Not a Nation of Immigrants

Monday, October 11, 2021 - 1:00pm
CDT
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

It used to be called Columbus Day, named after that murderous explorer who “discovered” land in the western hemisphere, opening the way for European imperial expansion into this half of the globe.Now that day is called Indigenous Peoples Day or First Peoples Day, honoring those who were here before the immigrants came from Europe.

The Center for Global Justice marks this day with a talk by historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz who will discuss her new book Not a Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion.Widely acclaimed for her earlier Indigenous Peoples History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s new book, just release by Beacon Press, debunks the pervasive and self-congratulatory myth that our country is proudly founded by and for immigrants. She urges readers to embrace a more complex and honest history of the United States.

The official ideology is harmful and dishonest because it serves to mask and diminish the US’s history of settler colonialism, genocide, white supremacy, slavery, and structural inequality, all of which we still grapple with today.She explains that the idea that we are living in a land of opportunity—founded and built by immigrants—was a convenient response by the ruling class and its brain trust to the 1960s demands for decolonialization, justice, reparations, and social equality. Moreover, Dunbar-Ortiz charges that this feel good--but inaccurate--story promotes a benign narrative of progress, obscuring that the country was founded in violence as a settler state, and imperialist since its inception.

UPCOMING TOURS

March 3, 2025 to March 7, 2025

We will depart from San Miguel early in the morning to Patzcuaro, where we will spend three days. We will visit the most important buildings and churches in Patzcuaro and also visit a number of nearby indigenous villages:

Upcoming Forums & Films

Monday, January 13, 2025 - 1:30pm
CST
Jeff Faux
Location:
Join in Person at the Hotel Quinta Loreto Community Room

We are a week before the inauguration of an unstable megalomaniac, totally unfit to be president. His loyalists control the Congress and the Supreme Court. And his stated agenda could destroy American constitutional democracy.  Yet his political opposition hasn’t a clue how to respond.

The issue is not whether the Democrats... Read more

Monday, February 3, 2025 - 1:00pm
CST
José Alfredo Gutiérrez Falcón
Location:
Join in person at the Hotel Quinta Loreto Community Room

While much of the world is shifting to the right, Mexico is moving in a progressive direction. In 2018, the electoral victory of Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA party) initiated "The Fourth Transformation" which is working, against entrenched opposition,... Read more