PHILADELPHIA -- Unlike the United States, Britain has only recently become a nation of immigrants. The influx of former colonial subjects -- including Sikhs from Punjab in northern India -- has forced the nation to reconsider what it means to be a British citizen.

Kathleen Hall, an anthropologist and associate professor in the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, explores how Britain has responded to the challenges of immigration in her book, "Lives in Translation: Sikh Youth as British Citizens" (University of Pennsylvania Press).

"I tell a different kind of immigration story," Hall said, "one that moves beyond portraying the children of immigrants as simply