

One Mighty and Irresistible Tide
The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965
Author: Jia Lynn Yang
Narrator: Laural Merlington
Unabridged: 11 hr 56 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Published: 05/19/2020
Categories: Nonfiction, History, Law, Emigration & Immigration
Synopsis
In a riveting narrative filled with a fascinating cast of characters, from the indefatigable congressman Emanuel Celler and senator Herbert Lehman to the bull-headed Nevada senator Pat McCarran, Jia Lynn Yang recounts how lawmakers, activists, and presidents from Truman through LBJ worked relentlessly to abolish the 1924 law. Through a world war, a refugee crisis after the Holocaust, and a McCarthyist fever, a coalition of lawmakers and activists descended from Jewish, Irish, and Japanese immigrants fought to establish a new principle of equality in the American immigration system. Their crowning achievement, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, proved to be one of the most transformative laws in the country's history, opening the door to nonwhite migration at levels never seen before—and changing America in ways that those who debated it could hardly have imagined.