In New Narratives on the Peopling of America, editors T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Alexandra Délano Alonso present an extraordinary collection of original essays that reshape our understanding of the peopling of the United States. This thought-provoking volume goes beyond conventional accounts of immigration by reexamining narratives about foreign-born populations in the United States. It situates them as part of a larger story of forced displacement and dispossession that needs to include indigenous people, enslaved persons, deported and returned migrants, and those residing in territories and foreign nations acquired by the United States.
The diverse range of contributors—which include academics, journalists, artists, legal scholars, and activists—confront complex topics such as migration, racial justice, tribal sovereignty, and the pursuit of equality. As nationalism, globalization, and economic challenges reshape the social and political landscape, this timely volume calls for a reevaluation and reconstruction of national narratives of belonging. Challenging nativist tropes and offering broader understandings of collective history, this pathbreaking book centers issues of race and dispossession in the story of the American people.
New Narratives on the Peopling of America is an essential resource for students and a compelling read for general readers seeking a deeper understanding of the complex tapestry of American identity.
Contributors: Neil Agarwal; T. Alexander Aleinikoff; Jill Anderson; Kwame Anthony Appiah; Hana Brown; Alexandra Délano Alonso; Allison Dorsey; Taylor Dow; Maria Cristina Garcia; Justin Gest; Daniel Immerwahr; Jennifer A. Jones; Katy Long; Maggie Loredo; Dakota Mace; Ruth Milkman; Ana Raquel Minian; Carlos Motta; Mae Ngai; Eboo Patel; QUEEROCRACY; Marco Saavedra; Cinthya Santos Briones; Rogers M. Smith; Pireeni Sundaralingam; Héctor Tobar; Jesús I.Valles; Wendy A. Vogt; John Weeks
Presented by The Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility, the Global, Urban, and Environmental Studies (GLUE) and the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center.
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Mae Ngai is a U.S. legal and political historian interested in the histories of immigration, citizenship, nationalism, and the Chinese diaspora. She is author of the award winning Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (2004); The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America (2010); and The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics (2021).
Maggie Loredo (She/Her/Ella) Activist and Co-Director of Otros Dreams en Acción (ODA). She was raised undocumented in Texas & Georgia. Maggie was coerced to return to Mexico in 2008. Since her return to México she has contributed to Los Otros Dreamers (2014) and co-authored the introduction to the second edition of the same book in 2021. She is the impact producer for “El Digno Retorno” film directed and produced by Jose Eduardo Aguilar.
Saavedra has been on the frontlines of immigration justice for nearly a decade. In 2013, he self-deported to Mexico with other Dreamers (“The Dream 9”), crossing the border in solidarity with those who would have benefited from DACA, but were either deported or self-deported before the executive action was announced. Saavedra becomes the first of the Dream 9 to be granted asylum in the U.S.
Cinthya Santos Briones is a visual artist, educator, and cultural organizer with indigenous Nahua roots based in New York. She studied Ethnohistory and Anthropology and for ten years Cinthya worked as a researcher at the National Institute of Anthropology and History in México focused on issues on indigenous migration, codex, textiles and traditional medicine.
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