This book explores two critical strands in American Studies: policy conversations on legal and illegal immigration and social and educational conversations on diversity and multiculturalism. As author Benjamin Railton shows, a fresh look at the Chinese Exclusion Act overturns much of the received wisdom on immigration and American identity.

Ben Railton is Associate Professor of English Studies and American Studies at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts, USA. He is the author of Redefining American Identity: From Cabeza de Vaca to Barack Obama (2011); Contesting the Past, Reconstructing the Nation: American Literature and Culture in the Gilded Age, 1876-1893 (2007); and numerous articles on American literature and culture.