Author: Rev Emmanuel Oghene
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 154348574X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 687
Book Description
There is an inevitable running battle between natives and strangers that several cases in the Holy Scriptures lend credence to. The perennial politics and hiccups of managing migration by nations have spurred this discourse that all and sundry should be knowledgeable about. Herein is useful information for border agencies, migrants, their relatives, and even parents who are based back home. It would assist counselors to help potential migrants across the globe. The role of God in the unending conflict between nations migrant managers and migrants is highlighted here. Parents should read to help them guide their children about issues that are bound to arise as a result of living in a foreign land.
Surviving Among Strangers
Author: Rev Emmanuel Oghene
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 154348574X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 687
Book Description
There is an inevitable running battle between natives and strangers that several cases in the Holy Scriptures lend credence to. The perennial politics and hiccups of managing migration by nations have spurred this discourse that all and sundry should be knowledgeable about. Herein is useful information for border agencies, migrants, their relatives, and even parents who are based back home. It would assist counselors to help potential migrants across the globe. The role of God in the unending conflict between nations migrant managers and migrants is highlighted here. Parents should read to help them guide their children about issues that are bound to arise as a result of living in a foreign land.
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 154348574X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 687
Book Description
There is an inevitable running battle between natives and strangers that several cases in the Holy Scriptures lend credence to. The perennial politics and hiccups of managing migration by nations have spurred this discourse that all and sundry should be knowledgeable about. Herein is useful information for border agencies, migrants, their relatives, and even parents who are based back home. It would assist counselors to help potential migrants across the globe. The role of God in the unending conflict between nations migrant managers and migrants is highlighted here. Parents should read to help them guide their children about issues that are bound to arise as a result of living in a foreign land.
A Stranger Among Saints
Author: Jonathan Mack
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 9781641605984
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
In 1609, on a voyage to resupply England's troubled Jamestown colony, the Sea Venture was caught in a hurricane and shipwrecked off the coast of Bermuda. The tale of its marooned survivors eventually inspired William Shakespeare's The Tempest, but for one castaway it was only the beginning. A Stranger Among Saints traces the life of Stephen Hopkins, who spent ten months stranded with the Sea Venture crew, during which he was charged with attempted mutiny and condemned to die-only to have his sentence commuted just before it was carried out. Hopkins eventually made it to Jamestown, where he spent six years before returning to England and signing on to another colonial venture, this time with a group of religious radicals on the Mayflower. Hopkins was the only member of the party who had been across the Atlantic before-the only one who'd encountered America's native people and land. The Pilgrims, plagued by disease and contentious early encounters with indigenous Americans, turned to him for leadership. Hopkins played a vital role in bridging the divide of suspicion between the English immigrants and their native neighbours. Without him, these settlers would likely not have lasted through that brutal first year.
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 9781641605984
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
In 1609, on a voyage to resupply England's troubled Jamestown colony, the Sea Venture was caught in a hurricane and shipwrecked off the coast of Bermuda. The tale of its marooned survivors eventually inspired William Shakespeare's The Tempest, but for one castaway it was only the beginning. A Stranger Among Saints traces the life of Stephen Hopkins, who spent ten months stranded with the Sea Venture crew, during which he was charged with attempted mutiny and condemned to die-only to have his sentence commuted just before it was carried out. Hopkins eventually made it to Jamestown, where he spent six years before returning to England and signing on to another colonial venture, this time with a group of religious radicals on the Mayflower. Hopkins was the only member of the party who had been across the Atlantic before-the only one who'd encountered America's native people and land. The Pilgrims, plagued by disease and contentious early encounters with indigenous Americans, turned to him for leadership. Hopkins played a vital role in bridging the divide of suspicion between the English immigrants and their native neighbours. Without him, these settlers would likely not have lasted through that brutal first year.
