America for Americans
By
Erika Lee
Read by
Nicole Small
Release:
11/26/2019
Runtime:
13h 38m
Unabridged
Quantity:
This
sweeping account draws parallels between Benjamin Franklin's worry over 'swarthy' Germans 'herding together' in the eighteenth century and Donald
Trump's race-baiting today. Xenophobia, Lee argues, has been an indelible 'American tradition,' deployed to social and political ends since the country's
founding. A manifesto as much as a history, the book shows how every large
immigrant group since Franklin's time -- Irish, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Middle
Eastern -- was 'scripted' by populist demagogues as alien and threatening.
The New Yorker
This definitive history of American xenophobia is "essential reading for anyone who wants to build a more inclusive society" (Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist)
The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation of xenophobia. In America for Americans, Erika Lee shows that an irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward immigrants has been a defining feature of our nation from the colonial era to the Trump era. Benjamin Franklin ridiculed Germans for their "strange and foreign ways." Americans' anxiety over Irish Catholics turned xenophobia into a national political movement. Chinese immigrants were excluded, Japanese incarcerated, and Mexicans deported.
Today, Americans fear Muslims, Latinos, and the so-called browning of America. Forcing us to confront this history, Lee explains how xenophobia works, why it has endured, and how it threatens America. Now updated with an afterword reflecting on how the coronavirus pandemic turbocharged xenophobia, America for Americans is an urgent spur to action for any concerned citizen.
The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation of xenophobia. In America for Americans, Erika Lee shows that an irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward immigrants has been a defining feature of our nation from the colonial era to the Trump era. Benjamin Franklin ridiculed Germans for their "strange and foreign ways." Americans' anxiety over Irish Catholics turned xenophobia into a national political movement. Chinese immigrants were excluded, Japanese incarcerated, and Mexicans deported.
Today, Americans fear Muslims, Latinos, and the so-called browning of America. Forcing us to confront this history, Lee explains how xenophobia works, why it has endured, and how it threatens America. Now updated with an afterword reflecting on how the coronavirus pandemic turbocharged xenophobia, America for Americans is an urgent spur to action for any concerned citizen.
Release:
2019-11-26
Runtime:
13h 38m
Format:
audio
Weight:
0.0 lb
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781549152658
Publisher:
Hachette Book Group
Praise