Desperate Crossings: Seeking Refuge in America

by Norman L. Zucker, Naomi Flint Zucker

Overview

This work provides an examination of US refugee policy since the 1960s, particularly as it has been applied to Cuba, Haiti and Central America. The authors also address world-wide refugee problems, proposing ideas for the 21st century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781315480954
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/16/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Zucker, Norman L.; Zucker, Naomi Flint

Table of Contents

Introduction: Crossings to America; Chapter 1 A Shifting Course: Immigrants; Chapter 2 A Foreign-Policy Compass: Refugees and Asylum Seekers; Chapter 3 The Mariel Floodtide: Mass Escape; Chapter 4 Erecting Floodgates: Escape by Sea; Chapter 5 Erecting Fences: Escape Over Land; Chapter 6 In Foreign Waters: Barring Escape; Chapter 7 Charting a New Course;

Editorial Reviews

Although the writing is clear, the story interesting and the research solid, this treatment of the refugee is rooted in the past. Most of the book examines the influence of "a troika of interestsforeign policy, the costs of resettlement and domestic pressures" on U.S. refugee policy for Cuba and Haiti. Few would deny that the refugees from Haiti under the Duvaliers had fears that were at least as legitimate as the ones haunting those fleeing Castro's Cuba, but various administrations, guided by Cold War thinking, were grotesquely inequitable when it came to granting refuge. The author also touches on the same dichotomy in the U.S.'s treatment of refugees from Nicaragua and those from Salvador or Guatemala. The Zuckers (The Guarded Gate) trace how America changed the ground rules in response to the fall of the U.S.S.R., new domestic pressure (both from a Cuban community that was no longer monolithic and from Anglos and African Americans) and increasing concern about costs. The book would have been more helpful if it then addressed truly current concerns. The authors mention only briefly African refugees and not at all the increasingly important cases of genital mutilation of African girls and the mass rape of Bosnian women (if the latter is termed a war crime, the women are eligible for refugee status; if called simply violence, they are not). Clearly this is aimed at the converted (the Zuckers admit that "Americans' concerns over jobs and taxes were legitimate" but go no further), but most readers already concerned about refugees will want to know more about the future. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly