Introduction

This introduction chapter presents overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains about a historical and structural account of the forces shaping narratives of American national identity: Anglo-Protestantism, the melting pot, and multiculturalism. It also explains the story of how the US has arrived where it is in the 2010s regarding heightened rhetoric and a seemingly ever-looming policy battle over immigration. The book further examines the work of figures such as Israel Zangwill, E. A. Ross, Madison Grant, Milton Gordon, Stanley Lieberson, Douglas Massey, Louis Menand, and Alan Wolfe, all of whom contribute to the ways Americans understand immigration and what it means to be American. Finally, the book also explains the theoretical contribution between national identity and assimilation, which remains implicit in the historiography of assimilation, and is virtually ignored in today's sociology of assimilation.