Partners in Gatekeeping - (Politics and Culture in the Twentieth-Century South) by Lauren Braun-Strumfels (Paperback)

About the Book

"Partners in Gatekeeping illuminates a complex, distinctly transnational story that recasts the development of US immigration policies and institutions. Braun-Strumfels challenges existing ideas about the origins of remote control by paying particular attention to two programs supported by the Italian government in the 1890s: a government outpost on Ellis Island called the Office of Labor Information and Protection for Italians and rural immigrant colonization in the American South-namely a "plantation" in Arkansas called Sunnyside. Through those places, Braun-Strumfels argues that we must consider Italian migration, and the asymmetric partnership that emerged between the United States and Italy to manage that migration, an essential piece in the history of how the United States became a gatekeeping nation. In so doing, Partners reveals that the last ten years of the nineteenth century were critical to the establishment of the modern gatekeeping system by establishing the antecedents for "remote control" beyond the well-studied Chinese and Mexican cases"--

Book Synopsis

Partners in Gatekeeping illuminates a complex, distinctly transnational story that recasts the development of U.S. immigration policies and institutions. Lauren Braun-Strumfels challenges existing ideas about the origins of remote control by paying particular attention to two programs supported by the Italian government in the 1890s: a government outpost on Ellis Island called the Office of Labor Information and Protection for Italians, and rural immigrant colonization in the American South--namely a plantation in Arkansas called Sunnyside.

Through her examination of these distinct locations, Braun-Strumfels argues that we must consider Italian migration as an essential piece in the history of how the United States became a gatekeeping nation. In particular, she details how an asymmetric partnership emerged between the United States and Italy to manage that migration.

In so doing, Partners in Gatekeeping reveals that the last ten years of the nineteenth century were critical to the establishment of the modern gatekeeping system. By showing the roles of Italian programs in this migration system, Braun-Strumfels establishes antecedents for remote control beyond the well-studied Chinese and Mexican cases.

Review Quotes

Braun-Strumfels's work in the Italian archives has produced a remarkable book that adds an important contribution to the growing number of scholars who take the South seriously as a place to study immigration history.--Michael K. Rosenow "Journal of Southern History"

Partners in Gatekeeping is an important contribution to U.S. immigration historiography. Braun-Strumfel's use of Italian sources offers a powerful sense of how immigration to the United States played on both sides of the Atlantic at the policy level, correcting the prevailing notion that restrictionism developed almost wholly in the context of anti-Asian sentiments.--Jennifer E. Brooks "author of Resident Strangers: Immigrant Laborers in New South Alabama"

Partners in Gatekeeping relies on exciting, innovative, and ambitious research. The amount of never-before-used primary sources (at least in U.S. history) is breathtaking and one of the book's many strengths. . . . With this evidentiary base, Braun-Strumfels clarified questions I have long had. She also raised questions that had not even occurred to me to ask, but were lightbulb moments as I read them.

--Torrie Hester, associate professor of history, Saint Louis University

About the Author

LAUREN BRAUN-STRUMFELS is an associate professor in the history department at Cedar Crest College. She was also a Fulbright Scholar at Universita Roma Tre in 2020.