Other Immigrant Story

Despite a family lineage of several generations in the United States, plus higher education and all the marks of class privilege, Mexican American historian Natalia Molina avoids wearing black and white to faculty events so as not to be confused for catering staff. She still finds herself viewed as “foreign,” while her husband’s family, with more recent roots in Europe, is considered fully assimilated.Why? While all immigrants can face hardship, alienation, and a loss of cultural identity, only the European-born are offered full belonging as Americans. Immigrants do not just assimilate into America, Molina argues: They assimilate into a racial hierarchy. Drawing on over 150 years of immigration history and more than two decades of research, Molina shows how legal structures and cultural narratives have racialized Latinos as perpetual outsiders. Interwoven into this sharp analysis is Molina’s own multigenerational family saga, tracing the moving stories of four generations of Mexican Americans as their lives are shaped by a racial context that treats their communities as if they’re forever “just arriving,” no matter how long they’ve been here.An eye-opening and beautifully written reexamination of the history of immigration, The Other Immigrant Story interrogates the myths surrounding assimilation.