Looking for Strangers
Author: Dori Katz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022606333X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181
Book Description
Dori Katz is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who thought that her lost memories of her childhood years in Belgium were irrecoverable. But after a chance viewing of a documentary about hidden children in German-occupied Belgium, she realized that she might, in fact, be able to unearth those years. Looking for Strangers is the deeply honest record of her attempt to do so, a detective story that unfolds through one of the most horrifying periods in history in an attempt to understand one’s place within it. In alternating chapters, Katz journeys into multiple pasts, setting details from her mother’s stories that have captivated her throughout her life alongside an account of her own return to Belgium forty years later—against her mother’s urgings—in search of greater clarity. She reconnects her sharp but fragmented memories: being sent by her mother in 1943, at the age of three, to live with a Catholic family under a Christian identity; then being given up, inexplicably, to an orphanage in the years immediately following the war. Only after that, amid postwar confusion, was she able to reconnect with her mother. Following this trail through Belgium to her past places of hiding, Katz eventually finds herself in San Francisco, speaking with a man who claimed to have known her father in Auschwitz—and thus known his end. Weighing many other stories from the people she meets along her way—all of whom seem to hold something back—she attempts to stitch thread after thread into a unified truth, to understand the countless motivations and circumstances that determined her remarkable life. A story at once about self-discovery, the transformation of memory, a fraught mother-daughter relationship, and the oppression of millions, Looking for Strangers is a book of both historical insight and imaginative grasp. It is a book in which the past, through its very mystery, becomes alive, immediate—of the most urgent importance.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022606333X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181
Book Description
Dori Katz is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who thought that her lost memories of her childhood years in Belgium were irrecoverable. But after a chance viewing of a documentary about hidden children in German-occupied Belgium, she realized that she might, in fact, be able to unearth those years. Looking for Strangers is the deeply honest record of her attempt to do so, a detective story that unfolds through one of the most horrifying periods in history in an attempt to understand one’s place within it. In alternating chapters, Katz journeys into multiple pasts, setting details from her mother’s stories that have captivated her throughout her life alongside an account of her own return to Belgium forty years later—against her mother’s urgings—in search of greater clarity. She reconnects her sharp but fragmented memories: being sent by her mother in 1943, at the age of three, to live with a Catholic family under a Christian identity; then being given up, inexplicably, to an orphanage in the years immediately following the war. Only after that, amid postwar confusion, was she able to reconnect with her mother. Following this trail through Belgium to her past places of hiding, Katz eventually finds herself in San Francisco, speaking with a man who claimed to have known her father in Auschwitz—and thus known his end. Weighing many other stories from the people she meets along her way—all of whom seem to hold something back—she attempts to stitch thread after thread into a unified truth, to understand the countless motivations and circumstances that determined her remarkable life. A story at once about self-discovery, the transformation of memory, a fraught mother-daughter relationship, and the oppression of millions, Looking for Strangers is a book of both historical insight and imaginative grasp. It is a book in which the past, through its very mystery, becomes alive, immediate—of the most urgent importance.
The Power of Strangers
Author: Joe Keohane
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1984855786
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
A “meticulously researched and buoyantly written” (Esquire) look at what happens when we talk to strangers, and why it affects everything from our own health and well-being to the rise and fall of nations in the tradition of Susan Cain’s Quiet and Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens “This lively, searching work makes the case that welcoming ‘others’ isn’t just the bedrock of civilization, it’s the surest path to the best of what life has to offer.”—Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Homeland Elegies In our cities, we stand in silence at the pharmacy and in check-out lines at the grocery store, distracted by our phones, barely acknowledging one another, even as rates of loneliness skyrocket. Online, we retreat into ideological silos reinforced by algorithms designed to serve us only familiar ideas and like-minded users. In our politics, we are increasingly consumed by a fear of people we’ve never met. But what if strangers—so often blamed for our most pressing political, social, and personal problems—are actually the solution? In The Power of Strangers, Joe Keohane sets out on a journey to discover what happens when we bridge the distance between us and people we don’t know. He learns that while we’re wired to sometimes fear, distrust, and even hate strangers, people and societies that have learned to connect with strangers benefit immensely. Digging into a growing body of cutting-edge research on the surprising social and psychological benefits that come from talking to strangers, Keohane finds that even passing interactions can enhance empathy, happiness, and cognitive development, ease loneliness and isolation, and root us in the world, deepening our sense of belonging. And all the while, Keohane gathers practical tips from experts on how to talk to strangers, and tries them out himself in the wild, to awkward, entertaining, and frequently poignant effect. Warm, witty, erudite, and profound, equal parts sweeping history and self-help journey, this deeply researched book will inspire readers to see everything—from major geopolitical shifts to trips to the corner store—in an entirely new light, showing them that talking to strangers isn’t just a way to live; it’s a way to survive.
