The Makings and Unmakings of Americans: Indians and Immigrants in American Literature and Culture, 1879-1924

The Makings and Unmakings of Americans argues that Native Americans and Eastern European immigrants, read together, reshape how we understand US “Americanization” during the Progressive Era. Cristina Stanciu challenges the myth of the United States as simply a nation of immigrants by showing how these two groups shaped intellectual and cultural debates over inclusion and exclusion. Using a broad archive of Indigenous and immigrant writing and visual culture, including legislative acts, testimonies, news reports, cartoons, poetry, fiction, and silent film, the book compares legal and cultural obstacles to citizenship. It shows parallel resistance to assimilation and resistance to idealized citizenship models found in public life. Stanciu concludes that both Native and immigrant communities pushed back against narrow definitions of national belonging, seeking agency and sovereignty while negotiating naturalization.