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Trump at the debate in Philadelphia.

Why Republican Politicians Keep Claiming Immigrants Eat Cats and Dogs

"They’re eating the pets of the people that live there," former President Trump claimed — with no basis — at the first presidential debate.
by Bettina Makalintal via Eater on September 11, 2024
"The Patriot" Newspaper featuring a political cartoon in which immigrants hold signs of disloyalty while Americans stand for constitution and laws.

Xenophobia Powers the United States

Since 1892, the United States has deported more immigrants (over 57 million) than any other nation.
by Erika Lee via Public Books on June 15, 2022
An outline of the United States filled with black figures who are outlined by a continuous white line.

"Other": A Brief History of American Xenophobia

The United States often touts itself as a "nation of immigrants," but this obscures the real story.
via Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment on July 11, 2020
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 on Liberty Island in New York Harbor.

The Nativist Tradition

Two recent books put the reemergence of anti-immigrant sentiment in the Trump era into historical relief.
by Joel Suarez via Dissent on July 6, 2020
Mexican tenor Alfonso Ortiz Tirado, La Prensa publisher Ignacio Lozano, and Hollywood actor Antonio Moreno before a performance to benefit the Mexican Clinic in San Antonio

How Three Texas Newspapers Manufactured Three Competing Images of Immigrants

In Depression-era San Antonio, polarized portraits of Mexicans appealed to the biases of readers.
by Melita M. Garza via Zócalo Public Square on December 5, 2019
Italian Americans looking up, one with a hand over heart, another saluting, in front of a building decorated with American flag bunting.

During World War II, the U.S. Saw Italian-Americans as a Threat to Homeland Security

The executive order that forced Japanese-Americans from their homes also put immigrants from Italy under surveillance.
by David A. Taylor via Smithsonian Magazine on February 2, 2017

How American's Rejection of Jews Fleeing Nazi Germany Haunts Our Refugee Policy Today

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it's important to remember why America welcomes refugees.
by Dara Lind via Vox on January 27, 2017

What Americans Thought of Jewish Refugees on the Eve of World War II

On the eve of World War 2, most Americans opposed granting asylum to Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler.
by Ishaan Tharoor via Washington Post on November 17, 2015
Alexander Hamilton painting by John Trumbul, 1792.
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Hamilton’s Real Immigration Story

The popular musical poses Alexander Hamilton as a symbol of the value of immigrants brought to America, but over time, his party became increasingly xenophobic.
by Livia Gershon, Phillip W. Magness via JSTOR Daily on September 2, 2025
President Eisenhower; The silhouette of a hand pressing into a fence that is blocking the American flag.

The Shaky History of Mass Deportations

‘Operation Wetback’ and ‘Mexican Repatriation’ worked—until they didn’t.
by Benjamin Montoya via The Dispatch on March 5, 2025
Protestors use the celebrated Hamilton lyric, “Immigrants: We Get the Job Done” to protest the first inauguration of President Donald Trump.

“The Premise of Our Founding”: Immigration and Popular Mythmaking

On the tension between celebratory rhetoric and restrictive policy surrounding immigration.
by Connie Thomas via The Panorama on February 24, 2025
Mottled photographs of immigrants set against the Statue of Liberty.

The American Dream 100 Years After the National Origins Act

How a clerk on Ellis Island at the dawn of the 20th century documented discrimination through photography, and what that tells us about today’s malaise.
by Yousef O. Bounab via New Lines on February 17, 2025
Kimonos hanging on a clothes line at an internment camp.

The Secret History

An investigation of the US’s mass internment of Japanese Americans.
by Harmony Holiday via Bookforum on December 10, 2024
A Public Health Services physician checking a woman immigrating into the United States for illness.

How the Irish Became Everything

Two new books explore the messy complexities of immigration—from the era of Lincoln to Irish New York.
by Tom Deignan via Commonweal on November 1, 2024

The Making of the Springfield Working Class

Each generation of this country’s workforce has always been urged to detest the next—to come up with its own fantasies of cat-eating immigrants.
by Gabriel Winant via New York Review of Books on September 30, 2024
Police officer in front of a playground and school.

