Book Talk: The Politics of Armenian Migration to North America 1885-1915 w/ David Gutman

Prof. Gutman’s book tells the story of Armenian migration to North America in the late Ottoman period, and Istanbul’s efforts to prevent it. It shows how, just as in the present, migrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were forced to travel through clandestine smuggling networks, frustrating the enforcement of the ban on migration. Further, migrants who attempted to return home from sojourns in North America risked debarment at the border and deportation, while the return of migrants who had naturalized as US citizens generated friction between the United States and Ottoman governments.