Every summer I put together a list of new books about immigration that were published in the last year. This list has always been assembled partly through my own reading and partly through crowdsourcing on social media, and I have published these online in the past.
But this year I’m doing something a little different.
I’m inviting YOU to contribute recommendations for great books about immigration.
Interpret this call for recommendations broadly with an emphasis on diverse genres, formats, geographies, and time periods. This can include graphic novels, fiction and poetry, academic manuscripts, and pop non-fiction. You are also invited to interpret “immigration” broadly. This is a great way for all of us to expand our awareness of the amazing literature that’s out there.
I will gather the recommendations here and create a resource with a full list of books that will be available to the public, and I will give a shout-out to all contributors to the project so you get credit. I’ll let the discussion run for a week, then post the detailed reading list.
Will you help out?
To contribute, post a comment below with your recommendation. A simple author and title will do, although a link to the book online would also be helpful. The best posts will also share a sentence or two about why you love the book(s) you are recommending. If someone else posts a book you like, leave a like (❤️) or comment so I know other people like it, too.
As I mentioned on Twitter, my book, "Love Across Borders: Passports, Papers and Romance in a Divided World" is a unique look into borders and immigration controls around the world, through the eyes of couples whose love stories have been in some way shaped by the system. I also dug into the histories of many of the borders that came up through the stories--including, but not limited to, the US/Mexico border, the Nakba in Palestine, and the roots of colonialism in Fortress Europe today. Most of it was fueled by my own rage-filled vendetta that my own love story has been shaped by this, and a journalistic desire to get to the bottom of it. I'm pleased to say that a lot of people who wouldn't have otherwise picked up a book on immigration have enjoyed it, largely for the love stories which I see as a way to "trick people into eating their spinach" and learn something they might not have known. Here's a bit from the description on Amazon:
I also thoroughly endorse Mattieu Aikens's "The Naked Do Not Fear The Water" and Sally Hayden's "My Fourth Time We Drowned," as well as Karla Cornejo Villavicencio's "The Undocumented Americans" and Qian Julie Wang's "Beautiful Country."
Todd Miller's Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security. The author describes how defense departments in environmentally comfortable countries are working to stave off waves of environmentally induced migration militarily. http://www.toddmillerwriter.com/storming-the-wall/
Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil's Highway: A True Story, creative non-fiction that tells the story of a group of migrants attempting to cross the most dangerous part of the Arizona desert led by an inexperienced "coyote". http://luisurrea.com/books/the-devils-highway/
The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You illuminates how even well-meaning individuals in the US can be harmful and hurtful to newcomers. It's an eye-opening (and sometimes uncomfortable) read that I recommend for anyone working in this space, especially those working directly with immigrants.
Not immigration per se, but Lindsey Stonebridge's "Placeless People" puts statelessness and writing about the location of human rights in a larger context. She draws most heavily on Arendt's work on the mid-century refugee crisis, her contemporaries and antecessors, and those whose work builds on those traditions. Today, when recognition or denial of rights is increasingly concentrated in nation states and their seemingly unaccountably Kafkaesque processes, this book asks the moral questions too often missed in process analysis.
Creating Humane Borders: a migration ethic. Rev. Robin Hoover Ph.D., founder and president emeritus of Humane Borders, is an ordained minister, political scientist, activist, lecturer who has worked with migrants, authorities, and media for 37 years.
A very easy to read story about both immigrants and the agents who patrol the U.S./Canadian border. I live close to this border and represent many clients who have crossed it illegally, and appreciated the insight this story provided to complement my clients' stories.
Here are some of my favorite books about US immigration history, broadly conceived, published in 2022 and 2023, including (full disclosure) one of my own:
Mike Amezcua, Making Mexican Chicago: From Postwar Settlement to the Age of Gentrification (University of Chicago Press, 2022)
A deeply researched social, economic, and political history of Mexican Americans in Chicago, with important insights into the history of US immigration, race, and ethnicity history more generally.
María Cristina García, State of Disaster: The Failure of U.S. Migration Policy in an Age of Climate Change (University of North Carolina Press, 2022)
Focusing on migration induced by natural disasters in the Caribbean and Central America, this book starkly exposes the limitations of current refugee policies and issues a powerful call for new kinds of protection and relief in an age of environmental crisis.
