Information on the author Madeline Y. Hsu has served as director of the Center for Asian American Studies and is currently an associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. Her first monograph, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration Between the United States and South China, 1882-1943, received the 2002 Association for Asian American Studies History Book Award.

This Very Short Introduction provides a narrative interpretation of key themes that emerge in the history of Asian migrations to North America, highlighting how Asian immigration has shaped the evolution of ideological and legal interpretations of America as a 'nation of immigrants'.