The Historical Precedents to Trump’s Attacks on Haitian Immigrants

An expert on white nationalism explains how such demonizing rhetoric incubates and spreads—and what sets this particular episode apart.
by Kathleen Belew, Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker on September 18, 2024
Donald Trump stands in front of a microphone, holding a graph titled "Illegal Immigration into the US."

Trump’s Anti-Haitian Hate Has Deep American Roots

The former president’s grotesque demagoguery is just the latest in a long line of vicious attacks on residents and immigrants from the island nation.
by Jonathan M. Katz via The New Republic on September 16, 2024
Art piece of a hand holding barbed wire.

Do Border

Who can migrate to the US and make their home here? Who gets to drop US-made bombs, and who is expected to suffer them? These are not unrelated questions.
by Daniel Denvir via n+1 on August 22, 2024
Aerial view of suburbs.
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To Understand What Could Happen on Election Day, Understand the Suburbs

Even as they've diversified, suburban politics have remained protectionist — often defying ideological categorization.
by Becky M. Nicolaides via Made By History on August 15, 2024
Chinese immigrants and American immigration officers at Ellis Island.
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The Perils of Vilifying Chinese Migrants

As Chinese migrants arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border, politicians are reviving old anti-Chinese rhetoric that has done lasting harm.
by Meredith Oyen via Made By History on August 13, 2024
President Calvin Coolidge raising his hand behind a podium to be sworn into office.
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Behind America’s First Comprehensive Federal Immigration Law

Even as the primary targets of immigration restrictionism have shifted, the consequences for immigrants remain profoundly shaped by the system created in 1924.
by Devin E. Naar via Made By History on July 9, 2024
Cover of "A Great Disorder."

In Need of a New Myth

Myths to explain American history and chart a path to the future once helped to bind the country together. Today, they are absorbed into the culture wars.
by Eric Foner via London Review of Books on June 26, 2024
Three immigrants with chained hands and feet ascending staircase to a plane to be deported.

America’s Medicalized Borders: Past, Present, and Possible Future

Undoing the politics of fear will require us to reckon with the legacies of nativism that divert our attention from the greatest threats to our health.
by Carlos Martinez via Public Books on May 29, 2024
graph of historic immigration data

How America Tried and Failed to Stay White

100 years ago the U.S. tried to limit immigration to White Europeans. Instead, diversity triumphed.
by Eduardo Porter, Youyou Zhou via Washington Post on May 15, 2024
Man holding Israel flag and Palestine flag

Who Created the Israel-Palestine Conflict?

It wasn’t really Jews or Palestinians. It was the U.S. Congress, which closed American borders 100 years ago this month.
by Harold Meyerson via The American Prospect on May 6, 2024
Girls reading "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."

Betty Smith Enchanted a Generation of Readers with ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’

No other 20th-century American novel did quite so much to burnish Brooklyn’s reputation.
by Rachel Gordan via The Conversation on February 27, 2024

The War on Ecoterror

Environmental radicalism, left and right.
by Gaby del Valle via The Drift on November 8, 2023
Collage of Samuel Huntington, his essay "The Clash of Civilizations," and 21st-century political figure.

Samuel Huntington’s Great Idea Was Totally Wrong

His “Clash of Civilizations” essay in Foreign Affairs turned 30 this year. It was provocative, influential, manna for the modern right—and completely and utterly not true.
by Jordan Michael Smith via The New Republic on October 19, 2023
Torn photos juxtaposing the face of a Black man and an Asian woman.

A New Theory of Race in America

How white-dominated racial power produces inter-ethnic group conflict.
by Rhoda Feng, Claire Jean Kim via The Chronicle of Higher Education on September 8, 2023
Woman in yoga pose
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Religion of the Devil, Philosophy of the Coiled Serpent

In yoga’s early days in the United States, skeptics warned it would lead people (e.g., women) of good faith and standing into paganism and ill repute.
by Ramsha Zubairi, Diana L. Eck, Andrea R. Jain, Gwilym Beckerlegge via JSTOR Daily on July 26, 2023
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