Moon-Ho Jung, Menace to Empire: Anticolonial Solidarities and the Transpacific Origins of the US Security State (University of California Press, 2022)
A sweeping transnational history of anti-imperial, anarchist, communist, and labor resistance movements among Asian transpacific communities, told in conjunction with US policing, intelligence gathering, military occupation, and immigration control, this book offers an original reinterpretation of US immigration law, national security, and foreign policy.
Kevin Kenny, The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic: Policing Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2023)
Offering an new interpretation that ranges across a century of national history, this book demonstrates how the existence, abolition, and legacies of slavery shaped American immigration policy as it moved from the local to the national level in the context of westward imperial expansion.
Christen Sasaki, Pacific Confluence: Fighting Over the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Hawai'i (University of California Press, 2022)
Focusing on Hawai‘i at the turn of the twentieth century, and blending local and global history, this book illuminates the workings of empire, race, and sovereignty, revealing powerful alternatives to settler colonialism, capitalist exploitation of land, and the political logic of the modern nation state.
Kristina Shull, Detention Empire: Reagan’s War on Immigrants and the Seeds of Resistance (University of North Carolina Press, 2022)
Offering compelling history of migrant detention, mass incarceration, and US imperialism, with a focus on imperial and state violence, counter-insurgency, and bottom-up resistance, this book traces the origins of contemporary migrant incarceration to the Reagan administration’s treatment of Cuban, Haitian, and Central American asylum seekers.
"Dreamland" by Carly Goodman (UNC Press)
and a shameless self plug: "Detention Empire: Reagan's War on Immigrants and the Seeds of Resistance" by yours truly (UNC Press) :)
As I mentioned on Twitter, my book, "Love Across Borders: Passports, Papers and Romance in a Divided World" is a unique look into borders and immigration controls around the world, through the eyes of couples whose love stories have been in some way shaped by the system. I also dug into the histories of many of the borders that came up through the stories--including, but not limited to, the US/Mexico border, the Nakba in Palestine, and the roots of colonialism in Fortress Europe today. Most of it was fueled by my own rage-filled vendetta that my own love story has been shaped by this, and a journalistic desire to get to the bottom of it. I'm pleased to say that a lot of people who wouldn't have otherwise picked up a book on immigration have enjoyed it, largely for the love stories which I see as a way to "trick people into eating their spinach" and learn something they might not have known. Here's a bit from the description on Amazon:
"With deep empathy, rigorous reporting, and the irresistible perspective of a true romantic, journalist Anna Lekas Miller tells the stories of couples around the world who must confront Kafkaesque immigration systems to be together—as she did to be with her partner." https://www.amazon.com/Love-Across-Borders-Passports-Romance/dp/1643752332/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1666897823&sr=8-1
I also thoroughly endorse Mattieu Aikens's "The Naked Do Not Fear The Water" and Sally Hayden's "My Fourth Time We Drowned," as well as Karla Cornejo Villavicencio's "The Undocumented Americans" and Qian Julie Wang's "Beautiful Country."
The Naked Don't Fear the Water, by Matthieu Aikins
Todd Miller's Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security. The author describes how defense departments in environmentally comfortable countries are working to stave off waves of environmentally induced migration militarily. http://www.toddmillerwriter.com/storming-the-wall/
Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil's Highway: A True Story, creative non-fiction that tells the story of a group of migrants attempting to cross the most dangerous part of the Arizona desert led by an inexperienced "coyote". http://luisurrea.com/books/the-devils-highway/
The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You illuminates how even well-meaning individuals in the US can be harmful and hurtful to newcomers. It's an eye-opening (and sometimes uncomfortable) read that I recommend for anyone working in this space, especially those working directly with immigrants.
https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12698/unsettling
Coming up Cuban by Sonia Manzano was a great middle grade book about kids growing up when Fidel Castro came to power. I read it in a day.
