Available:*
Library | Material Type | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Sugar Grove - Todd Library | Book | JV6475 .N66 2017 | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
This compelling approach to the immigration debate takes the reader behind the blaring headlines and into communities grappling with the reality of new immigrants and the changing nature of American identity. Ali Noorani, the Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, interviews nearly fifty local and national leaders from law enforcement, business, immigrant, and faith communities to illustrate the challenges and opportunities they face. From high school principals to church pastors to sheriffs, the author reveals that most people are working to advance society's interests, not exploiting a crisis at the expense of one community. As he shows, some cities and regions have reached a happy conclusion, while others struggle to find balance. Whether describing a pastor preaching to the need to welcome the stranger, a sheriff engaging the Muslim community, or a farmer's wind-whipped face moistened by tears as he tells the story of his farmworkers being deported, the author helps readers to realize that America's immigration debate isn't about policy; it is about the culture and values that make America what it is. The people on the front lines of America's cultural and demographic debate are Southern Baptist pastors in South Carolina, attorneys general in Utah or Indiana, Texas businessmen, and many more. Their combined voices make clear that all of them are working to make America a welcome place for everyone, long-established citizens and new arrivals alike.Especially now, when we feel our identity, culture, and values changing shape, the collective message from all the diverse voices in this inspiring book is one of hope for the future.
Reviews (3)
Kirkus Review
An immigration activist confronts the nativist opposition to the nation's changing demography and suggests another way to bridge the yawning cultural divide.Noorani, executive director of the advocacy organization National Immigration Forum, explored America's heartland to find folks sufficiently open-minded to willingly and honestly take part in today's acrimonious political discussions. The author has learned that speaking with both sides, liberals and conservatives, about the immigration debate could yield real results, perhaps even comity. Throughout his journey, Noorani found articulate ideologues, from a small-town sheriff to a political talking head to an archbishop. He explored America's public policy concerning immigrants, refugees, and undocumented residents with entrepreneurs, farmers and tech engineers, politicians, pastors, and police chiefs. In a section regarding "Bibles, Badges and Business," the author discusses thoughtful evangelicals, law enforcement officers, and captains of commerce. He chronicles his interviews with numerous people who have confronted the cultural challenges in different ways, from Arizona's "show me your papers" law to its rejection in Utah, from the apple farmer providing homes for his workers while the local government withdraws support to the immigrants who decline to register to vote when they see traffic police in the neighborhood. Xenophobes and populists, the author discovered, imagine the economy to be a zero-sum game; their world is changing, and they are afraid. Yet, even if not one more newcomer crosses our border, birth rates will assuredly increase the numbers that will exacerbate a continuing problem for a free and caring nation. Throughout the book, Noorani reminds us allvegetable farmers to tech engineers, culturally isolated coastal liberals and middle American conservatives, residents of big cities and small townsthat diversity is both difficult and important. Solid advice for an anxious and angry polity on how to talk about a growing cultural challenge. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Immigration advocate Noorani tells the story of his conversion from a policy-driven approach aimed at resolving nationwide immigration problems to a retail-style politics focused on smaller targets, such as the Arizona law S.B. 1070. This is a timely memoir of unexpected allies, from the Mormon Church and Southern Baptist leaders to a rural sheriff and red-state attorney general. More than just presenting a theory that cultural engagement is essential for political engagement, the author describes how he put that theory into practice to bring these stakeholders together over an issue that is key to American identity. In this, Noorani has assembled a compelling critique of what he calls the wait-them-out strategy, which acknowledges that shifting demographics and the browning of America may force legislative compromise that is more inclusive toward immigrants though the author believes it is a disservice to all Americans to let decades pass by while waiting for census numbers to shift. For readers interested in American politics and public policy, now, more than ever.--Smith, Paul Copyright 2017 Booklist
Choice Review
