"Crossing the Gulf is a path breaking book that offers a powerful and poignant analysis of women's intimate lives lived in migration. Pardis Mahdavi adeptly reveals migrant women's complex subjectivities and agentic power amid the structural contradictions of national development, migration-securitization policies and citizenship laws."—Christine Chin, American University "Crossing the Gulf paints an intimate portrait of laborers, attentive to their diverse circumstances, contexts, and histories. Pardis Mahdavi has found the anthropological sweet spot—her work is deeply engaged in scholarly conversations, has clear application to policymakers and the regulations they steward, and is penned in the broadly engaging style of the best public anthropology. This book is a gem."—Andrew Gardner, University of Puget Sound "The main value of the book is the detailed narratives that show how migrants and their children confront strict government policies that shape their mobility and immobility....I recommend Crossing the Gulf for scholars of international migration, gender and the family, and the Gulf states. It is written accessibly and would be a useful course text for undergraduate and graduate students."—David Scott FitzGerald, American Journal of Sociology