Here are 100 books that Migration Miracle fans have personally recommended if you like
Migration Miracle.
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My stepfather lived in Latin America, and when he died, I spent time with migrants as a way of feeling closer to him. I was overwhelmed by the warmth and welcome offered to me. As I met more migrants who had uprooted their lives with hope and determination, I became disillusioned with typical narratives on the left and the right that portray migrants as helpless victims or dangerous invaders. I love books that tell more complex stories about the broad range of migrant experiences, and I am particularly drawn to books that capture the hope that many migrants feel and that they bring to their new homes.
I love the multigenerational stories that this book tells, tracing the children and grandchildren of the protagonists across generations.
I appreciate how the author does not flinch from describing challenges while also attending to the hope and persistence of the migrant women from Nicaragua. I also love how the story moves toward the possibilities that are open for future generations.
Andrea, Silvia, Ana, and Pamela were impoverished youth when the Sandinista revolution took hold in Nicaragua in 1979. Against the backdrop of a war and economic crisis, the revolution gave them hope of a better future - if not for themselves, then for their children. But, when it became clear that their hopes were in vain, they chose to emigrate. Children of the Revolution tells these four women's stories up to their adulthood in Italy. Laura J. Enriquez's compassionate account highlights the particularities of each woman's narrative, and shows how their lives were shaped by social factors such as their…
My stepfather lived in Latin America, and when he died, I spent time with migrants as a way of feeling closer to him. I was overwhelmed by the warmth and welcome offered to me. As I met more migrants who had uprooted their lives with hope and determination, I became disillusioned with typical narratives on the left and the right that portray migrants as helpless victims or dangerous invaders. I love books that tell more complex stories about the broad range of migrant experiences, and I am particularly drawn to books that capture the hope that many migrants feel and that they bring to their new homes.
We regularly hear in the media about migrants who risk their lives going north across the Mediterranean. I love how this book tells detailed stories about what happens to many of those migrants once they land in Sicily.
They face social and legal challenges, for sure, but the book shows how many Sicilians embrace migrants and try to help them find their way. I found the stories of solidarity between citizens and migrants moving and hopeful.
With thousands of migrants attempting the perilous maritime journey from North Africa to Europe each year, transnational migration is a defining feature of social life in the Mediterranean today. On the island of Sicily, where many migrants first arrive and ultimately remain, the contours of migrant reception and integration are frequently animated by broader concerns for human rights and social justice. Island of Hope sheds light on the emergence of social solidarity initiatives and networks forged between citizens and noncitizens who work together to improve local livelihoods and mobilize for radical political change. Basing her argument on years of ethnographic…
My stepfather lived in Latin America, and when he died, I spent time with migrants as a way of feeling closer to him. I was overwhelmed by the warmth and welcome offered to me. As I met more migrants who had uprooted their lives with hope and determination, I became disillusioned with typical narratives on the left and the right that portray migrants as helpless victims or dangerous invaders. I love books that tell more complex stories about the broad range of migrant experiences, and I am particularly drawn to books that capture the hope that many migrants feel and that they bring to their new homes.
I love how this book engages with the complexities of migration, describing a situation in which ethnically Turkish migrants from Bulgaria immigrate to Turkey. This complicates the typical story about migrants as outsiders who must adjust to hosts who are fundamentally different.
I found the stories compelling, as they trace the advantages and disadvantages that this hybrid status brings, and as they describe the heterogeneous experiences that different types of migrants confront.
There are more than 700,000 Bulgaristanli migrants residing in Turkey. Immigrants from Bulgaria who are ethnically Turkish, they assume certain privileges because of these ethnic ties, yet access to citizenship remains dependent on the whims of those in power. Through vivid accounts of encounters with the police and state bureaucracy, of nostalgic memories of home and aspirations for a more secure life in Turkey, Precarious Hope explores the tensions between ethnic privilege and economic vulnerability and rethinks the limits of migrant belonging among those for whom it is intimated and promised-but never guaranteed.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…
My stepfather lived in Latin America, and when he died, I spent time with migrants as a way of feeling closer to him. I was overwhelmed by the warmth and welcome offered to me. As I met more migrants who had uprooted their lives with hope and determination, I became disillusioned with typical narratives on the left and the right that portray migrants as helpless victims or dangerous invaders. I love books that tell more complex stories about the broad range of migrant experiences, and I am particularly drawn to books that capture the hope that many migrants feel and that they bring to their new homes.
I love how this book documents the many ways in which borders are not nearly as solid as we typically imagine. We tend to think about how migrants move across borders, and they do, but the book traces how people, ideas, and things have moved back and forth between Greece and north Macedonia over the past century.
