Three main questions may be asked with reference to immigration: First: Have we any right to regulate immigration? Second: What is the nature of our present immigration? Third: Is immigration good for us? Mary Antin's 'They Who Knock at Our Gates' provides a fascinating and valuable social history of immigration. A topic that has always been under political and economic scrutiny and even more so today. This text was originally published in 1914 and its message and ideas are still relevant today. Mary Antin (1881 - 1949) was an American author and immigration rights activist. She is best known for her 1912 autobiography The Promised Land, an account of her emigration and subsequent Americanisation.