Forgetful Nation: On Immigration and Cultural Identity in the United States is an extraordinary work of cultural memory and an important contribution to critical historiography. In writing it, Ali Behdad establishes an unacknowledged connection between representations of America as an "Immigrant Nation" and the negation of the history of the violence inflicted against immigrants that this self-forgetful representation facilitated. "Immigrant America" was always a myth rather than a historical

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... ct. This myth of America as a haven for immigrants was produced through an imaginary scene of national origin that projected what Americans wanted to believe about themselves to the rest of the world. This myth of America as a haven for immigrants was produced through an imaginary scene of national origin that represented what Americans wanted to believe. What Americans wanted to believe required the erasure of historical facts that contradicted such beliefs. With the publication of A Forgetful Nation, Behdad attempts to boundary 2 35:1 (2008)