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.