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History Book Festival to host discussion with Jia Lynn Yang July 9

June 29, 2020

Jia Lynn Yang, author of “One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965,” will join a live online spirited discussion sponsored by the 2020 Virtual History Book Festival at 5 p.m., Thursday, July 9.

Yang’s book begins in 1924, when the United States Congress instituted an immigration system of stringent ethnic quotas that sharply curtailed arrivals from southern and eastern Europe, and outright banned those from nearly all of Asia. In the ensuing years, a coalition of lawmakers and activists descended from Jewish, Irish and Japanese immigrants fought for reforms, resulting in the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act that opened the door to nonwhite immigration at levels never before seen.

A deputy national editor at the New York Times, Yang lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her family immigrated to the United States from Taiwan in the 1970s.

This Zoom event is free, but registration is required. To register, go to www. lewes.lib.de.us and click on Virtual Programs for Adults. The festival is presented in cooperation with the library and sponsored by Delaware Humanities and the Lee Ann Wilkinson Group.

Copies of “One Mighty and Irresistible Tide” with signed archival bookplates are available from the festival’s official bookseller, Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach. The festival encourages readers to support local independent bookstores. Copies also may be borrowed from the Lewes Public Library.

The 2020 Virtual History Book Festival: Bring History Home will feature free weekly spirited discussions over the next six months. For the most up-to-date information on upcoming books and authors, go to www.historybookfestival.org.

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