Immigration and Citizenship: The American Experience.

Catalog description

Who should reside within the United States? How should new arrivals be incorporated into American society and the body politic? Who should be excluded and why? These questions have been debated by American politicians and the public since the nation's founding. This course examines how Americans thought and fought about selecting which immigrants should join the nation and how United States immigration and citizenship policy developed from the colonial period through the present. We will consider how migration patterns, immigrant incorporation, and state and federal regulations were shaped as the United States' relationship with the broader world shifted, social norms changed, industrial capitalism developed, and government power expanded.