In January of 2017, historians affiliated with the Immigration History Research Center and the Immigration and Ethnic History Society created a hashtagged #immigrationSyllabus, collecting textbooks and other readings to orient students on the past, present and future of immigration in the U.S. The textbooks listed below all feature in that syllabus, and offer an important starting point for those who care about the stories of immigrants in the U.S.
David Gerber, American Immigration: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011)
Gary Gerstle, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (2nd ed., Princeton University Press, 2017)
Daniels, Roger, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper Collins, 2002)
Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement In America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016)
Hasia R. Diner, Roads Taken: The Great Jewish Migrations to the New World and the Peddlers Who Forged the Way (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015)
Madeline Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882-1943 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000)
Tara Zahra, The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World (New York: W.W. Norton, 2016)
Hidetaka Hirota, Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth Century Origins of American Immigration Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)
Jennifer Guglielmo and Salvatore Salerno, Are Italians White?: How Race Is Made In America (New York: Routledge, 2003)
Kunal M. Parker, Making Foreigners: Immigration and Citizenship Law in America, 1600-2000 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America (New York: Penguin Books, 2011)
Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2007)
Leisy Abrego, Sacrificing Families: Navigating Laws, Labor, and Love Across Borders (Palo
Alto: Stanford University Press, 2014)
Gabriel J. Chin and Rose Cuison Villazor, eds. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965:
Legislating a New America (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2015)
Carl J. Bon Tempo, Americans At the Gate: The United States and Refugees During the Cold
War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008)
Rachel Buff, ed., Immigrant Rights in the Shadows of Citizenship (New York: New York
University Press, 2008)
Deborah Boehm, Returned: Going and Coming in an Age of Deportation (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2016)