Join Book Club with APACE and CSDFEA

In celebration of Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month, our Asian Pacific Alliance of County Employees (APACE) and the County of San Diego Filipino-American Employees’ Association (CSDFEA) are holding a virtual book discussion of “America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States” by Erika Lee.

The event will be held from 5:30 to 7 p.m., June 9. Register online.

Book Description

The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation of xenophobia. In America for Americans, Erika Lee shows that an irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward immigrants has been a defining feature of our nation from the colonial era to the Trump era. Benjamin Franklin ridiculed Germans for their "strange and foreign ways." Americans' anxiety over Irish Catholics turned xenophobia into a national political movement. Chinese immigrants were excluded, Japanese incarcerated, and Mexicans deported.

Today, Americans fear Muslims, Latinos, and the so-called browning of America. Forcing us to confront this history, Lee explains how xenophobia works, why it has endured, and how it threatens America. Now updated with an afterword reflecting on how the coronavirus pandemic turbocharged xenophobia, America for Americans is an urgent spur to action for any concerned citizen.

See the flyer below.