Cruelty as Citizenship: How Migrant Suffering Sustains White Democracy

Why are immigrants from Mexico and Latin America such an affectively charged population for political conservatives?

More than a decade before the election of Donald Trump, vitriolic and dehumanizing rhetoric against migrants was already part of the national conversation. Situating the contemporary debate on immigration within America’s history of indigenous dispossession, chattel slavery, the Mexican—American War, and Jim Crow, Cristina Beltrán reveals white supremacy to be white democracy...