Description: With the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Chinese laborers became the first group in American history to be excluded from the United States on the basis of their race and class. This landmark law changed the course of U.S. immigration history, but we know little about its consequences for the Chinese in America or for the United States as a nation of immigrants. At America's Gates is the first book devoted entirely to both Chinese immigrants and the American immigration officials who sought to keep them out. Erika Lee explores how Chinese exclusion laws not only transformed Chinese American lives, immigration patterns, identities, and families but also recast the United States into a gatekeeping nation. Immigrant identification, border enforcement, surveillance, and deportation policies were extended far beyond any controls that had existed in the United States before. Drawing on a rich trove of historical sources--including recently released immigration records, oral histories, interviews, and letters--Lee brings alive the forgotten journeys, secrets, hardships, and triumphs of Chinese immigrants. Her timely book exposes the legacy of Chinese exclusion in current American immigration control and race relations.
Brief description: Erika Lee is the award-winning author of several works, including At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943, co-authored Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America, and numerous journal articles. She is the granddaughter of Chinese immigrants who entered the United States through both Angel Island and Ellis Island. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. Passionate about preserving the histories of America's diverse immigrants, she gives presentations around the country and has written several articles and two award-winning books. She is the recipient of the Theodore Saloutos Prize in Immigration Studies, the History book award from the Association of Asian American Studies, the Non-Fiction Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and the Western History Association Caughey Prize. Erika teaches immigration history at the University of Minnesota, where she is also the Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair in Immigration History and Director of the Immigration History Research Center.