Gilder Lehrman Center Symposium: The US-Mexico Border and Race: Past and Present

Sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition

through generous support from the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies’ Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund, Yale University

IN-PERSON ONLY | REGISTER VIA THE LINK ABOVE

Xenophobia has “existed alongside and constrained America’s immigration tradition, determining just who can enter our so-called nation of immigrants and who cannot.”

–Erika Lee, America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States (Basic Books, 2019): 7

“Immigration restriction is a species of segregation on a large scale, by which inferior stock can be prevented from both diluting and supplanting good stocks.”

—Prescott Hall, founder of the U.S. Immigration Restriction League, 1912

This symposium explores how the US-Mexico border historically has been constructed through the politicization of race and segregation of communities. The racialization of the border and the crises it creates demonstrates the United States’ longstanding exclusionary approach towards foreign-born people seeking entry and belonging to the nation. In recent decades, in the name of “border security,” Democratic and Republican administrations alike have used various means to harden the U.S. Southern border and control the flow of migrants, asylum seekers, and goods—from restrictions on work visas and the asylum process, to increased physical barriers, surveillance technologies, and militarized enforcement mechanisms. As we enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century, however, the xenophobia embedded in U.S. immigration policy is revealing itself with disturbing clarity through widespread ICE raids, warrantless detention, family separation, concentration camps, deportation, and foreign imprisonment. At the same time, communities within the borderlands continue to develop creative modes to survive and resist these exclusionary forces. Free and open to the public, the program features panel discussions as well as a break-out session for teachers.

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

SATURDAY, MAY 2, 2026

8:30am–9:15am - Registration and continental breakfast (Luce Hall Common Room)

9:15am–9:30am - Welcome (Auditorium)

DAVID W. BLIGHT, Gilder Lehrman Center Director; Sterling Professor of History, Yale University

9:30am–10:30am - Keynote (Auditorium)

SONIA HERNANDEZ, George T. & Gladys H. Abell Professor of Liberal Arts/ History, Texas A&M

10:30am–10:45am - Coffee Break (Luce Hall Common Room)

10:45am–12:15pm - Panel 1: Construction of the US-Mexico Border (Auditorium)

This panel will provide historical context for the construction of a border that is now the world’s most frequently crossed, most profitable, and deadliest migration land route. How did the racialization of national and ethnic identities underpin the move from permeable natural and political boundaries to hardened border regimes?

Moderator: TBD

Speakers:

JUAN F. PEREA (Curt and Linda Rodin Professor of Law and Social Justice, Loyola University Chicago School of Law): History of Race, Slavery, and the U.S. Mexican Border

MONIQUE FLORES ULYSSES (Visiting Professor of History, Wesleyan University): Intellectual history of Mexican migration and racial categorization

GEORGE T. DÍAZ (Associate Professor of History, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley): Early 20th Century experience of ethnic Mexicans in the Texas Prison System

MARLA A. RAMÍREZ (Assistant Professor of History and Chicanx/e & Latinx/e Studies, University of Wisconsin): Mass removals of ethnic Mexicans from the United States during the interwar period (1921–1944)

12:15pm–1:30pm - Lunch (Luce Hall Common Room)

1:30pm–3:00pm - Panel 2: Crisis of Contemporary Border Politics (Auditorium)

This panel focuses on the current prohibitive and restrictive policies that prioritize border security at the cost of human and civil rights. How are borderland communities responding to the violence of the contemporary period? Based on the past and present, what is to be expected from such a foundation as we become a more globalized world?

Moderator: TBD

Speakers:

IVÁN CHAAR-LÓPEZ (Assistant Professor, Department of American Studies, University of Texas- Austin): Race, surveillance, and the automation of border control

AZADEH ERFANI (Director of Policy, National Immigrant Justice Center): Human rights abuses at the U.S.-Mexico border, past and present

CHRISTINA LEZA (Associate Professor, Anthropology, Colorado College): Indigenous activist responses to U.S.-Mexico border enforcement

MELISSA TORRES (GLC Associate Research Scholar; Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley): Migration, labor trafficking, and survival among Indigenous communities in Mexico

3:15–4:30pm - Teacher break-out session (Luce 202 and 203)

K-12 teachers: Informal conversation/ Q&A with select scholars from symposium

Coffee, tea, cold drinks, snacks served