Showing Revision 6 created 11/06/2019 by Oliver Friedman.

1. Title:
   Our immigration conversation is broken -- here's how to have a better one
2. Description:

   How did the US immigration debate get to be so divisive? In this informative talk, historian and writer Paul A. Kramer shows how an "insider vs. outsider" framing has come to dominate the way people in the US talk about immigration -- and suggests a set of new questions that could reshape the conversation around whose life, rights and thriving matters.

3. Speaker:
   Paul A. Kramer
4. 472 0:00 - 0:05
   We often hear these days
   that the immigration system is broken.
5. 4954 0:05 - 0:10
   I want to make the case today that
   our immigration conversation is broken
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   and to suggest some ways that, together,
   we might build a better one.
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   In order to do that, I'm going
   to propose some new questions
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   about immigration,
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   the United States
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    and the world,
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    questions that might move the borders
    of the immigration debate.
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    I'm not going to begin with the feverish
    argument that we're currently having,

    ¶

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    even as the lives and well-being
    of immigrants are being put at risk
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    at the US border and far beyond it.
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    Instead, I'm going to begin
    with me in graduate school
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    in New Jersey in the mid-1990s,
    earnestly studying US history,
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    which is what I currently teach
    as a professor at Vanderbilt University
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    in Nashville, Tennessee.
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    And when I wasn't studying,
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    sometimes to avoid
    writing my dissertation,
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    my friends and I would go into town
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    to hand out neon-colored flyers,
    protesting legislation
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    that was threatening to take away
    immigrants' rights.
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    Our flyers were sincere,
    they were well-meaning,

    ¶

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    they were factually accurate ...
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    But I realize now, they were also
    kind of a problem.
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    Here's what they said:
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    "Don't take away immigrant rights
    to public education,
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    to medical services,
    to the social safety net.
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    They work hard.
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    They pay taxes.
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    They're law-abiding.
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    They use social services
    less than Americans do.
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    They're eager to learn English,
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    and their children serve
    in the US military all over the world."
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    Now, these are, of course, arguments
    that we hear every day.
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    Immigrants and their advocates use them
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    as they confront those who would
    deny immigrants their rights
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    or even exclude them from society.
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    And up to a certain point,
    it makes perfect sense
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    that these would be the kinds of claims
    that immigrants' defenders would turn to.
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    But in the long term,
    and maybe even in the short term,

    ¶

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    I think these arguments
    can be counterproductive.
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    Why?
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    Because it's always an uphill battle
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    to defend yourself
    on your opponent's terrain.
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    And, unwittingly, the handouts
    my friends and I were handing out
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    and the versions of these arguments
    that we hear today
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    were actually playing
    the anti-immigrants game.
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    We were playing that game
    in part by envisioning
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    that immigrants were outsiders,
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    rather than, as I'm hoping
    to suggest in a few minutes,
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    people that are already,
    in important ways, on the inside.
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    It's those who are hostile
    to immigrants, the nativists,
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    who have succeeded
    in framing the immigration debate
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    around three main questions.
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    First, there's the question of whether
    immigrants can be useful tools.

    ¶

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    How can we use immigrants?
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    Will they make us richer and stronger?
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    The nativist answer
    to this question is no,
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    immigrants have little
    or nothing to offer.
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    The second question is whether
    immigrants are others.

    ¶

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    Can immigrants become more like us?
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    Are they capable of becoming more like us?
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    Are they capable of assimilating?
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    Are they willing to assimilate?
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    Here, again, the nativist answer is no,
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    immigrants are permanently
    different from us and inferior to us.
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    And the third question is whether
    immigrants are parasites.

    ¶

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    Are they dangerous to us?
    And will they drain our resources?
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    Here, the nativist answer is yes and yes,
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    immigrants pose a threat
    and they sap our wealth.
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    I would suggest that these three questions
    and the nativist animus behind them
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    have succeeded in framing the larger
    contours of the immigration debate.
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    These questions are anti-immigrant
    and nativist at their core,
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    built around a kind of hierarchical
    division of insiders and outsiders,
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    us and them,
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    in which only we matter,
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    and they don't.
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    And what gives these questions
    traction and power
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    beyond the circle of committed nativists
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    is the way they tap into an everyday,
    seemingly harmless sense
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    of national belonging
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    and activate it, heighten it
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    and inflame it.
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    Nativists commit themselves
    to making stark distinctions

