Women's History Resources: Immigrant Women

This collection of original essays, the first of its sort, written by first generation women immigrants, offers a glimpse into the process of assimilation. Edited and with an introduction by a noted young Ghanaian-American author, this book includes selections by widely acclaimed authors such as Lucy Grealy, and Judith Ortiz-Cofer, alongside the works of other writers.

Spanning the peak immigration years from 1840 to 1930, this engrossing account documents the experiences of a wide range of European women who traveled to America. This critically acclaimed volume, thoughtfully and meticulously researched, explores the courage, intelligence, and persistence women from all over Europe needed in order to begin a new life in the United States.

An impressive achievement by a scholar well-versed in the field. Virginia Yans-McLaughlin. Sweeping in scope and prodigious in research, Gabaccia is able to make insightful comparisons between these female newcomers in both the past and the present and between the experiences of the foreign-born and other minorities in American society."

Resurgent immigration is one of the most powerful forces disrupting and realigning everyday life in the United States and elsewhere, and gender is one of the fundamental social categories anchoring and shaping immigration patterns. Yet the intersection of gender and immigration has received little attention in contemporary social science literature and immigration research. This book brings together some of the best work in this area, including essays by pioneers who have logged nearly two decades in the field of gender and immigration, and new empirical work by both young scholars and well-established social scientists bringing their substantial talents to this topic for the first time.

This book brings a psychological perspective to the often overlooked and understudied topic of women's experiences of migration, covering topics such as memory, place, language, race, social class, work, violence, motherhood, and intergenerational impact of migration.

Immigrant Women combines memoirs, diaries, oral history, and fiction to present an authentic and emotionally compelling record of women's struggles to build new lives in a new land.

2012 Americo Paredes Book Award Winner for Non-Fiction presented by the Center for Mexican American Studies at South Texas College   Selected as a 2012 Outstanding Title by AAUP University Press Books for Public and Secondary School Libraries This is Olivia's story. Born in Los Angeles, she is taken to Mexico to live with her extended family until the age of three. Olivia then returns to L.A. to live with her mother, Carmen, the live-in maid to a wealthy family. Mother and daughter sleep in the maid's room, just off the kitchen. Olivia is raised alongside the other children of the family. She goes to school with them, eats meals with them, and is taken shopping for clothes with them. She is like a member of the family. Except she is not. Based on over twenty years of research, noted scholar Mary Romero brings Olivia's remarkable story to life.

Unbound Voices brings together the voices of Chinese American women in a fascinating, intimate collection of documents--letters, essays, poems, autobiographies, speeches, testimonials, and oral histories--detailing half a century of their lives in America. Together, these sources provide a captivating mosaic of Chinese women's experiences in their own words, as they tell of making a home for themselves and their families in San Francisco from the Gold Rush years through World War II.

Caught between violent partners and the bureaucratic complications of the US Immigration system, many immigrant women are particularly vulnerable to abuse. For two years, Roberta Villalón volunteered at a nonprofit group that offers free legal services to mostly undocumented immigrants who had been victims of abuse. Her innovative study of Latina survivors of domestic violence explores the complexities at the intersection of immigration, citizenship, and violence, and shows how inequality is perpetuated even through the well-intentioned delivery of vital services.

Women's Experience of Migration -- Collecting Immigrant Women's Life Narratives -- The Stories -- Migration, Sexuality, and the Preservation of Culture and Tradition -- Language: Identity, Silence, and Sexuality -- Mothers, Daughters, and Migration -- The Experience of Lesbian Immigrants.