A Political and Literary Forum
Coast Guard techniques for blocking Haitian asylum seekers have their roots in the slave trade. Understanding these connections can help us disentangle immigration policy from white nationalism.
Ryan Fontanilla
The pandemic risks turning immigration detention into a death sentence for many, yet the Trump administration has rejected calls for mass humanitarian release, and continues to deport infectious detainees to Latin America.
Lauren Carasik
When Celes Tisdale led poetry workshops at Attica State Prison, soon after the 1971 uprising, some of the prisoners were still recovering from gunshots. Their writings demonstrates the power of poetry to help oppressed people heal from trauma and organize their political thinking.
Mark Nowak
An ancient pilgrimage route inspires a project of cooperative storytelling which pairs writers with detained immigrants, such as the Mexican horticulturalist in this story.
Lytton Smith, David Herd
Amidst chants of “send her back,” it’s clear that we need a more just conception of citizenship—one that abolishes the distinction between “natural” and naturalized citizens.
Stephanie DeGooyer
A leaked Department of Homeland Security database confirms what many suspected: the U.S. government is trying to punish and intimidate people advocating for immigrant rights.
A reading list on surveillance, security, and citizenship-for-sale.
Rosie Gillies, Boston Review
We have surrendered the cherished value of “innocent until proven guilty” for the security logic that we are all “risky until proven safe.”
Matthew Longo
The violent theft of land and capital is at the core of the U.S. experiment: the U.S. military got its start in the wars against Native Americans.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
The Fourteenth Amendment was shaped by freed blacks’ insistence that everyone born in the United States deserved full citizenship.
Robert L. Tsai
A new anthology is dedicated to the scholar who saw nostalgia as a radical rebellion against modern ideas of time.
Marta Figlerowicz
Trump v. Hawaii is not about religion. It’s about the president’s unlimited power at the border.
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
Vital reading on politics, literature, and more in your inbox
Most Read
Robin D. G. Kelley
Alex de Waal
Michael Patrick Lynch
Jedediah Britton-Purdy, Amy Kapczynski, David Singh Grewal
Charisse Burden-Stelly
Copyright © 1993-2021 Boston Review and its authors.
Support Boston Review
Make a tax-deductible donation today