National Immigration Forum director Ali Noorani provides optimistic prescriptions for immigration politics in this engaging book. Although aimed at a mass audience, the work could be an inexpensive supplemental text that students will find very accessible, although not scholarly. Using stories of coalition-building with conservatives and of politically engaged immigrants, the book offers lessons well known to experienced political observers but perhaps initially unknown to Noorani--e.g., successful political efforts require bridging ideological differences, self-interest can be overcome by racial concerns, liberals need conservative support to pass substantial immigration reform. Noorani argues that "culture," not economics, is key to winning the immigration debate, but what he often cites are not cultural arguments but personal narratives, offering more support for the power of individual stories to sway opinion. Noorani agrees that demographics are on his side, but he contends that they will take a long time to transform national politics. He finds that fellow left-leaning activists resist coalition-building with conservatives, but argues that outcomes such as the 2010 failure to pass the DREAM Act have shown that immigration reform will require such alliances, and that sufficient common ground exists to construct them. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers. --Andrew L. Aoki, Augsburg College
Excerpts
Excerpts
CHAPTER ONE ELECTIONS MATTER ... CULTURE MATTERS MORE It all began with a Jew, walking to work in the snow on a Saturday. The US Capitol is a surprisingly long, ornate building littered with lost tourists, scurrying staffers, and entourage-trailing members of Congress. Tourists, representing every walk of life from every corner of the country, lose themselves (and their guides) in the overwhelming mix of past and present. Look closely at the paintings, the statues, and the history, and you will see that the Capitol is more than a landmark. A building built by slaves and decorated with paintings by naturalized US citizens, it is a living, breathing testament to America's identity crisis.1 For a few hours on Saturday, December 18, 2010, that identity crisis was defined by immigrants and immigration. It was a cold morning, with a dusting of snow on the ground, and Congress was buzzing on a rare Saturday lame-duck session. The Senate was due to take up two high-profile pieces of legislation. One, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, granting legal status to undocumented youth. The other, the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT), a law barring gay and lesbian members of the armed services from expressing their sexual orientation. At around 8:00 a.m., a door to a member's entrance opened, and a blast of cold air hit our small delegation of advocates waiting for the elevator. In walked Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), shaking the cold off his coat. On any other day, this would not be a big deal. On a Saturday, though, it was a big deal for Lieberman, an observant Jew, to be at the Capitol. Lieberman straightened up in the warm air and looked at us with a "no need to lobby me, I'm with you" smile we immigration-advocate types rarely receive. Over the course of his long political career, this was by no means the first time Senator Lieberman had worked on the Sabbath, so I don't want to overstate his decision. But when he walked through the door that morning, the faith he wore on his sleeve--and what it meant to him--stuck with me. In that moment, I realized how an individual's culture could bring him to an unlikely place at an unlikely time. Little did I know that it was going to be that feeling, and everything that created that moment, that would mark a new path for my work. Looking back, I realize Lieberman's identity as an observant Jew was central to his values. While I have no reason to believe Lieberman crossed the line separating church and state, his culture and values clearly guided his decision making--a specific cultural perspective that would not have been welcome in the US Capitol not so long ago. Looking forward, I know that immigration will contribute to an America that continues to change--racially, ethnically, and religiously. Along the way, Americans will continue to change, prompting an important question: As a nation, do we have a common identity or set of values? Answering this question is a struggle at the national level as much as it is at the neighborhood level. Whatever our perspective may be, our culture, our families, and our work serve as a lens for our experiences, informing our answer to this question. Some of us become more exclusive, seeking barriers to cultural change and yearning for calmer days. Others become more inclusive, shaping relationships and institutions to welcome new cultures. Some of us toggle between the two. In my thirteen years as an immigration advocate, grappling with this question through a job that has opened up a new world of relationships, I have found that my identity shapes my work, and my work shapes my identity. I too have gone back and forth. Personally, I would much rather cajole others into telling me their stories than tell my own. In fact, I'd rather do just about anything other than tell my own story. But it turns out that writing a book about our national identity means telling my own story as well. My parents left Pakistan in 1971 to come to the United States. After I was born in 1973 in Santa Cruz, California, they moved forty miles to the south to Salinas, an agricultural town that was primarily white or Latino. As a child of immigrants growing up in a community with very few South Asian families, I learned the importance of cultural crossover early in life. As I befriended children of farmworkers and children of farm owners, I realized that people of all walks were more similar than they seemed. These formative years taught me to be observant, keep my