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1984855786
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
A “meticulously researched and buoyantly written” (Esquire) look at what happens when we talk to strangers, and why it affects everything from our own health and well-being to the rise and fall of nations in the tradition of Susan Cain’s Quiet and Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens “This lively, searching work makes the case that welcoming ‘others’ isn’t just the bedrock of civilization, it’s the surest path to the best of what life has to offer.”—Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Homeland Elegies In our cities, we stand in silence at the pharmacy and in check-out lines at the grocery store, distracted by our phones, barely acknowledging one another, even as rates of loneliness skyrocket. Online, we retreat into ideological silos reinforced by algorithms designed to serve us only familiar ideas and like-minded users. In our politics, we are increasingly consumed by a fear of people we’ve never met. But what if strangers—so often blamed for our most pressing political, social, and personal problems—are actually the solution? In The Power of Strangers, Joe Keohane sets out on a journey to discover what happens when we bridge the distance between us and people we don’t know. He learns that while we’re wired to sometimes fear, distrust, and even hate strangers, people and societies that have learned to connect with strangers benefit immensely. Digging into a growing body of cutting-edge research on the surprising social and psychological benefits that come from talking to strangers, Keohane finds that even passing interactions can enhance empathy, happiness, and cognitive development, ease loneliness and isolation, and root us in the world, deepening our sense of belonging. And all the while, Keohane gathers practical tips from experts on how to talk to strangers, and tries them out himself in the wild, to awkward, entertaining, and frequently poignant effect. Warm, witty, erudite, and profound, equal parts sweeping history and self-help journey, this deeply researched book will inspire readers to see everything—from major geopolitical shifts to trips to the corner store—in an entirely new light, showing them that talking to strangers isn’t just a way to live; it’s a way to survive.
Before We Were Strangers
Author: Renée Carlino
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501105787
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
From the USA TODAY bestselling author of Sweet Thing and Nowhere But Here comes a love story about a Craigslist “missed connection” post that gives two people a second chance at love fifteen years after they were separated in New York City. To the Green-eyed Lovebird: We met fifteen years ago, almost to the day, when I moved my stuff into the NYU dorm room next to yours at Senior House. You called us fast friends. I like to think it was more. We lived on nothing but the excitement of finding ourselves through music (you were obsessed with Jeff Buckley), photography (I couldn’t stop taking pictures of you), hanging out in Washington Square Park, and all the weird things we did to make money. I learned more about myself that year than any other. Yet, somehow, it all fell apart. We lost touch the summer after graduation when I went to South America to work for National Geographic. When I came back, you were gone. A part of me still wonders if I pushed you too hard after the wedding… I didn’t see you again until a month ago. It was a Wednesday. You were rocking back on your heels, balancing on that thick yellow line that runs along the subway platform, waiting for the F train. I didn’t know it was you until it was too late, and then you were gone. Again. You said my name; I saw it on your lips. I tried to will the train to stop, just so I could say hello. After seeing you, all of the youthful feelings and memories came flooding back to me, and now I’ve spent the better part of a month wondering what your life is like. I might be totally out of my mind, but would you like to get a drink with me and catch up on the last decade and a half? M
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501105787
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
From the USA TODAY bestselling author of Sweet Thing and Nowhere But Here comes a love story about a Craigslist “missed connection” post that gives two people a second chance at love fifteen years after they were separated in New York City. To the Green-eyed Lovebird: We met fifteen years ago, almost to the day, when I moved my stuff into the NYU dorm room next to yours at Senior House. You called us fast friends. I like to think it was more. We lived on nothing but the excitement of finding ourselves through music (you were obsessed with Jeff Buckley), photography (I couldn’t stop taking pictures of you), hanging out in Washington Square Park, and all the weird things we did to make money. I learned more about myself that year than any other. Yet, somehow, it all fell apart. We lost touch the summer after graduation when I went to South America to work for