Rutgers University Press Beyond the City and the Bridge: East Asian Immigration in a New Jersey Suburb

In recent decades, the American suburbs have become an important site for immigrant settlement. Beyond the City and the Bridge presents a case study of Fort Lee, Bergen County, on the west side of the George Washington Bridge connecting Manhattan and New Jersey. Since the 1970s, successive waves of immigrants from East Asia have transformed this formerly white community into one of the most diverse suburbs in the greater New York region. Fort Lee today has one of the largest concentrations of East Asians of any suburb on the East Coast, with Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans forming distinct communities while influencing the structure and everyday life of the borough. Noriko Matsumoto explores the rise of this multiethnic suburb―the complex processes of assimilation and reproduction of ethnicities, the changing social relationships, and the conditions under which such transformations have occurred. Review "Beyond the City and the Bridge is a timely, well-researched, and necessary study on Asian American experiences east of California. This is recommended for scholars and students interested in sociology, immigration, Asian American studies, urban/suburban studies, and New Jersey history."-- "New Jersey Studies""Given the current contentious political climate surrounding migrants and immigration policy in the United States, a nuanced understanding of the new suburban landscapes of immigrant settlement is particularly relevant and valuable to urban sociologists as well as urban planners and policy makers. This book will be of interest to scholars of race and ethnicity, immigration, and North American suburbs."-- "American Journal of Sociology""Matsumoto fills a critical gap in suburban research on the East Coast." -- "Contemporary Sociology""The fine-grained ethnographic evidence that Matsumoto marshals in the book is certainly impressive. [An] engaging study."-- "H-Net""In this fine-grained and engaging study of a multi-ethnic community just outside of New York City, Matsumoto uncovers the changing dynamics of American suburban life. This book will appeal to those studying urban sociology, race and ethnicity, and immigration."--Andrew Deener "author of Venice: A Contested Bohemia in Los Angeles""This book provides a detailed backstory to Fort Lee's post-World War II reinvention as an Asian American space. The experiences of its Japanese, Korean, and Chinese residents raise hefty questions about identity and community in the 21st-century metropolis."--Karín Aguilar-San Juan "author of Little Saigons: Staying Vietnamese in America" About the Author Noriko Matsumoto is a lecturer in the department of sociology at the University of Vermont in Burlington, where she also teaches in the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies program.