    ¶

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    between insiders and outsiders.
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    But the distinction itself is at the heart
    of the way nations define themselves.
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    The fissures between inside and outside,
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    which often run deepest
    along lines of race and religion,
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    are always there to be
    deepened and exploited.
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    And that potentially
    gives nativist approaches resonance
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    far beyond those who consider
    themselves anti-immigrant,
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    and remarkably, even among some
    who consider themselves pro-immigrant.
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    So, for example,
    when Immigrants Act allies
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    answer these questions
    the nativists are posing,
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    they take them seriously.
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    They legitimate those questions
    and, to some extent,
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    the anti-immigrant assumptions
    that are behind them.
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     When we take these questions seriously
     without even knowing it,
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     we're reinforcing the closed,
     exclusionary borders
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     of the immigration conversation.
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     So how did we get here?

     ¶

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     How did these become the leading ways
     that we talk about immigration?
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     Here, we need some backstory,
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     which is where my history
     training comes in.
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     During the first century of the US's
     status as an independent nation,
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     it did very little to restrict
     immigration at the national level.
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     In fact, many policymakers
     and employers worked hard
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     to recruit immigrants
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     to build up industry
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     and to serve as settlers,
     to seize the continent.
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     But after the Civil War,
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     nativist voices rose
     in volume and in power.
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     The Asian, Latin American,
     Caribbean and European immigrants
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     who dug Americans' canals,
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     cooked their dinners,
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     fought their wars
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     and put their children to bed at night
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     were met with a new
     and intense xenophobia,
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     which cast immigrants
     as permanent outsiders
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     who should never be allowed
     to become insiders.
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     By the mid-1920s, the nativists had won,

     ¶

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     erecting racist laws
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     that closed out untold numbers
     of vulnerable immigrants and refugees.
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     Immigrants and their allies
     did their best to fight back,
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     but they found themselves
     on the defensive,
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     caught in some ways
     in the nativists' frames.
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     When nativists said
     that immigrants weren't useful,
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     their allies said yes, they are.
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     When nativists accused
     immigrants of being others,
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     their allies promised
     that they would assimilate.
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     When nativists charged that immigrants
     were dangerous parasites,
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     their allies emphasized
     their loyalty, their obedience,
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     their hard work and their thrift.
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     Even as advocates welcomed immigrants,
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     many still regarded immigrants
     as outsiders to be pitied, to be rescued,
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     to be uplifted
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     and to be tolerated,
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     but never fully brought inside
     as equals in rights and respect.
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     After World War II, and especially
     from the mid-1960s until really recently,

     ¶

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     immigrants and their allies
     turned the tide,
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     overthrowing mid-20th century restriction
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     and winning instead a new system
     that prioritized family reunification,
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     the admission of refugees
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     and the admission of those
     with special skills.
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     But even then,
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     they didn't succeed in fundamentally
     changing the terms of the debate,
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     and so that framework endured,
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     ready to be taken up again
     in our own convulsive moment.
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     That conversation is broken.
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     The old questions
     are harmful and divisive.
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     So how do we get from that conversation

     ¶

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     to one that's more likely to get us
     closer to a world that is fairer,
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     that is more just,
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     that's more secure?
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     I want to suggest that what we have to do
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     is one of the hardest things
     that any society can do:
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     to redraw the boundaries of who counts,
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     of whose life, whose rights
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     and whose thriving matters.
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     We need to redraw the boundaries.
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     We need to redraw the borders of us.
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     In order to do that, we need to first
     take on a worldview that's widely held
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     but also seriously flawed.
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     According to that worldview,
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     there's the inside of the national
     boundaries, inside the nation,
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     which is where we live, work
     and mind our own business.
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     And then there's the outside;
     there's everywhere else.
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     According to this worldview,
     when immigrants cross into the nation,
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     they're moving from
     the outside to the inside,
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     but they remain outsiders.
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     Any power or resources they receive
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     are gifts from us rather than rights.
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     Now, it's not hard to see why
     this is such a commonly held worldview.

