Alan Kraut is Distinguished Professor of History at American University and a nonresident fellow of the Migration Policy Institute. Kraut specializes in immigration, ethnic history, and the history of medicine. He has written or edited nine books on these topics, including The Huddled Masses, the Immigrant in American Society, 1880-1921 (2001) and Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes and the “Immigrant Menace” (1994).