Interest in immigrant groups in the United States has always been high, thus the publication of the mainstay single-volume Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Belknap Pr. of the Harvard Univ. Pr., 1980) to try to meet the need for historical and detailed information on major immigrant groups and causes of their migration to the United States. The Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, 2nd ed. (Gale, 2000), at 152 entries, profiles both immigrant groups and Native American nations. In the title under review, Ronald Bayor, immigration scholar and founding editor of the Journal of American Ethnic History, wanted to add to the existing reference literature on immigrants to the United States by profiling the countries that have sent immigrants for the most part after the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.

In this four-volume set, fifty countries arranged alphabetically, and their major emigrant groups are described in essays of between 10,000 and 20,000 words each, written by scholars who are often from the area being profiled. Readers will recognize sending countries such as Mexico and Cambodia while learning about less well-known countries and their emigrants such as Bangladesh and Trinidad and Tobago.

A very useful introduction to the history of U.S. immigration, from European settlers in the 1500s through Arizona's 2010 law on undocumented immigrants, kicks off the set, followed by a brief chronology. Topic sections for each immigrant-sending nation include a chronology related to issues leading to emigration from the country; background; causes and waves of migration; demographic profile; adjustment and adaptation to the United States, with descriptions of cultural and national practices such as foodways, rituals, and holidays; integration and impact on U.S. society and culture; relations between the country and the United States, with forecasts for the future; tables of hard-to-locate demographic statistics; and a list of references. Personalizing and enriching each country essay are brief biographical profiles of current generation youths who describe their immigrant experience, lists of notable Americans from the nationality, staples of immigrant culture (for example, the Cuban Calle Ocho Festival in Miami), and a glossary of common words from the culture used in the essay. A selected bibliography, contributor biographies, and an index complete the encyclopedia.

The index is a necessity when one is trying to locate a group and the country they're from if the country name is different (for example, the Hmong from Laos, who incidentally are only mentioned briefly). Useful added index entries would have been state names in some cases, so the reader can track where various groups may have settled for the most part. The e-book version of the encyclopedia (priced separately) would assist with finding terms in the text not included in the printed index. Multicultural America: An Encyclopedia of the Newest Americans could be used in conjunction with another recent title, the Encyclopedia of American Immigration, edited by Carl L. Bankston III (Salem Pr., 2010), which, along with profiling 70 ethnic and immigrant groups, has other theme-based essays, including entries on every U.S. state.

School, public, and academic libraries and readers across many disciplines will all benefit from this encyclopedia, a fascinating and welcome addition to the immigration literature for reference collections.