What S New about the New Immigration?

Historians commonly point to the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act as the inception of a new chapter in the story of American immigration. Whereas the previous system (itself based on the Immigration Act of 1924) limited newcomers and gave priority to applicants from northwestern Europe, the 1965 measure eliminated discriminatory national quotas and took into account family reunification, education, jobs, and professional training. As a result, the national and ethnic profile of...
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Historians commonly point to the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act as the inception of a new chapter in the story of American immigration. Whereas the previous system (itself based on the Immigration Act of 1924) limited newcomers and gave priority to applicants from northwestern Europe, the 1965 measure eliminated discriminatory national quotas and took into account family reunification, education, jobs, and professional training. As a result, the national and ethnic profile of immigrants to the U.S. changed dramatically, including large numbers of arrivals from the Caribbean, Central America, South America, South Asia, East Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union. This wide-ranging volume brings together scholars from various disciplines to probe this subject, considering what is genuinely new about post-1965 immigration (both documented and undocumented) and what continuities have persisted. The result is a rich and nuanced portrait of American society in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, one that has been defined not simply by the fortunes of postwar liberalism, but also by the fall of the Soviet Union and the War on Terrorism.