220110 Migration and Ethnic Discrimination in the Americas (K) (WiSe 2016/2017)

Discriminatory migration policies in the Americas started to be enacted with the very process of nation-building in the still young democratic states. Since the 19th century, nationality and immigration laws were openly used in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean to prevent the immigration of ethnic groups that were considered “inferior” or “undesired”, especially Asians and Africans. This was not just decreed from above by the governments in charge, but a policy that also had its roots in the fears of a working class that came under pressure on an increasingly competitive labor market. This course provides an overview of the changing (and more often than not quite entangled) discriminatory migration policies in the Americas in the 19th and 20th century. We will give special attention to the discussion of basic analytical terms and concepts like migration/mobility, ethnic or racial (self-) adscriptions, and the construction of (trans-) national, regional, and local identities.