IMMIGRANT CONCEPTS

A husband-and-wife team explores the psychosocial dimensions of immigration in this nonfiction book.

While the details of their biographies may differ, as Reimann immigrated to the United States as a 10-year-old boy from Germany and Rodríguez-Reimann came via Mexico at 15, the authors share the ubiquitous experiences of most immigrants in grappling with a new home, culture and language barriers, and questions surrounding identity. The book begins by emphasizing that the history of humanity is one of “people on the move,” from early migration out of East Africa onward. From a 21st-century perspective, the volume notes, the number of global immigrants has risen by more than 51 million people per year since 2010, as migrants make up more than 3% of the world’s population. Written as “an act of love,” the volume presents “a framework that helps foster a better understanding of the many pieces that make up an immigration experience.” With doctorates in psychology, the authors come from academic backgrounds and have published multiple articles in scholarly journals. Built on their personal experiences and academic research, this work has a solid basis in peer-reviewed studies and boasts a healthy network of endnotes. But it also succeeds in the authors’ goal of offering readers “professional information about common immigration experiences” in “more accessible,” jargon-free prose. The volume’s accessibility is enhanced by graphs and other visual aids, ample text-box vignettes that feature gripping anecdotes, and a glossary that breaks down the nuanced differences between refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and other terms often misused in public conversations. As top executives of the Group for Immigrant Resettlement & Assessment, the authors focus much of their writing on providing pragmatic policy suggestions and valuable advice to immigrants and their allies regarding transitioning to life in a new nation. This includes how to navigate Covid-19–related protocols. The authors’ practical advice, combined with their academic backgrounds and humanitarian empathy, makes for a definitive work on immigration that convincingly counters the simplistic “zero-sum game” analysis that too often surrounds debates on the issue.

A well-researched and approachable survey of 21st-century immigration.