A Nation of Nations

September 1, 2015

Veteran NPR correspondent Gjelten (Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba) blends journalistic storytelling about diverse immigrant experiences with cogent analysis of the broader demographic and political issues surrounding the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Enacted at the height of the civil rights movement, this federal law removed longstanding immigration restrictions based on national origins, replacing discriminatory quotas with a preference system based on prospective immigrants' skills and family ties to the United States. As Gjelten argues, the law inadvertently opened the doors to massive non-European immigration, which is transforming America's cultural and political landscape. Using Fairfax County, in northern Virginia, as a microcosm of the policy's benefits as well as its unintended consequences, Gjelten tells the stories of Libyan, Korean, and Bolivian families among others working to "make it" in America. At times this mix of history and human interest struggles to find cohesion, but the author creates a compelling case for multiculturalism, coupled with assimilation to the U.S. political culture of democracy and individualism, as the new American exceptionalism. VERDICT A timely, measured, and sympathetic account of changing U.S. demographics within the past several decades.--Michael Rodriguez, Hodges Univ. Lib., Naples, FL

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