National Geographic. When I came back, you were gone. A part of me still wonders if I pushed you too hard after the wedding… I didn’t see you again until a month ago. It was a Wednesday. You were rocking back on your heels, balancing on that thick yellow line that runs along the subway platform, waiting for the F train. I didn’t know it was you until it was too late, and then you were gone. Again. You said my name; I saw it on your lips. I tried to will the train to stop, just so I could say hello. After seeing you, all of the youthful feelings and memories came flooding back to me, and now I’ve spent the better part of a month wondering what your life is like. I might be totally out of my mind, but would you like to get a drink with me and catch up on the last decade and a half? M
We Were Strangers
Author: Magda Schloss Riederman
Publisher: bioGraph
ISBN: 9781951946005
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
We Were Strangers is the true story of Magda Preiss, a breathtaking masterpiece of Holocaust literature, composed in her own words upon arriving in America in the 1940s. Lived and told by a beautiful young bride with fearless defiance, Magda's harrowing experience reveals a character who is larger than life and death. Hers is a love story more complex than any happy-ever-after tale. It recounts the love of culture, beauty, and life itself that fueled Magda's will to survive; the love for her husband that made her stay to face Nazi horror instead of escaping with her parents and siblings; and her love for strangers, whose humanity amidst the most inhumane circumstances illuminates every page through Magda's heroic voice.From an idyllic childhood in Czechoslovakia through the hells of Auschwitz, Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbrück, and Beendorf, Magda shows what it means to be a stranger at home and in foreign lands, to be estranged from loved ones and even from oneself as the world goes insane. In devastating sentences as sharp as barbed wire, Magda uncovers universal truths from her experience as a woman in the Holocaust. Then in words as sweet as an unexpected smile, she redeems our love of life. Dreamlike but all too real; dripping raw passion but unsentimental; righteous without moralizing-they don't make books like this anymore, yet we need books like this now more than ever.
Publisher: bioGraph
ISBN: 9781951946005
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
We Were Strangers is the true story of Magda Preiss, a breathtaking masterpiece of Holocaust literature, composed in her own words upon arriving in America in the 1940s. Lived and told by a beautiful young bride with fearless defiance, Magda's harrowing experience reveals a character who is larger than life and death. Hers is a love story more complex than any happy-ever-after tale. It recounts the love of culture, beauty, and life itself that fueled Magda's will to survive; the love for her husband that made her stay to face Nazi horror instead of escaping with her parents and siblings; and her love for strangers, whose humanity amidst the most inhumane circumstances illuminates every page through Magda's heroic voice.From an idyllic childhood in Czechoslovakia through the hells of Auschwitz, Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbrück, and Beendorf, Magda shows what it means to be a stranger at home and in foreign lands, to be estranged from loved ones and even from oneself as the world goes insane. In devastating sentences as sharp as barbed wire, Magda uncovers universal truths from her experience as a woman in the Holocaust. Then in words as sweet as an unexpected smile, she redeems our love of life. Dreamlike but all too real; dripping raw passion but unsentimental; righteous without moralizing-they don't make books like this anymore, yet we need books like this now more than ever.
How to Survive in a Stranger Things World (Stranger Things)
Author: Matthew J. Gilbert
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 1984851969
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 49
Book Description
A hardcover gift book featuring wisdom and advice from Netflix's hit series Stranger Things! Does life sometimes seem strange and little upside down? If so, this hardcover collection of wisdom and warnings from Netflix's original series Stranger Things can help guide you through school, friendships, and your town's darkest secrets. Featuring full-color images from the series and quotes from Dustin, Steve, Eleven, and the others, it is sure to thrill fans of all ages.
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 1984851969
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 49
Book Description
A hardcover gift book featuring wisdom and advice from Netflix's hit series Stranger Things! Does life sometimes seem strange and little upside down? If so, this hardcover collection of wisdom and warnings from Netflix's original series Stranger Things can help guide you through school, friendships, and your town's darkest secrets. Featuring full-color images from the series and quotes from Dustin, Steve, Eleven, and the others, it is sure to thrill fans of all ages.