I was drawn in by the compelling stories of how less dramatic movements of this kind have transformed individuals and societies on both sides of the border.
This innovative book documents border porosities that have developed and persisted between Greece and North Macedonia over different temporalities and at different localities. By drawing on geology's approaches to studying porosity, Dimova argues that similar to rocks and minerals that only appear solid and impermeable, seemingly impenetrable borders are inevitably traversed by different forms of passage.
The rich ethnographic case studies, from the history of railroads in the southern Balkans, border town beauty tourism, child refugees during the Greek Civil War, mining and environmental activism, and the urban renovation project in Skopje, show that the political borders between states do…
I became an economist because I realized that economics was a powerful tool that would help society solve vexing problems. While economics has limits, it has so much to offer in terms of better policy design for tackling everything from climate change to economic inequality. My life’s work has been devoted to both economic research and helping others understand the insights of economics. I spent many years in academia teaching economics and writing papers, and I authored Open in an attempt to make the complexities of international economics more transparent. I’ve also had the chance to work firsthand on some of these issues in the early part of the Biden Administration at the US Treasury.
When I began researching the economics of immigration, I expected to find that my prejudice in favor of immigrants needed more nuance. However, even more than I suspected, the economic literature is resounding in describing the many large economic benefits of immigration. Streets of Golddescribes how essential immigration has been to American economic success, and it provides a strong argument for a more open immigration policy.
Immigration is one of the most fraught, and possibly most misunderstood, topics in American social discourse-yet, in most cases, the things we believe about immigration are based largely on myth, not facts. Using the tools of modern data analysis and ten years of pioneering research, new evidence is provided about the past and present of the American Dream, debunking myths fostered by political opportunism and sentimentalized in family histories, and draw counterintuitive conclusions, including:
* Upward Mobility: Children of immigrants from nearly every country, especially those of poor immigrants, do better economically than children of U.S.-born residents - a pattern…
My passion for the topic of migration was kind of overdetermined, given that my grandparents were refugees, my father is an immigrant, and I have been on the move quite a bit myself. It might not have been a conscious choice to study something so close to home, but the more I think about it, the less likely it seems that this was all a coincidence. This personal dimension might also explain my choice of books, which all combine scholarly-analytics with deeply human perspectives on the topic of migration.
Histories of migration to Germany are often stories of problems and failure, of racism and troubled integration. This book does not negate these problems but consciously strives to develop a positive narrative of how migration–both emigration and immigration–is an integral part of German history.
Unlike most other scholars of migration, who envisage a post-national future of German society, Jan Plamper tries to develop a vision of positive national identification with a modern German nation that builds on the insight that “we are all migrants.” It is the last book the author, a dear friend of mine, wrote before his untimely passing in 2023 and will hopefully be his lasting legacy.
In 2015, Germany agreed to accept a million Syrian refugees. The country had become an epicenter of global migration and one of Europe's most diverse countries. But was this influx of migration new to Germany? In this highly readable volume, Jan Plamper charts the groups and waves of post-1945 mobility to Germany. We Are All Migrants is the first narrative history of multicultural Germany told through life-stories. It explores the experiences of the 12.5 million German expellees from Eastern Europe who arrived at the end of the Second World War; the 14 million 'guest workers' from Italy and Turkey who…
Benghazi: A New History is a look back at the enigmatic 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, its long-tail causes, and devastating (and largely unexamined) consequences for US domestic politics and foreign policy. It contains information not found elsewhere, and is backed up by 40 pages of…
Understanding the demographic, technological, and cultural pressures that prompt migration fascinates me. What makes a person leave behind everything they have ever known to go somewhere they have never seen, knowing the move is probably permanent? What features of individual and group identity are most important when you are on the other side of the world from everything that previously formed that identity? Examining such questions makes me reflect on my life and what makes me me. For example, visiting Scotland for my PhD research made me realize that I was not ‘New Zealand European’ but a New Zealander, which is a distinct identity.
Data-driven migration research is my absolute favorite kind of migration literature. While this book excels at this, and a truly robust sample of migrants underpins it as a whole, the statistics that underpin the research are presented so that they wouldn’t scare a non-specialist reader.
It is a model of how to make data-driven research accessible to a general readership. I love how it is neatly divided into thematic sections by birthplace, but nevertheless avoids repetition. If I had to recommend just one book to someone about British and Irish migration to Aotearoa this would be it. I can’t recommend it highly enough as a general overview of the major trends.