"Caste", Isabel Wilkerson
"One Mighty and Irresistible Tide", Jia Lynn Yang
"Caste", Isabel Wilkerson
"One Mighty and Irresistible Tide" Jia Lynn Yang
Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions by Valeria Luiselli. Short but incredibly impactful book describing what unaccompanied minors face in the NYC immigration courts. The author worked as an interpreter and describes the experience through the lens of the 40 questions asked of the children during the process. https://www.npr.org/2017/04/06/521791352/tell-me-how-it-ends-offers-a-moving-humane-portrait-of-child-migrants
The Asylumist by Jason Dzubow https://www.asylumist.com/book/
In the Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero http://inthecountrywelove.com/
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (fiction; magical realism) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/549017/exit-west-by-mohsin-hamid/
Refugee Roulette and/or The End of Asylum by Andrew Schoenholtz, Philip Schrag, and Jaya Ramji-Nogales https://nyupress.org/9780814741061/refugee-roulette/
https://www.harvard.com/book/the_end_of_asylum/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/154169984X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1688564541&sr=8-9
Not immigration per se, but Lindsey Stonebridge's "Placeless People" puts statelessness and writing about the location of human rights in a larger context. She draws most heavily on Arendt's work on the mid-century refugee crisis, her contemporaries and antecessors, and those whose work builds on those traditions. Today, when recognition or denial of rights is increasingly concentrated in nation states and their seemingly unaccountably Kafkaesque processes, this book asks the moral questions too often missed in process analysis.
Ayelet Shachar's The Shifting Border; Rob Smith's Mexican New York; De León's Land of Open Graves.
All three are wonderful books: deep, engaging, well-written, and with sophisticated theory and concepts.
Creating Humane Borders: a migration ethic. Rev. Robin Hoover Ph.D., founder and president emeritus of Humane Borders, is an ordained minister, political scientist, activist, lecturer who has worked with migrants, authorities, and media for 37 years.
Border Songs, by Jim Lynch (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/6098855)
A very easy to read story about both immigrants and the agents who patrol the U.S./Canadian border. I live close to this border and represent many clients who have crossed it illegally, and appreciated the insight this story provided to complement my clients' stories.
Just so you can see I'm for real about this, check out some of my past posts showcasing immigration literature:
https://austinkocher.substack.com/p/7-books-that-will-help-you-understand
https://austinkocher.substack.com/p/5-books-about-immigration-and-labor
https://austinkocher.substack.com/p/margaret-kwokas-new-book-saving-foia
https://austinkocher.substack.com/p/book-launch-event-for-nobody-is-protected
Here are some of my favorite books about US immigration history, broadly conceived, published in 2022 and 2023, including (full disclosure) one of my own:
Mike Amezcua, Making Mexican Chicago: From Postwar Settlement to the Age of Gentrification (University of Chicago Press, 2022)
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo125518904.html
A deeply researched social, economic, and political history of Mexican Americans in Chicago, with important insights into the history of US immigration, race, and ethnicity history more generally.
María Cristina García, State of Disaster: The Failure of U.S. Migration Policy in an Age of Climate Change (University of North Carolina Press, 2022)
https://uncpress.org/book/9781469669960/state-of-disaster/
Focusing on migration induced by natural disasters in the Caribbean and Central America, this book starkly exposes the limitations of current refugee policies and issues a powerful call for new kinds of protection and relief in an age of environmental crisis.
Moon-Ho Jung, Menace to Empire: Anticolonial Solidarities and the Transpacific Origins of the US Security State (University of California Press, 2022)
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520397873/menace-to-empire
A sweeping transnational history of anti-imperial, anarchist, communist, and labor resistance movements among Asian transpacific communities, told in conjunction with US policing, intelligence gathering, military occupation, and immigration control, this book offers an original reinterpretation of US immigration law, national security, and foreign policy.
Kevin Kenny, The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic: Policing Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2023)
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-problem-of-immigration-in-a-slaveholding-republic-9780197580080?prevNumResPerPage=20&prevSortField=1&sortField=8&resultsPerPage=20&start=0&lang=en&cc=us#
Offering an new interpretation that ranges across a century of national history, this book demonstrates how the existence, abolition, and legacies of slavery shaped American immigration policy as it moved from the local to the national level in the context of westward imperial expansion.
Christen Sasaki, Pacific Confluence: Fighting Over the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Hawai'i (University of California Press, 2022)
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520382763/pacific-confluence
Focusing on Hawai‘i at the turn of the twentieth century, and blending local and global history, this book illuminates the workings of empire, race, and sovereignty, revealing powerful alternatives to settler colonialism, capitalist exploitation of land, and the political logic of the modern nation state.
Kristina Shull, Detention Empire: Reagan’s War on Immigrants and the Seeds of Resistance (University of North Carolina Press, 2022)
https://uncpress.org/book/9781469669861/detention-empire/
Offering compelling history of migrant detention, mass incarceration, and US imperialism, with a focus on imperial and state violence, counter-insurgency, and bottom-up resistance, this book traces the origins of contemporary migrant incarceration to the Reagan administration’s treatment of Cuban, Haitian, and Central American asylum seekers.