Immigrants Archives - Public Seminar

Germany Holds Up a Mirror for America

The rise of the AfD, “Alternative for Germany,” now the nation’s most popular political party

October 6, 2025 • by Bruno Heidlberger

On May 2, 2025, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X that Germany was “not a democracy, but a tyranny in disguise.” True extremism, he said, lay not in the “popular AfD” but in the “deadly immigration policy of the establishment with open borders, which the AfD rejects.” Rubio's ...

Literature

Poet Paisley Rekdal Summons the Lost Voices of Chinese Railroad Workers

Poetry on the landscape of race, past and present

September 24, 2024 • by Aditi Bhattacharjee

The transcontinental railroad—one of the great engineering feats of US history—was laid thanks to the labor of Chinese immigrants: between 1865 and 1869, some 12,000 Chinese workers constructed the western line. Yet very little evidence remains in the words of the workers themselves. “This is not to say there are ...

Poet Paisley Rekdal Summons the Lost Voices of Chinese Railroad Workers

Literature

How We Became/Become: Latinidad, Identity, and Love

PEN America World Voices Festival authors discuss how writing helps us understand ourselves

September 6, 2023 • by Eloisa Amezcua, María Fernanda Ampuero, José Olivarez and Javier Zamora

Poet Eloisa Amezcua, Zamora, Olivarez, and Ampuero explore how writing helps us grasp our identity, our sociopolitical context, and provokes deeper conversations about love....

How We Became/Become: Latinidad, Identity, and Love

Migration

The Dilemma of a Fragmented Self

Mass migrations, language, and the future of identity

November 9, 2022 • by Ken Hu

How can language create such a convoluted way of experiencing the everyday world? We can explore this phenomenon with two linked concepts: the speech act and the discourse community. ...

Uncategorized

What A Korean American Will Find in Minari

And what most Americans will miss about the Oscar-nominated film

April 15, 2021 • by Hannah H. Kim

_____When Parasite came out, I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. Looking back, it was for the same reason that I – a philosophy graduate student at Stanford – resisted Asian philosophy for six years: I didn’t want to be a typical Asian taking interest in Asian things. I wanted to ...

What A Korean American Will Find in <em>Minari</em>

Migration

Post-Workers of the World, Unite!

Reconciling Open Borders and Post-Work Politics

December 6, 2019 • by James Chamberlain

Labour party members passed a motion at the 2019 conference asserting that “free movement, equality and rights for migrants are socialist values and benefit us all.” This socialist framing of freedom of movement emphasizes that migrants are workers and marks a clear contrast with Bernie Sanders’s description of open borders as a “right-wing ...

Migration

In the Shadow of Auschwitz

Reflections on America’s Asylum Policies in the Age of Trump

October 25, 2019 • by T. Alexander Aleinikoff

This odd combination of events sparked a number of thoughts which I offer now after further reflection. I will not enter into the discussion of whether the detention facilities to which children have been confined in the U.S. are or are not similar to concentration camps; nor am I arguing ...

Feature

Immigrants Demand Permanent Residency

Hundreds march in Washington DC on February 12th

February 15, 2019 • by Jo Freeman

About 500 people came to Washington DC from different states to march from the White House to the Capital demanding that they be allowed to stay in the United States. February 12 was a cold and rainy day. Most of them came here under Temporary Protected Status from 13 different countries. President ...

Education

University Faculty Should Welcome “Foreign Influences,” Not Police Them

Indiana University instructs faculty to comply with all laws and regulations regarding foreign influences

January 14, 2019 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

I just received the letter at bottom in a mass e-mailing to Indiana University faculty. It instructs faculty about the importance of complying with all laws and regulations regarding the disclosure of “foreign influences.” The sender, a high official of the University, is also a smart colleague who I respect. And ...

University Faculty Should Welcome “Foreign Influences,” Not Police Them

Feature

When Food Becomes Political

The Netflix series Chef’s table shows why we take cooking seriously

November 8, 2018 • by Veronica Alfaro Ahumada

Cooking shows, as a genre, have long fascinated the American public. From the beloved figure of Julia Child cooking French food, to the travel adventures of Anthony Bourdain, the genre is continuously evolving and attracting a growing number of followers vicariously experiencing foreign cuisines and cultures. Netflix’s documentary series, Chef’s Table, is ...

Feature

The Big Chill

How Trump’s ‘public charge’ rule would harm New York children

October 20, 2018 • by David Dyssegaard Kallick and Jennifer Jones Austin

The Trump Administration is on the brink of putting a cruel price tag on permission to be in this country. Unless an immediate public outcry stops a new policy from becoming effective, many immigrants will be separated from their homes, employers will lose their employees, and most wrenching of all, ...

Feature

For Immigrants, It’s Increasingly Home, Home In The ‘Burbs

New York suburbs are attracting newcomers

October 16, 2018 • by Kristen Lewis and Sarah Burd-Sharps

It’s no news that New York City, home to Ellis Island and long the gateway for immigrants into the United States, continues to attract newcomers. But what is new is how much the suburbs of New York have become immigrant magnets as well. Of the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, greater New ...