mouth shut, and always look for common ground. By no means was I perfect in this endeavor. I left Salinas in 1992 to study economics and social welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. After a year of work and travel, I headed east in 1998 to earn a master of public health degree from Boston University. Public health, specifically epidemiology and environmental health, led me to become active in Boston-area community organizations, and eventually I ran public-health programs for two large community health centers in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. Working with communities and colleagues from countries as far flung as Kenya, Vietnam, Haiti, El Salvador, and Ireland, among others, brought to light the struggle and tension between native-born and immigrant communities--foreshadowing what lay ahead. From there, I cut my immigration teeth as executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. Two experiences from these early years of my professional life left deep impressions. The first was while I was in Dorchester. In the 1970s, the exodus of families from Vietnam led to a large community of refugees in the Fields Corner neighborhood of Dorchester. I remember vividly an event we organized at the Dorchester House at which Sarah Ignatius, the executive director of the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation Project, met with Vietnamese youth in the neighborhood. These were good kids. But a few of them had done kid things that had gotten them into trouble with the juvenile justice system. While being processed through that system, their public defenders had recommended they plead guilty and take probation or community service. In the conversation, I realized that these kids, who had been in America since they were babies, were much more American than Vietnamese. But even though they were in the States legally, their guilty plea was a deportable offense--something many of their defense attorneys did not even realize. For a reason I didn't fully understand, America was deporting kids who, for all intents and purposes, were American. The second experience took place in the basement of St. James Church, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 2007, after I had been at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition for a few years, there was a major immigration raid in New Bedford, about sixty miles south of Boston. Over three hundred men and women, sewing backpacks for the military, were put into deportation proceedings. Working with local partners, we established a relief center in the basement of the church. It was an awful scene that rattled my senses. As I wrote for the Boston Globe : How can we look into the eyes of a young mother who has fled the repressive government and economic perils of Guatemala to stitch safety vests for our troops, and tell her to leave? How can we look into the eyes of a young father of an eight-month-old baby [who is] dehydrated because his mother has been detained, and tell him he doesn't belong here? If we allow this to continue, we will turn our backs on liberty and the American dream. Irrational fears will only drive us to the wrong side of history. Let us live up to the dreams of every immigrant of every generation that had the courage to come to this country to make a better life for their families. In both of these situations, there was a struggle between old and new. In Dorchester, families who had been in Boston for generations chafed at the influx of immigrants and refugees. And during the New Bedford immigration raid, Greater Boston's talk-radio shows lit up with callers thrilled with the idea of hundreds of immigrants being deported. The lines of the debate simplified to left versus right, communities of color versus white residents. It was hard to see how a consensus could be forged that pulled the human story of immigration out of the raging political fire. These experiences, personal and professional, heightened how I felt on that snowy December 2010 morning. I was deeply struck by the poignancy of a Jewish senator walking to work on the Sabbath. Maybe it was the DREAM Act that drew Lieberman to the Senate on that Saturday, maybe it was the repeal of DADT. It was probably both. Either way, the issues at hand were important enough to him, and what he believed, that he was willing to cast his vote on the Sabbath. Remember, Lieberman was retiring from the Senate at the end of the year. With no reelection to consider, he was truly voting his conscience. The challenge we faced that day was whether or not we had changed enough hearts and minds so a majority would vote their conscience and support the DREAM Act. Let's fast-forward a few hours. No. Wait. First, let's go back a couple years. A lot happened in that time that set a new political and cultural stage. Excerpted from There Goes the Neighborhood: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration by Ali Noorani All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.Table of Contents
Foreword | p. 9 |
Chapter 1 Elections Matter ... Culture Matters More | p. 17 |
Chapter 2 Utah's Hit List | p. 39 |
Chapter 3 Soul Freedom | p. 65 |
Chapter 4 As South Carolina Goes, So Goes America | p. 97 |
Chapter 5 We Are All Afraid | p. 123 |
Chapter 6 Identity, Integration, Influence | p. 153 |
Chapter 7 The New Texas | p. 179 |
Chapter 8 My Workforce Is My Family | p. 207 |
Chapter 9 Making the Future | p. 233 |
Acknowledgments | p. 251 |
Notes | p. 257 |
About the Author | p. 301 |
Index | p. 303 |