     ¶

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     It's reinforced in everyday ways
     that we talk and act and behave,
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     down to the bordered maps
     that we hang up in our schoolrooms.
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     The problem with this worldview
     is that it just doesn't correspond
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     to the way the world actually works,
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     and the way it has worked in the past.
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     Of course, American workers
     have built up wealth in society.
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     But so have immigrants,
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     particularly in parts of the American
     economy that are indispensable
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     and where few Americans work,
     like agriculture.
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     Since the nation's founding,
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     Americans have been inside
     the American workforce.
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     Of course, Americans have built up
     institutions in society
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     that guarantee rights.
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     But so have immigrants.
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     They've been there during
     every major social movement,
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     like civil rights and organized labor,
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     that have fought to expand
     rights in society for everyone.
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     So immigrants are already
     inside the struggle
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     for rights, democracy and freedom.
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     And finally, Americans
     and other citizens of the Global North

     ¶

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     haven't minded their own business,
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     and they haven't stayed
     within their own borders.
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     They haven't respected
     other nations' borders.
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     They've gone out into the world
     with their armies,
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     they've taken over
     territories and resources,
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     and they've extracted enormous profits
     from many of the countries
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     that immigrants are from.
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     In this sense, many immigrants are
     actually already inside American power.
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     With this different map
     of inside and outside in mind,
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     the question isn't whether
     receiving countries
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     are going to let immigrants in.
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     They're already in.
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     The question is whether
     the United States and other countries
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     are going to give immigrants
     access to the rights and resources
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     that their work, their activism
     and their home countries
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     have already played
     a fundamental role in creating.
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     With this new map in mind,
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     we can turn to a set of tough,
     new, urgently needed questions,
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     radically different from the ones
     we've asked before --
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     questions that might change
     the borders of the immigration debate.
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     Our three questions are
     about workers' rights,
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     about responsibility
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     and about equality.
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     First, we need to be asking
     about workers' rights.

     ¶

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     How do existing policies make it harder
     for immigrants to defend themselves
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     and easier for them to be exploited,
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     driving down wages, rights
     and protections for everyone?
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     When immigrants are threatened
     with roundups, detention and deportations,
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     their employers know
     that they can be abused,
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     that they can be told
     that if they fight back,
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     they'll be turned over to ICE.
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     When employers know
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     that they can terrorize an immigrant
     with his lack of papers,
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     it makes that worker hyper-exploitable,
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     and that has impacts
     not only for immigrant workers
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     but for all workers.
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     Second, we need to ask questions
     about responsibility.

     ¶

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     What role have rich, powerful
     countries like the United States
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     played in making it hard or impossible
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     for immigrants to stay
     in their home countries?
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     Picking up and moving from your country
     is difficult and dangerous,
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     but many immigrants simply do not have
     the option of staying home
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     if they want to survive.
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     Wars, trade agreements
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     and consumer habits
     rooted in the Global North
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     play a major and devastating role here.
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     What responsibilities
     do the United States,
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     the European Union and China --
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     the world's leading carbon emitters --
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     have to the millions of people
     already uprooted by global warming?
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     And third, we need to ask
     questions about equality.

     ¶

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     Global inequality is a wrenching,
     intensifying problem.
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     Income and wealth gaps
     are widening around the world.
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     Increasingly, what determines
     whether you're rich or poor,
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     more than anything else,
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     is what country you're born in,
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     which might seem great
     if you're from a prosperous country.
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     But it actually means
     a profoundly unjust distribution
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     of the chances for a long,
     healthy, fulfilling life.
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     When immigrants send money
     or goods home to their family,
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     it plays a significant role
     in narrowing these gaps,
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     if a very incomplete one.
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     It does more than all
     of the foreign aid programs
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     in the world combined.
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     We began with the nativist questions,

     ¶

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     about immigrants as tools,
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     as others
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     and as parasites.
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     Where might these new questions
     about worker rights,
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     about responsibility
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     and about equality
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     take us?
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     These questions reject pity,
     and they embrace justice.
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     These questions reject
     the nativist and nationalist division
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     of us versus them.
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     They're going to help prepare us
     for problems that are coming
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     and problems like global warming
     that are already upon us.
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     It's not going to be easy to turn away
     from the questions that we've been asking

     ¶

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     towards this new set of questions.
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     It's no small challenge
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     to take on and broaden the borders of us.
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     It will take wit,
     inventiveness and courage.
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     The old questions have been
     with us for a long time,
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     and they're not going
     to give way on their own,
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     and they're not going
     to give way overnight.
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     And even if we manage
     to change the questions,
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     the answers are going to be complicated,
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     and they're going to require
     sacrifices and tradeoffs.
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     And in an unequal world, we're always
     going to have to pay attention
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     to the question of who has the power
     to join the conversation
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     and who doesn't.
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     But the borders of the immigration debate
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     can be moved.
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     It's up to all of us to move them.
290. 974542 16:15 - 16:16
     Thank you.

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291. 975774 16:16 - 16:19
     (Applause)

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