First Book Award
Committee
Award Details
The Immigration and Ethnic History Society (IEHS) invites submissions for the First Book Award. The $2,000 award is presented annually at the IEHS banquet during the OAH to recognize the work of early career scholars in the field of U.S. immigration and ethnic history of the United States and/or North America.
Eligibility
To be eligible for the award, a book must be copyrighted in 2026, 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.
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. This email address will reach all committee members.
Awardees who do not have sufficient funds to attend the IEHS banquet to receive their award will have an opportunity to request limited financial assistance from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society.
A hard copy of the book will be submitted to each committee member at their preferred address:
Dr. Laura Madokoro
1-518 Gilmour Street
Ottawa, ON K1R 5L4, Canada
Dr. Seema Sohi
Department of Ethnic Studies
1775 Central Campus Mall
Ketchum 184, 339 UCB
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0339
Dr. Brianna Nofil
Department of History
William & Mary
James Blair, Room 330
250 James Blair Dr.
Williamsburg, VA 23185
Submission deadline: December 31, 2026.
Previous Recipients
2026
Marla A. Ramirez
Banished Citizens. A History of the Mexican American Women Who Endured Repatriation.
(Harvard University Press, 2025)
2026 – Honorable Mention
David-James Gonzales
(Oxford University Press, 2025)
2025
Brianna Nofil
The Migrant’s Jail: An American History of Mass Incarceration.
(Princeton University Press, 2024)
2025 – Honorable Mention
Yuri Doolan
The First Amerasians: Mixed Race Koreans from Camptowns to America.
(Oxford University Press, 2024)
2024
Carly Goodman
Dreamland: America’s Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction.
(University of North Carolina Press, 2023)
2024 – Honorable Mention
Sarah McNamara
Sarah McNamara, Ybor City: Crucible of the Latino South.
(University of North Carolina Press, 2023)
2023
Mike Amezcua
Making Mexican Chicago: From Postwar Settlement to the Age of Gentrification.
(University of Chicago Press, 2022)
2023 – Honorable Mention
Kristina Shull
Detention Empire: Reagan’s War on Immigrants and the Seeds of Resistance.
(University of North Carolina Press, 2022)
2022
Jessica Ordaz
The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity.
(University of North Carolina Press, 2021)
2021
Ashley Johnson Bavery
Bootlegged Aliens: Immigration Politics on America’s Northern Border.
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021)
2020
Danielle Battisti
Whom We Shall Welcome: Italian Americans and Immigration Reform.
(Fordham University Press, 2019)
2019
Rosina Lozano
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)
2018
Hidetaka Hirota
(Oxford University Press, 2016)
Honorable Mention
Rachel Kranson, Ambivalent Embrace: Jewish Upward Mobility in Postwar America.
(University of North Carolina Press, 2017)
2017
Lori Flores
Grounds for Dreaming: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the California Farmworker Movement.
(Yale University Press, 2016)
2016
Adam D. Mendelsohn
The Rag Race: How Jews Sewed Their Way to Success in America and the British Empire.
(New York University Press, 2014)
2015
Ellen Wu
The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority.
(Princeton University Press, 2013)