Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship : African Americans, Native Americans, and Immigrants /
Anna O. Law.
- x , 294 pages; 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Sifting Migrants -- Belonging -- Migration and Citizenship at the Founding -- Regulating International Borders -- Regulating Interstate Borders -- Formal Citizenship Defined -- Historical Antecedents and Legal Precedents -- Epilogue: Continuity, Change , and Constitutional Memory --
"Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship is about how constitutional arrangements of governmental power can become entrenched to determine who gets fundamental rights. Immigrants arrived in the US with few resources beyond a willingness to work hard. They started over to rebuild their lives in a new country and turned nothing into something. That is the American Dream. Americans hold as an article of faith that hardy risk takers were admitted into the country for long term, permanent residency could go and live where they wanted, until the federal government started enforcing borders in the late nineteenth century to mitigate the ills of the mass migration. Yet this was not the historical reality. Instead, colonies, states, and localities legally denied free mobility into and across the country to unwanted populations until the passage of the Reconstruction Amendments clarified US citizenship's coverage and contents"-- Provided by publisher.
9780197660096 9780197660089
2025051477
Citizenship--History--United States Emigration and immigration law--History--United States African Americans--Civil rights--History Indians of North America--Civil rights--History Border security--History--United States Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)