Introduction
1. Fabricating the Foreign
2. Patriot Games
3. Uncertain Futures
4. "They Are Entirely Equal to the Spanish"
5. The Sephardi Connection
6. Forge Your Own Passport
Conclusion
Devi Mays is Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan.
"Forging Ties, Forging Passports powerfully demonstrates that in
eras of migration restriction, mobility becomes a radical act.
Examining how Ottoman Jews in Mexico grappled with their home
empire's collapse, Devi Mays reclaims these migrants from the
state's cartographic tyrannies and captures the wholeness of their
experience. A sparkling work of social history that prompts larger
questions over citizenship and its meanings."—Stacy D. Fahrenthold,
University of California, Davis
"Devi Mays has written a rich account of Sephardi migrants' lives
as they moved across states, adapting to and subverting the
restrictions that sought to limit their mobility. Forging Ties,
Forging Passports forces us to rethink the validity of categories
like 'Sephardi,' 'Jewish,' and 'Mexican,' and deepens our
understanding of the complex transnational ties that shaped the
lives of Jews who came to Latin America."—Adriana Brodsky, St.
Mary's College of Maryland
"Forging Ties, Forging Passports is an important addition to
research, bridging Jewish and Middle Eastern scholarship with the
broader investigation of migration and diaspora, as the
transnational turn still makes new inroads into MENA studies and
Sephardic studies."—Aviad Moreno, Association for Jewish Studies
Review
"Mays's work adds a great deal to our knowledge of the mechanics of
how Sephardi Jews migrated from the Mediterranean to the Americas,
and her focus on hypermobility will align in a variety of ways with
much scholarship on a variety of immigrant groups throughout
history."—Mollie Lewis Nouwen, Hispanic American Historical
Review
"In discussing a highly unique response to an era of growing
exclusion, Mays's book makes an important contribution to the field
of transborder studies."—Ben Nobbs-Thiessen, Latin American
Research Review
"Mays has written a book that begs to be read. The reader is asked
to think more deeply about why people engage in the act of
migration and how access to different political, social, cultural,
and ethnic identities allow certain groups greater mobility and
entrée into new social worlds.... Captivatingly written, this is a
book that greatly deepens our understanding not only of Sephardic
Jewish immigration during the early twentieth century but of the
global forces that impelled migrants to disperse across oceans and
continents."—Laura Limonic, Mashriq & Mahjar
"This book's strengths are many. By centering the narrative on
individual migrants, Mays reminds scholars of migration not to
exaggerate the role of state power in shaping mobility."—David
Gutman, American Historical Review
Ask a Question About this Product More... |