immigration

Does Germany's Holocaust Education Give Cover to Nativism?

The anti-antisemitism of German Holocaust education is based on the implicit premise that immigrants will identify with a sense of shame held by ethnic Germans. If those immigrants ask instead whether contemporary nativism could result in their own persecution, it is seen as a sign of their non-Germanness. 

Critical (In)attention to Bad Bunny Headlining Coachella Latest Example of Dismissal of "Latin" Music Artists

by Petra Rivera-Rideau and Vanessa Díaz

At the fashionable California festival, the Puerto Rican artist took fans through a history of Latin American musical styles; the American press has too often ignored such history to portray performers as exotic, hypersexual, and foreign, instead of as part of a hemisphere-wide process of cultural creation and mixture. 

"Generation Connie": A News Anchor and Her First-Generation Namesakes

The practice of choosing American names for immigrant children coincided with the peak of Connie Chung's career as the national face of CBS News. Adopting her name symbolized mobility and potential for a generation of Asian American women recently come of age. 

Susan Rice's Departure Shows Continuity of Bipartisan Consensus of Punitive Treatment of Migrants

Despite her service in the Obama administration, many migrant advocates saw Rice's policies on detention and family separation as different from Stephen Miller's in tone more than in substance. 

Labor Secretary Nominee Julie Su Shaped by Work on 1990s Sweatshop Trafficking Case

With a prominent record of advocating for immigrant workers, Su faces indifference or outright hostility from moderate Democrats and Republicans as her nomination to succeed Marty Walsh at the Department of Labor advances. 

Why Everyone Born in the US is a Citizen, and Why it Matters

by Amanda Frost

In upholding birthright citizenship in the case of US v. Wong Kim Ark, the court invoked English common law, rather than claims to citizenship rights and freedom by escaped slaves, as the foundation of the 14th Amendment's definition of citizenship. This makes the principle vulnerable when it should be unassailable. 

The US Should Abandon the Fantasy of Sealing the Border

by Dara Lind

A border policy focused on apprehension and driven by social panics about immigration will repeat a cycle of escalation and relaxation without addressing the fundamental human dynamics of migration, argues a border policy scholar. 

Welcome Corps is the Newest Idea for Welcoming Refugees, but it Has a Long History

by Emily Frazier and Laura E. Alexander

The proposal for a new refugee resettlement agency extends the mission of many religious settlement and humanitarian groups that have operated in the United States for more than 150 years. This has the potential and the peril of bringing resettlement more in line with the characteristics of local communities. 

Erika Lee and Carol Anderson on Myths and Realities of Race in American History

"The problem we have in the United States is that we use these myths as a way to diminish the humanity and the citizenship of large sectors of our population and to then craft policies based on myths."

Immigration Policies like Title 42 Have Long Encouraged Abuse and Exploitation

by Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez

The militarization of the border increases the likelihood that undocumented migrants will be exploited and abused by smugglers, traffickers, and employers. 

Enjoying the Christmas Lights? Thank Jewish Refugees from the Ottoman Empire

by Devin E. Naar

The story of Christmas lighting in America follows the paths of Sephardic Jewish immigrants from Turkey, who coped with nativist prejudice, linguistic difference, and labor exploitation to find community and work—including in light bulb factories. 

Israel's Religious Right Pushes for Restrictive Changes to Law of Return

As Jews around the world are considering Israel as a refuge from antisemitism, that country's religious fundamentalist parties have the political leverage to decide that many fewer people are Jewish enough to qualify for immigration and citizenship. American Reform Jews are particularly affected.

The Farm Workforce Modernization Act Raises Troubling Echoes

by Matt Garcia

The support of the United Farm Workers for the bill cuts against the organization's origins in opposition to the Bracero guestworker program, and signals its shift toward advocacy of global responsibility initiatives in the food supply chain. Other labor organizations believe the bill would reestablish indentured servitude in farm work. 

Immigrant Education in America is a Series of Stories of Courage

by Jessica Lander

One in four K-12 students today is an immigrant or a child of immigrants. A high school history teacher in an immigrant-serving school argues that we need to remember the examples of past educators who defied law and prejudice to make schools places where immigrants became Americans. 

The Racist History of Family Separation, and the Lawyers Challenging It

Attorney Kara Hartzler drew on the work of historian Kelly Lytle Hernández to point out the racist underpinnings of the laws defining "illegal entry" to the United States. 

Open Hearts, Closed Doors: Immigration and the Eclipse of Protestant Cultural Authority in America

by Nicholas T. Pruitt

Liberal Protestants in the early 1960s supported the reform of racially restrictive immigration laws, but ended up encouraging a more diverse nation where their brand of moderate religion was eclipsed by both multiculturalism and conservative white evangelicalism. 

Immigrant Merchants and Law-and-Order Politics in Detroit

by Kenneth Alyass

The Chaldean community of Detroit became a significant middleman-minority through the operation of small stores in working-class and majority-Black neighborhoods. As white flight and disinvestment created increasingly dire conditions, they also became a constituency for aggressive policing. 

What American Dream did Asian Immigrants Find in the Southern California Suburbs?

by James Zarsadiaz

Asian-American suburbs grew east of Los Angeles in part because developers catered to a growing market and in part because Asian Americans embraced some of the anti-urban tropes common in postwar America. Today conflict still surrounds how much diversity the suburban ideal can accommodate.

Remarks by LA City Council Members Struck at Local Oaxacan Community

by A.S. Dillingham

Remarks stigmatizing Mexican immigrants with indigenous ancestry point to the fallacy of a unitary Latino identity and highlight the persistence of racial hierarchies in Latin America. 

Today's Conflicts Among American Jews Rooted in Political Origins of Conservative Judaism

The tendency of many Conservative Jewish leaders to eschew partisan politics isn't a reaction to recent polarization, it's the result of a century old effort by influential donors to the Jewish Theological Seminary to marginalize radical immigrants from American Jewish life.