Contented among Strangers
Author: Linda Schelbitzki Pickle
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252054350
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
German-Americans make up one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States, yet their very success at assimilating has also made them one of the least visible. Contented among Strangers examines the central role German-speaking women in rural areas of the Midwest played in preserving their ethnic and cultural identity. Even while living far from their original homelands, these women applied traditional European patterns of rural family life and values to their new homes in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. As a result they were more content with their modest lives than were their Anglo-American counterparts. Through personal recollections--including interesting diary material translated by the author, church and community documents, and migration and census data--Pickle reveals the diversity and richness of the women's experiences.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252054350
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
German-Americans make up one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States, yet their very success at assimilating has also made them one of the least visible. Contented among Strangers examines the central role German-speaking women in rural areas of the Midwest played in preserving their ethnic and cultural identity. Even while living far from their original homelands, these women applied traditional European patterns of rural family life and values to their new homes in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. As a result they were more content with their modest lives than were their Anglo-American counterparts. Through personal recollections--including interesting diary material translated by the author, church and community documents, and migration and census data--Pickle reveals the diversity and richness of the women's experiences.
Strangers in a Stranger Land
Author: John B. Simon
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0761871500
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 489
Book Description
What did it feel like to be an openly Jewish soldier fighting alongside German troops in WWII? Could a Jewish nurse work safely in a field hospital operating theater under the supervision of German army doctors? Several hundred members of Finland’s tiny Jewish community found themselves in absurd situations like this, yet not a single one was harmed by the Germans or deported to concentration or extermination camps. In fact, Finland was the only European country fighting on either side in WWII that lost not a single Jewish citizen to the Nazi’s “Final Solution.” Strangers in a Stranger Land explores the unique dilemma of Finland’s Jews in the form of a meticulously researched novel. Where did these immigrant Jews—the last in Europe to achieve citizenship status—come from? What was life like from their arrival in Finland in the early nineteenth century to the time when their grandchildren perversely found themselves on “the wrong side” of WWII? And how could young lovers plan for the future when not only their enemies but also their country’s allies threatened their very existence? Seven years researching Finland’s National Archives plus numerous in-depth interviews with surviving Finnish Jewish war veterans provide the background for a narrative exploration of love, friendship, and commitment but also uncertainty and terror under circumstances that were unique in the annals of “The Good War.” The novel’s protagonists—Benjamin, David and Rachel—adopt varying survival strategies as they struggle with involvement in a brutal conflict and questions posed by their dual loyalty as Finnish citizens and Zionists committed to the creation of a Jewish homeland. Tensions mount as the three young adults painfully work through a relationship love triangle and try to fulfill their commitments as both Jews and Finns while their country desperately seeks to extricate itself from an unwinnable war.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0761871500
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 489
Book Description
What did it feel like to be an openly Jewish soldier fighting alongside German troops in WWII? Could a Jewish nurse work safely in a field hospital operating theater under the supervision of German army doctors? Several hundred members of Finland’s tiny Jewish community found themselves in absurd situations like this, yet not a single one was harmed by the Germans or deported to concentration or extermination camps. In fact, Finland was the only European country fighting on either side in WWII that lost not a single Jewish citizen to the Nazi’s “Final Solution.” Strangers in a Stranger Land explores the unique dilemma of Finland’s Jews in the form of a meticulously researched novel. Where did these immigrant Jews—the last in Europe to achieve citizenship status—come from? What was life like from their arrival in Finland in the early nineteenth century to the time when their grandchildren perversely found themselves on “the wrong side” of WWII? And how could young lovers plan for the future when not only their enemies but also their country’s allies threatened their very existence? Seven years researching Finland’s National Archives plus numerous in-depth interviews with surviving Finnish Jewish war veterans provide the background for a narrative exploration of love, friendship, and commitment but also uncertainty and terror under circumstances that were unique in the annals of “The Good War.” The novel’s protagonists—Benjamin, David and Rachel—adopt varying survival strategies as they struggle with involvement in a brutal conflict and questions posed by their dual loyalty as Finnish citizens and Zionists committed to the creation of a Jewish homeland. Tensions mount as the three young adults painfully work through a relationship love triangle and try to fulfill their commitments as both Jews and Finns while their country desperately seeks to extricate itself from an unwinnable war.
