Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
For over a hundred years, the story of assimilation has animated the nation-building project of the United States. Still today, the dream of a cultural 'melting pot' circulates through academia, policy institutions, and mainstream media outlets. Noting its many exclusions and erasures, scholars in the second half of the twentieth century persuasively argued that only some social groups are granted access to assimilation--others, they pointed out, are subject to racialization.
In this bold, discipline-traversing cultural history, Catherine Ram rez develops an entirely different account of assimilation. Weaving together the legacies of U.S. settler colonialism, slavery, and border control, Ram rez challenges the assumption that racialization and assimilation are separate and incompatible processes. In fascinating chapters that range from nineteenth century boarding schools to the contemporary artwork of undocumented immigrants, this book decouples immigration and assimilation and probes the gap between assimilation and citizenship. It shows that assimilation is not just a process of absorption and becoming more alike, but of racialization and subordination.