WASHINGTON ODYSSEY

The first book to focus on the migrant and immigrant experience in the nation’s capital Who peopled the nation’s capital and built its communities? Washington Odyssey tells the story, tracing the growth and transformation of ethnic and cultural communities—Native American, African American, European, Latino, and Asian American—throughout Washington’s history. Seventeen wide-ranging essays, accompanied by more than fifty photographs, challenge stereotypes and draw out common threads from the richly woven fabric that is Washington, D.C.

Tracing the story of the District’s African American community in detail, Washington Odyssey also chronicles the arrival of foreign-born groups—Germans, Jews, Chinese, Greeks, and Italians—who added immensely to the cultural texture of the cityscape. The disparities of the migrant experience are explored, from the fashionable neighborhoods of wealthy late-nineteenth-century migrants from the American West, to the alley communities and birthplace networks that sheltered and sustained poor black families. Washington’s most recent newcomers are here too: Latino, Caribbean, African, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Korean immigrants are contributing to a rebirth of the city’s entrepreneurial traditions and continuing to redefine the meaning of American pluralism.