Monthly Archives: September 2014

The fears about Illegal immigration are a classic expression of the myth of madness at the gates of the city. Seen from the inside, the mad god Dionysus threatens to invade and destroy everything of value. From the outside, however … Continue reading →

  ¡Como Mexico No Hay Dos! In any discussion of contemporary immigration the most emotionally divisive arguments are either about Muslim refugees or Latin Americans. But the vast majority of the undocumented – “illegal aliens” – are Mexican. So we … Continue reading →

I have shown some of the political, racial, economic and religious factors that determined an immigrant’s status as he or she attempted to enter the U.S. But what happened next? How did one become American? And, especially in the great … Continue reading →

Since the ideas of “America” and “Whiteness” are inherently unstable, their definitions have had as much to do with who one is not as they have had with who one is, and they have changed regularly in their exclusion and … Continue reading →

The Industrial Revolution in the United States required millions of new workers, yet immigration policy was highly restrictive. For over a century, the Supreme Court periodically determined who was Other. Admission to whiteness was an invitation to emerge from darkness … Continue reading →

In February 2018 the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), certainly at the behest of the Trump administration, altered its mission statement by removing a reference to the United States as a “nation of immigrants.” Even though many Trump supporters would … Continue reading →

But What About Ferguson? Returning to this question of “every 28 hours,” we ask incredulously, innocently, again: How often do police shoot unarmed black people? Is it surprising that the government keeps no statistics ? Recently, some citizen groups have … Continue reading →