreigners is a tour de force that makes us rethink how the very
notion of being 'foreign' has little to do with where one might
stand in relation to territorial boundaries.' Mae Ngai, Columbia
University, New York
'In this breathtakingly sweeping, yet concise, 400-year history,
Kunal Parker highlights how through much of American history both
immigration and citizenship law rendered individuals and entire
groups, from both inside and outside the territorial borders of the
United States, 'foreign'. In doing so, he challenges the dichotomy
between insiders and foreigners and opens to question the current
immigration and deportation regime.' Barbara Welke, University of
Minnesota
'Making Foreigners offers important insights about the relationship
between the nation's treatment of domestic minorities and
foreigners.' Kevin Johnson, The Journal of American History
'Making Foreigners manages to contribute to the scholarship in the
areas of: U.S. immigration law and policy, Latino Studies, Native
American Studies, African American studies, women's studies, Asian
Americans, and studies of the poor … the book lays out a
provocative new thesis that deserves serious discussion and
engagement.' Anna O. Law, Law and Politics Book Review
'Provides a sweeping and bold reconceptualization of the history of
American immigration and citizenship law. … The history of
restrictive immigration law and the legal disabilities of the
foreign-born in the United States, Parker argues, must be examined
in tandem with multi-layered political and legal structures
reducing various groups of native-born insiders, such as women,
African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, American
Indians, and the poor, into second-class citizens or virtual
foreigners in their status and rights. … Parker's broad
conceptualization of immigration and citizenship law has enormous
value for historians of American immigration and ethnicity. … truly
a laudable addition to American historical and legal scholarship.'
Hidetaka Hirota, Journal of American Ethnic History
'Presents a long-term view of America's struggle over defining
cultural and legal others, from those coming from outside the
borders to those born within them. … Parker shows throughout how
native-born citizens, in effect 'native-born foreigners', continued
to share legal disabilities with aliens not just through cultural
discrimination but also through the law itself. … Parker's book is
a very welcome synthesis of a long (and ongoing) story.' Nancy L.
Green, The American Historical Review
'Parker's work sheds light on the ways political and legal shifts
have allowed the American state to incorporate outsiders, while
also rendering insiders foreign … The expansive timeline and
ambitious scope of Parker's argument provides a fresh and
exhaustive overview of immigration and citizenship history. Highly
Recommended.' Ashley Johnson Bavery, Reviews in American History
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