Bridges to the World

WE ARE WITNESSING a resurgence of vicious characterizations of immigrants. What is the most effective way to respond? Attitudes do not seem to shift simply by stating the facts — that immigrants are a significant benefit to the U.S. economy, that they fill jobs that Americans won’t take, and that they proved to be “essential workers” during the pandemic. An intervention at a deeper level is needed, at the level of culture and national narrative.

But this raises another problem. The dominant narrative describes the United States as a “nation of immigrants” — a telling that ignores and erases the stories of those who were here before the arrival of Europeans, who arrived on our shores in chains, who were incorporated into the American people as the nation expanded overseas, and who were removed from the U.S. after their arrival. To construct a more inclusive national narrative, my colleague Professor Alexandra Délano (associate professor of Global Studies at The New School), and I sought contributions from academics, writers, photographers, poets, and activists. The result is New Narratives on the Peopling of America: Immigration, Race, and Dispossession, just published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

It includes a chapter by Swarthmore Professor Emerita of History Allison Dorsey titled, “Reclaiming Humanity: Black History and the Cultivation of Empathic Imagination.”

The aim of the book is to provide the basis for a college-level curriculum that tells a broader story of who is here and how they got here (and who is not here).

The authors explore settler colonialism, racialized immigration laws, religious diversity, the role of gender in immigration history and policy, the labor dimension of migration, queer perspectives, refugees, the possibility of inter-group coalitions, demographic change — and more.

In my own essay, I suggest a new account attuned to both the inclusions and exclusions (and the terms of those inclusions and exclusions) that have occurred throughout U.S. history. I build the testament on four elements: moving beyond the usual “immigration story” to the broader conception of peopling; recognizing that both the people and territory of the United States are provisional, with significant changes over time and more to come; coming to grips with race-based and other exclusions that contradict the congratulatory story generally embraced by the “nation of immigrants” narrative; and embracing national pride in the fact that the United States remains a place to which millions of people from around the world seek to come and stay.

Finally, I propose a new way to look at the Statue of Liberty — not just as iconic welcome lighting the way to America, but also as a light for those seeking to go out from America. From this perspective, immigrants are not just “citizens in waiting”; they are also, in the age of increasing mobility, bridges to the world.