David. W. Haines, an anthropologist at George Mason University with considerable experience in refugee resettlement work, offers a concise discussion of the ideological, moral and practical considerations that have shaped the US refugee resettlement program over the past seventy years. During this period American involvement in refugee resettlement developed from a largely voluntary agency-managed program to a regulated program with the involvement of federal and state governments. It is a program that is generous and welcoming, writes Haines, yet tempered by the self-interest that rules most of American immigration policy. Considerable pressure is placed on refugees to adapt, fit in, and prove that they are deserving of the chances they have been offered. True refugees “must be in need, but not needy; without resources, but still resourceful” (142).

Chapter 1 provides an introductory overview of American commitment to refugees: a commitment that Haines argues hinges not on some formal idealized definition of what a refugee is, but rather on connections to particular groups of refugees that are identified as morally significant to the United States. Chapters 2 through 6 examine resettlement at the ground level, from the perspectives of the refugees and the local communities that host them, and each chapter focusses on some aspect of the accommodation process. Chapter 2 examines how variables such as age, gender, occupational skills, language proficiency, and the strength of support networks shape the experiences of refugees in particular localities. In chapter 3 Haines discusses refugee accommodation in Richmond, Virginia during the last quarter of the twentieth century as a case study in the cultural assumptions that burden refugees and affect their long-term accommodation. Refugees must meet local expectations and succeed in some demonstrable way, writes Haines, or they challenge local and national narratives of the United States as a land of opportunity. They must be complicit participants in this idealized narrative of the refugee experience. “Refugees are supposed to validate America as good, not stand witness to its limitations” (171).

Chapter 4, in turn, focusses on the challenges refugees face when navigating the USA's complicated world of ethnicity. Race, religion, and nationality all affect their experience of the United States, but also their understanding of their unique place within American society as both refugees and ethnic immigrants. Chapter 5 draws heavily on Haines's research and work with Vietnamese refugees to explore how social groups and social networks help refugees organize and interpret their lives. Finally, chapter 6 examines the two key goals of the refugee resettlement program: English-language competence and economic self-sufficiency. This chapter focusses largely on the period 1975–85, a particularly challenging period for the US refugee program because of the large influx of refugees from the Caribbean and Southeast Asia.

A concluding chapter offers some further reflections on refuge in the United States. Haines identifies three areas for concern: the decline in overall refugee admissions; the burdens that unrealistic models of “immigrant success” place on both refugees and those who assist them; and the disproportionate attention focussed on undocumented immigration at the expense of refugees, which “raises again the primal question about whether America is a land of refuge or opportunity, faith or profit” (176). This section is not prescriptive. Haines does not offer recommendations for policy changes, nor does he offer neat formulas for achieving a successful integration of refugees. Rather, he offers a thoughtful reminder that despite concerns over national security and closing the border, the type of refuge a nation offers ultimately reflects what type of nation it is.

History teachers looking for a political or social history of the different refugee groups that have migrated to the United States over the past seventy years will find the book's title misleading. Nevertheless, this is an important and useful book to scholars of migration across the disciplines because of the philosophical questions it poses about refuge as well as the author's discussion of resettlement at the ground level. Some of the information in these pages may sound familiar to those who have read Haines's articles and edited collections on refugees, but the book offers a useful synthesis of this work that can be consulted by scholars, policymakers, and aid workers, and assigned in both undergraduate and graduate courses in the social sciences. The fact that royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to organizations that serve refugees should be an additional inducement to buy the book.