ABSTRACT
A sweeping analysis of people crossing land, oceans and seas unpacks the connections between migration and racism. By concentrating on the movers, most analyses of migration ignore the dehumanizing impact of migration on the people who were already there. Migration is hegemonic in its production of new social systems aimed at producing profit through the exploitation of people and resources. It has a racist core construction wherein the system deploys racially codified groups in opposition to one another for the advantages of a small core group. An analysis of phases of migration from the Caribbean conquest to English colonization, United States expansion and global capitalism also examines the forced migration of subordinate groups. Five hundred years of immigration, forced migration, displacement and extermination of racialized populations in the Americas have always been driven by the dual processes of producing a racially dominant group and maintaining racially subordinated peoples for labor exploitation, historical land takings and ongoing resource development.
