B

R

547

waive that agitated national topic, as to whethersuch multitudes of foreign poor should belanded on our American shores . . . if theycan get here, they have God’s right to come;though they bring all Ireland and her miserieswith them” (p. 455). This is dubbed the“Melville Principle” and characterizes Zolberg’sposition as well, which is manifested in anappeal for a liberal cosmopolitan perspectivetoward immigration.

Such a liberal perspective, in whichthe apposite question is not “Whom Shall WeAdmit?” but rather “Why Not the WholeWorld?”, might indeed seem to represent theethical high road, but it is by and large of littlepractical help to policymakers on the groundtrying to maintain law, order, and materialprosperity for American citizens. Admittedly,there are few easy solutions to the many com-plex political, economic, security, identity,social, and cultural challenges associatedwith international migration, in particularterrorism and the crushing global refugeecrisis. However, Zolberg crosses the boundsof familiar academic civility in describingwhat he calls the unimaginative and nativist“inanities” (p. 437) of political scientistSamuel Huntington. To my mind, those whohave carefully considered Huntington’sprovocative work will perhaps raise an eyebrowat such mala fide comparisons.

A Nation by Design

will probably notbe read by laypersons, nor is it the kind ofbook that professors will ask undergraduatesto purchase and read in full. Nevertheless, itwill appeal to people seeking to educatethemselves on America’s exceptional im-migration history and will also be a must-readfor graduate students and a wide range ofscholars, for whom the book’s 158 pages ofbibliographic endnotes alone provide a distinctgoldmine of references, leads, and ideas.

At the end of the day,

A Nation byDesign

reminds us why we study the past,namely to understand the present, and if thepast is any indication of what is to come, theUnited States will neither be able to stopimmigration nor want to isolate itself in thisage of migration and globalization. Despiteheadline news of immigration policy reform

and the fiery rhetoric of anti-immigrationists,the proverbial gates will remain relatively open– in part because of the immense difficulty, ifnot virtual impossibility, of controlling a2,000-mile border with Mexico. WhereasHuntington warns that we ignore the un-intended effects of mass immigration andfailed assimilation at our peril, Zolberg con-cludes that a “resurgence of nativist responsesconstitutes a more immediate threat to liberaldemocracy than immigration itself” (p. 450).If the former asks

Who Are We?

, the latteranswers in what is likely the magnum opus ofhis prolific career: we are

A Nation by Design

that should embrace its immigrants, forthose who feel welcome are most likely to dotheir new country proud.

XXXBook Riview

Latinos and the New Immigrant Church

. ByDavid A. Badillo. Baltimore: The JohnsHopkins University Press, 2006. Pp. 275.

R

S

-N

Fordham University

Latinos and the New Immigrant Church

is anambitious volume concerned with the analy-sis of the experiences of three groups ofLatino Catholics (Mexican, Cuban, andPuerto Rican) in four major U.S. cities (SanAntonio, Chicago, Miami, and New York).Badillo seeks to provide “a carefully nuancedlook” at “Latino Catholicism in the earlythrough the middle twentieth century”preceding the “vast ecclesiastical and demo-graphic changes beginning around 1965”(p. xi). In the book Badillo summarizes a vastcorpus of historical, anthropological, andsociological scholarship dealing with theemergence and growth of some of the LatinoCatholic communities in the United Statesfrom the early twentieth century until themid-1960s. In this sense, the book is a veryvaluable tool to access and locate such scholar-ship and, probably more importantly, tothink about possible future research projects.

However, his treatment of the differentimmigrant communities is uneven. His analyses

548 I

M

R

of the Puerto Rican and Cuban communitiesare the strongest chapters, especially in thecase of his analysis of experience of the CubanCatholics in Miami and Chicago and thedifficulties that the Cuban Church in Cubafound when confronting Castro’s secularizingpolicies. The analysis of the Puerto Rican caseis valuable to understand the plight of PuertoRican Catholics in Chicago and New York.However, the chapter dealing with the Mexi-cans in Texas has some problems, especiallywhen dealing with the history of the Church-State conflict in Mexico. First, it would beuseful to remember the role that the TexanCatholic Bishops played in collaboratingwith their Mexican peers during the mostviolent period of the Mexican revolution,right after the proclamation of the 1917constitution, and up until today. It is note-worthy how the Mexican Bishops’ first offi-cial rejection of the 1917 constitution wasissued in El Paso, Texas (June 24, 1917), notin Mexico, since the Bishops – with someexceptions – were forced out of the countrysince 1914 and were residing at the time inTexas. It was at that point when the seeds ofboth the confrontation with the Mexicanpolitical elites and the support from theTexan Catholic Bishops were planted. Badillo,however, makes little or no reference to thisfact or to the relations between the Mexicanand the Texan bishops before the

Cristiada

war (1926–1929).There are some minor factual prob-

lems in Badillo’s analysis. He states “After1931 . . . under the Obregon regime, govern-ment persecution of the Church resumed”(p. 31). In 1928, Alvaro Obregon was assassi-nated a few months before the inaugurationof his second presidential term. At that point,1931, Mexico was formally ruled by PascualOrtiz Rubio.

A major absence in Badillo’s work isthat of the Dominican Catholicism in NewYork where Badillo carries analysis of thePuerto Rican and Mexican communities,pushing the Dominican case to the marginsof his analysis. An editorial concern involvesthe inconsistent use of tildes in personal andgeographic names in Spanish.

Despite these problems, the readerinterested in an analysis centered on theimmigrant experience will be able to findvaluable insights about the experiences of thethree communities considered. Although it isclear that one needs to take into considera-tion the changes in the laws and institutionsregulating immigration to the United States,the changes within the Catholic Church itself,and the changes in the countries of origin.

Overall, Badillo contributes to layinga firm foundation for the future developmentof more specific and richer analysis of theimmigrant religious experience in the UnitesStates and elsewhere, making his book a valuableaddition to any library.

XXXBook Riview

Immigration and Crime

. Edited by RamiroMartinez and Abel Valenzuela, Jr. New York:New York University Press, 2006.

O

R

Department of Sociology/Anthropology, Fordham University

The question whether immigrants contributeto crime in overproportion to their represen-tation in the population has been a staple ofcurrent and past debates about the benefitsand disadvantages of immigration to receiv-ing countries. Martinez and Valenzuela,editors of this useful volume, point out thatcontradictory evidence to the effect thatimmigrants are less involved in crime thantheir native counterparts somehow does notsurface to the national consciousness. In linewith this, immigration and crime research isa relatively neglected topic within the increas-ing fields of study on the effects of immigra-tion on the well-being of the receivingcountry. For these reasons, this book is awelcome contribution to the literature.

The book’s major objective was to“assemble a diverse group of scholars who canoffer innovative approaches to the study ofethnicity, immigration status, and crime, orthe impact of immigration on violent eventsand crime.” In this the book succeeds quite