Tara Zahra

This is a bit of a shotgun, a dive into random details concerning emigration from Eastern Europe to other places around the world, largely the USA and Western Europe but also e.g. the Dominican Republic and Madagascar. The book doesn't really have a crisp thesis; the focus is on blurred boundaries. Which people are White? Which people are European? Which people are civilized? Which people are slaves? Are people being pushed out or are they being allowed to go? Are people being forbidden to travel or being protected from exploitation?

This book covers roughly 1890 to 2010. Maybe the traffic talked about most is from Poland to France, but we hear too about East Germans and Czechoslovakians and Hungarians. Russians didn't get much of a chance to go anywhere! There's quite a bit about Jews getting pushed here and there.

No country comes out looking very noble here. All countries want to admit folks who will be good citizens and wants to block or deport people who are lazy, criminal, or difficult in any way. Border control agents make judgments based on prejudice concerning race, religion, ethnicity, etc.

This is a book that kind of soaks a person in the complexities and ambiguities of migration. At the very least, the reader will pick up some history. And anybody who thinks the problem is simple, who sees the issues as crisp black and white... they'll be exposed to a full plate of nuances, whether they choose to ingest them or not.… (mer)