An account of "twenty-six men who in May 2001 attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadly region known as the Devil's Highway ... Only twelve of the men made it out."--Page 4 of cover.

"A themed collection of stories of refugees from around the world who have converged on Minneapolis, collected and told by the award-winning author of The Latehomecomer and The Song Poet"--

Millions of immigrants risk deportation and imprisonment by living in the US without legal status. They are living underground, with little protection from exploitation at the hands of human smugglers, employers, or law enforcement. Underground America presents the remarkable oral histories of men and women living without legal status and struggling to carve lives for themselves in the U.S.

"An in-depth look at the many ways immigration has redefined modern America. The impact of immigrants over the past half century has become so much a part of everyday life in the United States that we sometimes fail to see it. This deeply researched book by one of America's leading immigration scholars tells the story of how immigrants are fundamentally changing this country.An astonishing number of immigrants and their children-nearly eighty-six...

"This book looks at the role illegality or undocumentedness plays in our society and economy. It shows how the status was created, and how and why people, especially Mexicans and Central Americans, have been assigned this status. The first three chapters look at the histories of social exclusion. One looks specifically at the Mexican and Guatemalan contexts to understand why such large numbers of people from these countries enter the United States...

"Gena Thomas tells the story of five-year-old Julia, whose harrowing journey with her mother from Honduras to the United States took her from cargo trailer to detention center to foster care. Weaving together the stories of birth mother and foster mother, this book shows the human face of the immigrant and refugee, the challenges of the immigration and foster care systems, and the tenacious power of motherly love"--

In 1907 the U.S. Congress created a joint commission to investigate what many Americans saw as a national crisis: an unprecedented number of immigrants flowing into the United States. Experts--women and men trained in the new field of social science--fanned out across the country to collect data on these fresh arrivals. The trove of information they amassed shaped how Americans thought about immigrants, themselves, and the nation's place in the world....

"Mexicans in the Making of America examines the impact of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants on U.S. culture, politics, and economy since the 1848 U.S.-Mexican War, when the United States seized the northern half of Mexico -- the present-day states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas (annexed in 1846), Nevada, Utah, and parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma. From the moment the United States signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo...

"A riveting blend of family history and original reportage by a conversation-starting writer for The New York Times Magazine that explores--and reimagines--Asian American identity in a Black and white world. In 1965, a new immigration law lifted a century of restrictions against Asian immigrants to the United States. Nobody, including the lawmakers who passed the bill, expected it to transform the country's demographics. But over the next four decades,...

Looks into the lives, challenges, and successes of Central American immigrants.