International Express

Robert Smith, School of Public Affairs, Baruch College, and Graduate Center, City University of New York:
What a pleasure it was to read this book! International Express is a tour through a central vein in what is perhaps the most essentially American city, from midtown offices through a variety of immigrant and native-born neighborhoods with different ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic makeups. It is a treat to walk through the subway with Tonnelat and Kornblum and see our shared life through their keen eyes.

Jack Katz, University of California, Los Angeles:
International Express offers a richly detailed portrait of interethnic, gendered, and age-specific relationships as lived in the everyday practice of urban life. By focusing their microsociology on the 7 train and Jackson Heights' famously international immigrant population, Tonnelat and Kornblum reveal a protean paradox: the intimate interpersonal challenges of negotiating one's way through a social world of tightly confined strangers is key to the dynamic creativity of the contemporary city.

Nancy Foner, editor of One Out of Three: Immigrant New York in the Twenty-First Century:
A wonderful journey on the 7 train with Tonnelat and Kornblum providing a detailed picture of the subway community in transit. Filled with fascinating stories and analyses of gender relations, ethnic diversity, and social order underground, this well-written and insightful book will be a delight for anyone who rides or is curious about the world of the New York City subway.

John Liu, former New York City comptroller and councilman:
As a lifelong resident of Flushing and a lifelong rider of the Flushing line, I'm absolutely thrilled about this new book. Tonnelat and Kornblum have become one with the 7, a gritty transit spoke that for generations has doubled as a lifeline as it meanders seemingly halfway around the world right through a dozen neighborhoods in Queens.