Forum: Future Directions in American Immigration and Ethnic History

Introduction

JOHN J. BUKOWCZYK

SCHOLARLY INTEREST in the history of immigration, race, and ethnicity has never been higher than at present, and these subjects also have come to occupy a central place in both policy discourse and popular culture. Significantly, the field of American and ethnic history has expanded far beyond the dualistic assimilation/ethnicity paradigm to encompass a dizzying range of subjects and topics, including forced migrations, the relationship of colonialism and imperialism to migration, diasporas and transnationalism, the structural determinants of the migration and incorporation of immigrants, the development of migration systems, the social construction of race and nation, multiculturalism, and a host of other problems and topics. Arguably, the immigration and ethnic history field, as it has evolved, now ranks among the most overarching and encompassing of the various fields of historical inquiry. Indeed, it may provide a route toward the kind of historical synthesis widely bemoaned by scholars as lacking since the rise of the various revisionist scholarly sub-fields—like the "new social history," radical history, women's history, gay and lesbian history, ethnohistory. Latino/a Studies, Asian American Studies, cultural studies, Black history, and immigration and ethnic history itself—shattered the hegemonic master narrative that had dominated the historical discipline through the 1950s.