Clandestine Crossings


Book Description

Clandestine Crossings delivers an in-depth description and analysis of the experiences of working-class Mexican migrants at the beginning of the twenty-first century as they enter the United States surreptitiously with the help of paid guides known as coyotes. Drawing on ethnographic observations of crossing conditions in the borderlands of South Texas, as well as interviews with migrants, coyotes, and border officials, Spener details how migrants and coyotes work together to evade apprehension by U.S. law enforcement authorities as they cross the border. In so doing, he seeks to dispel many of the myths that misinform public debate about undocumented immigration to the United States. The hiring of a coyote, Spener argues, is one of the principal strategies that Mexican migrants have developed in response to intensified U.S. border enforcement. Although this strategy is typically portrayed in the press as a sinister organized-crime phenomenon, Spener argues that it is better understood as the resistance of working-class Mexicans to an economic model and set of immigration policies in North America that increasingly resemble an apartheid system. In the absence of adequate employment opportunities in Mexico and legal mechanisms for them to work in the United States, migrants and coyotes draw on their social connections and cultural knowledge to stage successful border crossings in spite of the ever greater dangers placed in their path by government authorities.




The Emperor and the Peasant


Book Description

There was more to World War I than the Western Front. This history juxtaposes the experiences of a monarch and a peasant on the Eastern Front. Franz Josef I, emperor of Austria-Hungary, was the first European leader to declare war in 1914 and was the first to commence firing. Samuel Mozolak was a Slovak laborer who sailed to New York--and fathered twins, taken as babies (and U.S. citizens) to his home village--before being drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army and killed in combat. The author interprets the views of the war of Franz Josef and his contemporaries Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II. Mozolak's story depicts the life of a peasant in an army staffed by aristocrats, and also illustrates the pattern of East European immigration to America.




Getting It Right From the Start


Book Description

From understanding how the youngest children learn to working with ECE agencies, this practical guide presents the information principals need to create effective early childhood education programs.




Multicultural America [4 volumes]


Book Description

This encyclopedia contains 50 thorough profiles of the most numerically significant immigrant groups now making their homes in the United States, telling the story of our newest immigrants and introducing them to their fellow Americans. One of the main reasons the United States has evolved so quickly and radically in the last 100 years is the large number of ethnically diverse immigrants that have become part of its population. People from every area of the world have come to America in an effort to realize their dreams of more opportunity and better lives, either for themselves or for their children. This book provides a fascinating picture of the lives of immigrants from 50 countries who have contributed substantially to the diversity of the United States, exploring all aspects of the immigrants' lives in the old world as well as the new. Each essay explains why these people have come to the United States, how they have adjusted to and integrated into American society, and what portends for their future. Accounts of the experiences of the second generation and the effects of relations between the United States and the sending country round out these unusually rich and demographically detailed portraits.







Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses


Book Description

Improving public schools through performance-based funding Spurred by court rulings requiring states to increase public-school funding, the United States now spends more per student on K-12 education than almost any other country. Yet American students still achieve less than their foreign counterparts, their performance has been flat for decades, millions of them are failing, and poor and minority students remain far behind their more advantaged peers. In this book, Eric Hanushek and Alfred Lindseth trace the history of reform efforts and conclude that the principal focus of both courts and legislatures on ever-increasing funding has done little to improve student achievement. Instead, Hanushek and Lindseth propose a new approach: a performance-based system that directly links funding to success in raising student achievement. This system would empower and motivate educators to make better, more cost-effective decisions about how to run their schools, ultimately leading to improved student performance. Hanushek and Lindseth have been important participants in the school funding debate for three decades. Here, they draw on their experience, as well as the best available research and data, to show why improving schools will require overhauling the way financing, incentives, and accountability work in public education.




Diversity and Society


Book Description

Derived in part from Joseph F. Healey’s best-selling text Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class, this accessible 10-chapter text teaches concepts and theories through current, engaging topics, such as the Obama election and presidency and the economic recession. An analysis of minority-dominant relations is presented clearly, reinforced through case studies, and enhanced through gender and comparative perspectives. Particular emphasis is given to the history of race and ethnicity in the United States with more coverage than any other brief text.




Immigration and the Financial Crisis


Book Description

Structural needs for immigrant labour in health care, restaurant, tourism, agricultural and other economic sectors, together with harsher economic circumstances in most sending countries, almost certainly ensure the continuation of large-scale immigration to the US and Australia. But in harder times, especially in the US, sustaining this immigration while managing immigrants' economic and social integration are daunting tasks. This illuminating book analyses how well, and in what ways, the US and Australia will meet these challenges. This companion volume to Nations of Immigrants examines immigration to the US and Australia during the difficult economic times following the paralysis of financial firms and markets in New York and London during autumn 2008, quickly affecting Australia and most other OECD countries. The contributors prominent American and Australian immigration specialists discuss how the financial crisis has altered the nexus of domestic labour markets and immigration, how public fears spurred by harder times are affecting border protection and support for immigration, whether serious abrasions between foreign- and native-born populations are being kindled, and the extent to which the politics of immigration are being transformed. Immigration and the Financial Crisis will prove a thought provoking read for academics and students with an interest in immigration, and American and Australian policy arenas. The book will also prove an invaluable reference tool for public servants engaged in administering US and Australian immigration policies.