Radical Hospitality

Reviews / Votes

"Nour Halabi masterfully tracks the representation of immigrants in American media and how it shapes popular perceptions about immigrants and policies on immigration. She brings attention to the silenced histories of immigration in the US context and invites us to make the connections between these silences and the current reality of these marginalized groups."
- Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed, Department of Entertainment & Media Studies, University of Georgia
"An important book that focuses on a fundamental contradiction between the legal protection offered to immigrants to the USA through the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution on the one hand, and the anti-immigrant sentiment, which inflects public discourse and ever more restrictive immigration policies on the other. Writing from her first-hand experience of having to negotiate the immigration process for herself and her family, the author advocates her unique vantage point. She takes an historico-political perspective to explore shifting policies around immigration, both legislative (regulatory hospitality) and media-oriented (media hospitality), the extent to which immigrants are or are not 'welcomed' to the USA, and how different orientations contribute to how immigrants can 'build' a home in their adopted country. The methodology for data collection during the three sample periods is well-described and the rationale for the choice of periods is persuasive as is the volume of material analysed; the archival research is impressive. It is a significant and scholarly book which provides some important insights through its use of the 'hospitality' concept and its historical orientation."- Judges for the 2023 Media, Communication, and Cultural Studies Association Outstanding Book Award
"The media plays a key role in shaping immigration discourse in the United States. Nour Halabi's excellent book, Radical Hospitality, sheds light on how contradictory ideas of hospitality and xenophobia can both exist through her analysis of immigration regulation and media coverage during key historical periods of U.S. history from the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Muslim travel ban."

- Nancy Yuen, author of Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism