migrant workers — Bunk History

A drilling crew in the Hawk's Nest Tunnel.

On Raymond Thompson’s “Appalachian Ghost”

Black miners were intentionally erased from the record of the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster. A new book reinserts them into the narrative.

by Jody DiPerna via Belt Magazine on June 20, 2024

Still life painting, “Early American, Apples in a Porcelain Basket” (2007), by Sharon Core.

After Apple Picking

The decline of South Carolina's apple industry, interwoven with personal memories of family orchards.

by Mark Powell via Oxford American on March 23, 2021

A young Black girl picking cotton.

Rings of Fire

Arsenic cycles through racism and empire in the Americas.

by Jayson Maurice Porter via Distillations on February 1, 2024

A man walking down an unpaved street in an impoverished Appalachian neighborhood.

What the Best Places in America Have in Common

The Index of Deep Disadvantage reflects a more holistic view of how we can define "poverty."

by H. Luke Shaefer, Timothy J. Nelson, Kathryn J. Edin via The Atlantic on August 5, 2023

A photograph of James Eads How superimposed over a photograph of vagrant workers at a train station.

St. Louis' Wealthy "King of the Hobos"

Labeled a local eccentric, millionaire James Eads How used his inherited wealth to support vagrant communities.

by Marc Blanc via Belt Magazine on February 8, 2023

Farmers working in an orchard.

The Unlikely Supporters of a Bill That Would Increase Guest Workers

The history of guest worker programs should give pause to supporters of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.

by Matt Garcia via Made By History on December 14, 2022

Khalifa International Stadium near Doha, Qatar.

Qatar, the World Cup & the Echoes of History

How stadiums in Qatar connect to a bridge in Kentucky and a dam in West Virginia.

by Jason Steinhauer via History Club on December 4, 2022

Cover of "The Deportation Express"

How American Deportation Trains Represent a Century of American Immigration Policy

"The Deportation Express: A History of America through Forced Removal" traces the historical roots and spatial routes of systemic denial, arrest, and removal from the United States.

by Ethan Blue via University Of California Press Blog on April 1, 2022

Harvesting on a Louisiana sugar plantation, 1875; an overseer monitors laborers in the field, while a factory billows smoke in the background.

Making Sugar, Making ‘Coolies’

Chinese laborers toiled alongside Black workers on 19th-century Louisiana plantations.

by Moon-Ho Jung via The Conversation on January 13, 2022

Tarred as a “coolie race,” the Chinese were cast as a threat to free white labor. Train with fire around it and a face in the back.

America Was Eager for Chinese Immigrants. What Happened?

In the gold-rush era, ceremonial greetings swiftly gave way to bigotry and violence.

by Michael Luo via The New Yorker on August 20, 2021

A Border Patrol agent stands by an opening in the U.S. Mexico Border wall.

Trump’s Border Wall Belongs to Biden Now

A border policy divorced from history can’t do what policymakers want.

by Kevan Q. Malone via Made By History on April 11, 2021

Drawing of head of lettuce

The Lettuce Workers Strike of 1930

Uniting for better wages and working conditions, a remarkably diverse coalition of laborers faced off against agribusiness.

by Elizabeth E. Sine, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on November 27, 2020

A picture of a man and a graffiti wall

The Origins of an Early School-to-Deportation Pipeline

Appeals to childhood innocence helped enshrine undocumented kids’ access to education. But this has also inadvertently reinforced criminalization.

by Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez via NACLA on November 6, 2020

Things as They Are

Dorothea Lange created a vast archive of the twentieth century’s crises in America. For years her work was censored, misused, impounded, or simply rejected.

by Valeria Luiselli via New York Review of Books on October 29, 2020

A violinist and a guitarist play at a square dance in Mcintosh County, Oklahoma.

Government Song Women

The Resettlement Administration was one of the New Deal’s most radical, far-reaching, and highly criticized programs, and it lasted just two years.

by Sheryl Kaskowitz via Humanities on May 1, 2020

A private security guard throws a soccer ball back inside the Tornillo detention camp for migrant teens in Tornillo, Texas, Dec. 13, 2018.

A Historian on How Trump’s Wall Rhetoric Changes Lives in Mexico

The U.S. did not always find it necessary to lock up people seeking asylum.

by Ana Raquel Minian, Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker on February 15, 2019

The Making of an Iconic Photograph: Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother

The complex backstory of one of the most famous images of the Great Depression.

by Jason Kottke via kottke.org on January 31, 2019

Before Black Lung, the Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster Killed Hundreds

A forgotten example of the dangers of silica, the toxic dust behind the modern black lung epidemic in Appalachia.

by Adelina Lancianese via NPR on January 20, 2019

How Not to Build a “Great, Great Wall”

A timeline of border fortification, from 1945 to the Trump Era.

by Greg Grandin via Tom Dispatch on January 13, 2019

Trump looks at border wall construction prototypes.

The Hole in Donald Trump’s Wall

As long as Americans continue to flood into Mexico, the wall will do little to deter crossings.

by Tore C. Olsson via Made By History on January 9, 2019

When The U.S. Government Tried To Replace Migrant Farmworkers With High Schoolers

When the blazing sun came up on the teenagers' first day of work, "everyone looked at each other, and said, 'What did we do?'"

by Gustavo Arellano via NPR on August 23, 2018

Piecing Together a Border’s History, One Love Letter at a Time

Finding a puzzle from the past in a family member’s basement.

by Miroslava Chávez-García via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 16, 2018

How Crossing the US-Mexico Border Became a Crime

Only in the past 100 years has unauthorized immigration become a crime.

by Kelly Lytle Hernández via The Conversation on April 30, 2017

Dam from a distance

The Book of the Dead

In Fayette County, West Virginia, expanding the document of disaster.

by Catherine Venable Moore via Oxford American on December 6, 2016

The Mine Wars

The desire for dignity runs deep.

by Randall MacLowry via PBS on January 26, 2016

37 Maps That Explain How America Is a Nation of Immigrants

It's impossible to understand the country without knowing who's been kept out, who's been let in, and how they've been treated once they arrive.

by Dara Lind via Vox on January 12, 2015

Illustration of the Georgia Peach.

The Georgia Peach: A Labor History

The peach industry represented a new, scientifically driven economy for Georgia, but it also depended on the rhythms and racial stereotypes of cotton farming.

by Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on July 1, 2024

1882 newspaper headline following the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The 100-Year-Old Racist Law that Broke America’s Immigration System

The legacy of the Immigration Act of 1924 and the launching of the Border Patrol, which inaugurated the most restrictive era of US immigration until our own.

by Mae Ngai via Public Books on May 28, 2024

Wong Gin Foo to Wong Kim (in Chinese), March 31, 1930.

Paper Sons in the Era of Immigration Restriction

Chinese immigration and the Immigration Act of 1924.

by Ryan Reft via Library of Congress Blog on May 23, 2024

Photo of a homeless person sleeping on the street wrapped in a blanket on top of cardboard.

A Blueprint From History for Tackling Homelessness

During the New Deal, the U.S. knew that economic recovery depended upon housing.

by Jonathan van Harmelen via Made By History on November 2, 2023

brought to you by

© Bunk History