Dreamland

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400 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 16 halftones, notes, bibl., index

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-7304-2
Published: May 2023
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-7305-9
Published: March 2023
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-6111-5
Published: March 2023

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Awards & distinctions

2024 First Book Award, Immigration and Ethnic History Society

2023 Edgar S. Furniss Book Award, Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University

In a world of border walls and obstacles to migration, a lottery where winners can gain permanent residency in the United States sounds too good to be true. Just as unlikely is the idea that the United States would make such visas available to foster diversity within a country where systemic racism endures. But in 1990, the United States Diversity Visa Lottery was created to do just that.

Dreamland tells the surprising story of this unlikely government program and its role in American life as well as the global story of migration. Historian Carly Goodman takes readers from Washington, D.C., where proponents deployed a colorblind narrative about our "nation of immigrants" to secure visas for white immigrants, to the African countries where it flourished and fostered dreams of going to America. From the post office to the internet, aspiring emigrants, visa agents, and others embraced the lottery and tried their luck in a time of austerity and limits. Rising African immigration to the United States has enriched American life, created opportunities for mobility, and nourished imagined possibilities. But the promise of the American dream has been threatened by the United States' embrace of anti-immigrant policies and persistent anti-Black racism.

About the Author

Carly Goodman is senior editor of Made by History at the Washington Post.
For more information about Carly Goodman, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

“Carly Goodman’s ambitious book Dreamland: America’s Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction is a beautifully written history about the United States Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery, and the complex intersections of race, im/migration, policy, inequities, and the American Dream. . . . [A] formidable contribution to the fields of immigration and U.S. History.”—Journal of Social History

"A well-reasoned, evenhanded account of the immigration system . . . . Goodman offers a strong defense for the visa lottery, which is not weighted by country, allowing immigrants from all over Africa."—Kirkus Reviews

“Essential reading for those interested in the past and future of U.S. immigration policy.”—Library Journal

"Phenomenally well-researched and wide-ranging . . . . a feat . . . . Goodman hops smoothly from topics as diverse as the history of Irish immigration to the impacts of structural adjustment in West Africa to the visa lottery’s role in the first internet spam incident. Goodman chose her topic well. The visa lottery is a remarkable window into the role of the United States in a highly unequal world."—Tim Hirschel-Burns, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Simultaneously hopeful and heartbreaking, Dreamland is a welcome contribution to recent immigration and US-world history. . . . Beautifully written; [Goodman] . . . marshals an impressive array of sources and a storytelling style attentive to humor and tragedy.”—H-Diplo

“Goodman has written a powerful book for any citizen interested in what it means to be a nation of immigrants.”—CHOICE