Strangers Among Us
Author: Roberto Suro
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679744568
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
Strangers Among Us is a lucid, informed, and cliché-shattering examination of Latino immigration to the United States--its history, the vast transformations it is fast producing in American society, and the challenges it will present for decades to come. In making vivid an array of people, places, and events that are little known to most Americans, the author--an American journalist who is himself the son of Latino immigrants--makes an often bewildering phenom-enon vastly more understandable. He tells the stories of a number of large Latino communities, linked in a chronological narrative that starts with the Puerto Rican migration to East Harlem in the 1950s and continues through the California-bound rush of Mexicans and Central Americans in the 1990s. He takes us into the world of Mexican-American gang members; Guatemalan Mayas in suburban Houston; Cuban businessmen in Miami; Dominican bodega owners in New York. We see people who represent a unique transnationalism and a new form of immigrant assimilation--foreigners who come from close by and visit home frequently, so that they virtually live in two lands. Like other groups of immigrants who preceded them onto American shores, Latinos, as they begin to find a place for themselves here, are changing the way this nation thinks of itself. These are people who defy easy categorization: they are neither white nor black; their households often include both legal and illegal immigrants; most struggle toward some kind of economic stability, but so many others fall short that they have become the new face of the urban poor. Some Latinos endure the special poverty of people who work long hours for wages that barely ensure survival. Their children grow up learning more from their televisions than from their teachers, knowing what they want from America but not how to get it. Looking to the future, we see clearly that the sheer number of Latino newcomers will force the United States to develop new means of managing relations among diverse ethnic groups and of creating economic opportunity for all. But we also see a catalog of conflict and struggle: Latinos in confrontation with blacks; Latinos wrestling with the strain of illegal immigration on their communities; Latinos fighting the backlash that is denying legal immigrants access to welfare programs. Critical both of incoherent government policies and of the failures of minority-group advocacy, the author proposes solutions of his own, including a rejection of illegal immigration by Latinos themselves paired with government efforts to deter unlawful journeys into the United States, and a new emphasis on English-language training as an aid to successful assimilation. Roberto Suro has written a timely, controversial, and hugely illuminating book.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679744568
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
Strangers Among Us is a lucid, informed, and cliché-shattering examination of Latino immigration to the United States--its history, the vast transformations it is fast producing in American society, and the challenges it will present for decades to come. In making vivid an array of people, places, and events that are little known to most Americans, the author--an American journalist who is himself the son of Latino immigrants--makes an often bewildering phenom-enon vastly more understandable. He tells the stories of a number of large Latino communities, linked in a chronological narrative that starts with the Puerto Rican migration to East Harlem in the 1950s and continues through the California-bound rush of Mexicans and Central Americans in the 1990s. He takes us into the world of Mexican-American gang members; Guatemalan Mayas in suburban Houston; Cuban businessmen in Miami; Dominican bodega owners in New York. We see people who represent a unique transnationalism and a new form of immigrant assimilation--foreigners who come from close by and visit home frequently, so that they virtually live in two lands. Like other groups of immigrants who preceded them onto American shores, Latinos, as they begin to find a place for themselves here, are changing the way this nation thinks of itself. These are people who defy easy categorization: they are neither white nor black; their households often include both legal and illegal immigrants; most struggle toward some kind of economic stability, but so many others fall short that they have become the new face of the urban poor. Some Latinos endure the special poverty of people who work long hours for wages that barely ensure survival. Their children grow up learning more from their televisions than from their teachers, knowing what they want from America but not how to get it. Looking to the future, we see clearly that the sheer number of Latino newcomers will force the United States to develop new means of managing relations among diverse ethnic groups and of creating economic opportunity for all. But we also see a catalog of conflict and struggle: Latinos in confrontation with blacks; Latinos wrestling with the strain of illegal immigration on their communities; Latinos fighting the backlash that is denying legal immigrants access to welfare programs. Critical both of incoherent government policies and of the failures of minority-group advocacy, the author proposes solutions of his own, including a rejection of illegal immigration by Latinos themselves paired with government efforts to deter unlawful journeys into the United States, and a new emphasis on English-language training as an aid to successful assimilation. Roberto Suro has written a timely, controversial, and hugely illuminating book.