This book explores the question of who New Zealand's Pakeha ancestors were. It presents and interprets the findings of a major statistical analysis of immigrants from the United Kingdom over a century and a half drawn from death registers and shipping records. The book looks at for the first time and in detail such issues as the geographical origins of the founding ancestors, their occupational and class background, their religions and their values. Did our forefathers and mothers come from particular areas of Britain, did they tend to practise certain occupations, were they Catholics or Protestants, working people or aristocrats?…
I’ve always been fascinated by Chinese culture. My great uncle owned an import-export shop in 1920s Montreal and many of the things in his shop decorated my family home. An aunt who worked in Toronto’s Chinatown took me to see a Chinese opera performance and this began my journey to understand Chinese thought and culture first with an MA in Chinese poetry and then with a Ph.D. in East Asian Studies. After I learned that Sun Yatsen had visited Manitoba, where I had moved for work, my attention turned to Chinese nationalism. More than 15 years later, my research and work on KMT culture continues.
Lisa Mar’s rich archival study provides a window into the important role of power brokers in Chinese Canadian political life and culture up until the end of the Second World War. My own book also tells the stories of Chinese Canadian power brokers who were active in political organizations and lobbied for the repeal of the Chinese Immigration Act. Unlike the power brokers of Mars’s study, the men in my study were active and influential beyond Vancouver’s Chinatown and in prairie rural Canada.
Brokering Belonging traces several generations of Chinese "brokers, " ethnic leaders who acted as intermediaries between the Chinese and Anglo worlds of Canada. At the time, most Chinese could not vote and many were illegal immigrants, so brokers played informal but necessary roles as representatives to the larger society. Brokers' work reveals the changing boundaries between Chinese and Anglo worlds, and how tensions among Chinese shaped them.
By reinserting Chinese back into mainstream politics, Brokering Belonging alters common understandings of how legally "alien" groups' helped create modern immigrant nations. Over several generations, brokers deeply embedded Chinese immigrants in the larger…
Mark Greenside has been a civil rights activist, Vietnam War protestor, anti-draft counselor, Vista Volunteer, union leader, and college professor. He holds B.S. and M.A. degrees from the University of Wisconsin and his stories have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. He presently lives in Alameda, California, where he continues to teach and be politically active, and Brittany, France, where he still can’t do anything without asking for help.
A twenty year old American woman goes to Paris to paint, meets a French artist, marries, has a child, and together buy a farmhouse and make a summer home and art studios in rural Brittany: that story. A memoir.
The book was published in 2008, but the story takes place in the early 1960s when rural Brittany was closer to the 19th century than the 21st. I was in Paris in 1967, and it was still possible to rent a hotel room for under five dollars a night, to travel in Europe for ten dollars a day. In 1967, you could not safely drink the water in France, including in Paris, and you had to have proof of a typhus vaccine to return to the U.S. It was still more Henry Miller’s Paris than Macron’s.
This was the time of the last of every day berets, blue…
The enchanting memoir of an artist?s liberating sojourn in France during the sixties?and the friendship that transformed her life
While in her late twenties, Marjorie Price leaves the comfort of her Chicago suburb to strike out on her own in Paris and hone her artistic talents. Dazzled by everything French, she falls in love with a volatile French painter and they purchase an old farmhouse in the Breton countryside. When Marjorie?s seemingly idyllic marriage begins to unravel, she forms a friendship with an elderly peasant woman, Jeanne, who is illiterate, has three cows to her name, and has never left…
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
By
Amy Carney,
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
I began writing Ali’s incredible international odyssey as a film, but once I discovered the epic breadth of his journey, I decided on a book first.
For 3 years I worked intensely with Ali. Not only was it a passionate and personal epic tale about love and loss, overcoming insurmountable odds, endurance and survival, but it hit a chord with readers from all walks of life, bringing understand to why people fled their countries, and help to change attitudes on refugees from fear to compassion. After three years on the road with the book I have now completed the screenplay.
This wonderfully written true story is told as a wild madcap, can’t put it down, tragic comedy, which is incredibly funny but carries with it an underbelly of loss and heartbreak.
As he struggles to straddle the demands of his Iraqi-Iranian cultural mix as a refugee in Australia, Osamah makes some disastrous choices, that lead him down a complex maze to the truth of where his own heart lies.
Good Muslim Boy tells the story of Osamah Sami's journey from Iran during the Iraq war to the suburbs of Australia and his quest to fit into his new life whilst trying to stay a good Muslim boy. In turns comic and tragic, Osamah's story explores the universal truths of growing up, falling in love, marriage, family and following one's dream; whilst also telling the immigrant's story of straddling two cultures and the difficult expectations of family and faith versus fitting in. Osamah begins by recounting his youth under Islamic rule in Iran: the mischievous antics that he and his…
