Anthropologist Freidenberg seeks to contribute to a growing body of literature making a case for understanding the US immigrant experience through local contexts, using interviews with more than 70 international migrants who settled in Prince George’s County, Maryland (an eastern suburb of Washington, D.C.) between 1968 and 2009. The book’s purview is promising and the author offers a fine history of Prince George’s County going back to before European contact, a solid sociological and demographic portrayal of the area, and a rich wealth of ethnographic interview narratives with immigrants from Latin America, Africa, and Asia.... Freidenberg seeks to frame immigration as a complex societal issue that Americans must own and embrace as part of the nation’s heritage, rather than as a problem to be blamed on others; this goal is commendable.... Summing Up: Recommended ... Academic and regional collections.
