As we write this introduction, Senator Barack Obama, son of an African immigrant to the United States, is in the middle of a fierce fight to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for president. Obama's candidacy brings into stark relief the fluid and evolving status of immigrants of color, regardless of either the outcome of the electoral battle or what one might think of the senator and his politics. Further, the Obama campaign is illuminating the complex and conflicted ways that racial and immigration politics intersect. Questions such as how our understandings of the constitution of racial groups are refigured, how the formation of arguably new racial groups proceeds, and what the role of racial and ethnic conflict and resentment are have all come into play during the course of the Democratic Party's contest. Obama's life story is a new one, in that it is the story of a descendent of an immigrant from a non-European part of the world, but the mythology of his story is also a very familiar one—the children of immigrants who take advantage of the opportunities available in this nation overcome large obstacles, and succeed in previously unimaginable ways.
Immigration, Politics and Democracy: The World Jewish Congress in Europe, 1936-1939