Impossible Subjects, Mae M. Ngai
Impossible Subjects, Mae M. Ngai
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Impossible Subjects
Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America

Author: Mae M. Ngai

Narrator: Emily Woo Zeller

Unabridged: 14 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/26/2019


Synopsis

This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy—a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century.

Mae Ngai offers a close reading of the legal regime of restriction that commenced in the 1920s—its statutory architecture, judicial genealogies, administrative enforcement, differential treatment of European and non-European migrants, and long-term effects. In well-drawn historical portraits, Ngai peoples her study with the Filipinos, Mexicans, Japanese, and Chinese who comprised, variously, illegal aliens, alien citizens, colonial subjects, and imported contract workers. She shows that immigration restriction, particularly national-origin and numerical quotas, re-mapped the nation both by creating new categories of racial difference and by emphasizing as never before the nation's contiguous land borders and their patrol. This yielded the "illegal alien," a new legal and political subject whose inclusion in the nation was a social reality but a legal impossibility—a subject without rights and excluded from citizenship. Questions of fundamental legal status created new challenges for liberal democratic society and have directly informed the politics of multiculturalism and national belonging in our time.

Ngai's analysis is based on extensive archival research, including previously unstudied records of the U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Naturalization Service. Contributing to American history, legal history, and ethnic studies, Impossible Subjects is a major reconsideration of U.S. immigration in the twentieth century.

About Mae M. Ngai

Mae Ngai is Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and a professor of history at Columbia University. She is the author of the award-winning book Impossible Subjects and The Lucky Ones, and lives in New York City and Accokeek, Maryland.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Hannah on February 05, 2007

A very slow read but definitely worth it. Anyone who thinks illegal immigrants are taking over the country needs to pull his head out of his ass and read this.......more

Goodreads review by David on June 21, 2017

Before you begin this, understand it's origin as a Doctoral dissertation. It is an academic work and I read it as part of an upper-level undergraduate history course. Because of its original intent this book is thorough in both documentation and analysis by Dr. Mae Ngai. In other words, read this wi......more

Goodreads review by Sandy on May 22, 2024

It took me a while to finish reading this but now that I finally have, I feel incredibly rewarded by this book. I currently work for a nonprofit that helps refugees and immigrants who immigrate in the United States, and I wanted to do more personal research on immigration laws and how they’ve change......more

Goodreads review by William on April 18, 2023

Impossible Subjects is a very comprehensive look at the history of illegal immigration in the United States. It mostly focuses on the government's response to immigration. It shows how the government's policies towards immigrants has changed during the course of the 1900's. If you are looking for cu......more

Goodreads review by Maya on August 10, 2023

The book was pretty insightful but Mae ngai was lowkey contradicting herself😭......more