Bat-Ami's book takes one group of people victimized by ethnic cleansing and explores their experiences adjusting to life in America. But in using this one example— the Jews at Fort Ontario—she underscores the difficulty all groups of people victimized by ethnic cleansing experience when they encounter American intolerance. From Bat-Ami's story, readers can make generalizations about America's attitude toward immigrants and refugees and form their own opinions as to how this attitude affects the development of a multicultural nation.

Many groups of people came to America expecting to live in a free land, but their dreams were shattered. True, they did attain freedom from Hitler, or from mass extermination from any dictator, but they would never be truly free from prejudice.

In America, as well as in Europe, these refugees felt like second-class citizens.

Bat-Ami addresses the reality of American intolerance by making...