First Book Award
The Immigration and Ethnic History Society awards a prize to recognize the work of early career scholars in the field of U.S. immigration and ethnic history. The First Book Award will be presented to the book judged best on any aspect of the immigration and ethnic history of the United States and/or North America.
Eligibility
To be eligible for the award, a book must be copyrighted 2022, must be based on substantial primary research, must present a major new scholarly interpretation, and must be an author’s first academic monograph. Edited collections or multi-authored books are not eligible.
The $2,000 award will be presented at the annual IEHS banquet in 2023.
A book may be nominated by its author, the publisher, a member of the prize committee, or a member of the Society.
Inquiries and nominations should be submitted to firstbookaward@iehs.org, which will reach all committee members.
2021 Committee Members
Danielle Battisti (Chair), Ashley Johnson-Bavery, Carl Lindskoog
Copies of the book must be received by all three members of the committee at the following addresses by the deadline: December 31, 2022.
Dr. Danielle Battisti
University of Nebraska – Omaha
6001 Dodge Street
287T Arts and Sciences Hall
Omaha, NE 68182
Dr. Ashley Johnson-Bavery
Department of History & Philosophy
701 Pray Harrold Hall
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
Dr. Carl Lindskoog
Department of Humanities Social Science Social Work and Education
Somerset Hall, S-336
Raritan Valley Community College
118 Lamington Rd.
Branchburg, NJ 08876
Previous Recipients
Jessica Ordaz - 2022
The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity
(University of North Carolina Press, 2021)
Ashley Johnson Bavery - 2021
Bootlegged Aliens: Immigration Politics on America’s Northern Border
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021)
Danielle Battisti - 2020
Whom We Shall Welcome: Italian Americans and Immigration Reform
(Fordham University Press, 2019)
Rosina Lozano - 2019
An American Language: The History of Spanish in the United States (University of California Press, 2018)
Honorable Mention
Daniel Inouye, Distant Islands: The Japanese American Community in New York City, 1876-1930s. (University Press of Colorado, 2018)
Hidetaka Hirota - 2018
Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy. (Oxford University Press.)
Honorable Mention
Rachel Kranson, Ambivalent Embrace: Jewish Upward Mobility in Postwar America.. University of North Carolina Press.
Lori Flores - 2017
Adam D. Mendelsohn - 2016
The Rag Race: How Jews Sewed Their Way to Success in America and the British Empire. New York University Press.
Ellen Wu - 2015
The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority. Princeton University Press.