Immigration and the Making of the United States

Catalog description

"Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history," Oscar Handlin, 1951. Immigration has been one of the most powerful forces shaping the United States. From the earliest colonial settlements to contemporary debates over borders, refugees, and belonging, migration has continually remade American society, politics, culture, and the economy. This course introduces students to the history of immigration to the United States, examining why people migrated, how governments regulated mobility, and how newcomers transformed the United States while maintaining attachments to their countries of origin. Rather than treating immigration as a single story, the course explores many migrations - voluntary and forced, documented and undocumented, welcomed and resisted. We will discuss the experiences of enslaved Africans, European settlers, Asian and Latin American migrants, refugees, queer migrants, and more recent global arrivals. At the same time, we will analyze how immigration policy, border enforcement, global politics, labor markets, race, and citizenship have shaped who has been allowed to enter, who has been excluded, and who belongs. Students will read major works of scholarship and examine a range of historical sources, including letters, photographs, government records, oral histories, and films, in order to explore how migrants experienced movement, settlement, and exclusion. Throughout the quarter, we will connect past migrations to contemporary issues such as asylum, deportation, detention, and debates over national identity. By the end of the course, students will understand how migration has been central to the development of the United States and will gain the historical tools needed to interpret today's immigration debates with greater depth and nuance.