California Needs to Get Over Its Fantasy of Constant Growth
California has an official state flower (poppy), an official state insect (the dogface Butterfly), even an official state theater (the Pasadena Playhouse). But no official state sport. Unless you count...
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Tattoos Are Proof We Exist
Pressed up against the Pacific Ocean and the county line, my hometown of Long Beach is the last city in Los Angeles. Since its founding in 1897, Long Beach has long been a sanctuary city for dreamers...
View ArticleSend California Your Anchor Babies
You better anchor me, baby. Because I find it impossible to write with restraint when politicians start using babies—babies using babies!—to prey on prejudice and misinform the public in the service of...
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The Contradictory Legacy of the 1965 Immigration Act
At a time when immigration has become a polarizing and toxic topic in our politics, it’s worth remembering that 50 years ago this week President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality...
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America’s Immigration Policy Needs Less Emotion and More Reason
Whether you agree or disagree with America’s current or past immigration policies, it’s hard not to shake your head at one distinctively American aspect of immigration policymaking—how it tends to...
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Was the 1965 Immigration Act a Failure?
For as long as America has proclaimed itself a welcoming country of immigrants, policies have been in place to keep specific classes of people out. Naturalized citizenship was limited to “free white...
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America Needs an Integration Policy
The United States takes in far more legal immigrants each year than any other nation on Earth, more than a million. We Americans have a great deal of confidence in our ability to welcome and integrate...
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The 1965 Immigration Act That Became a Law of Unintended Consequences
“It’s complicated.” This might be an appropriate way to characterize via Facebook the legacy of the 1965 Immigration Act, one of the biggest changes to the flow of people into America. At a...
View ArticleGermany Is No Stranger to Refugee Crises
“If we now have to start apologizing for showing a friendly face in response to emergency situations, then that’s not my country.” With these words, German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her...
View ArticleCan Museums Create Common Ground in Diverse Societies?
The world is in the throes of a terrible refugee crisis, and we are in the middle of a national immigration debate here at home. Both show no signs of abating. As Europeans argue over what to do with...
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Home Is Wherever There Is Peace
Growing up in my hometown of Caracas, I wanted nothing more than to be seen as a sifrina. To be, in Venezuelan slang, counted among the rich kids—a spoiled, fashionable city girl with money to waste...
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How a Refugee from the Nazis Became the Father of Video Games
It’s perhaps fitting that the man recognized as the father of the video game, that quintessential American invention, was a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, whose personal story converged with America’s...
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The Japanese-American Flower Growers Who Made Phoenix Bloom
When my high school orchestra teacher found out my family owned a Japanese flower garden in Phoenix, Arizona, he made a confession: He had once snuck into those fields. He stole flowers to propose to...
View ArticleFor Refugees in America, Even the Light Switches Can Be Bewildering
In the aftermath of the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, politicians in the U.S. have voiced skepticism about the arrival of foreigners on their shores—and even question the motives of...
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Why Cologne Will Keep Welcoming Refugees
The pastry shop Cup Cakes Cologne has put two fancy cakes in its shop window. One cake shows German chancellor Angela Merkel in the style of a red angel. The other spells “Refugees welcome to Köln”...
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The Japanese-American Officer Who Helped Take Down and Then Rebuild Japan
When I first met Harry Fukuhara, in 1994, he was orchestrating a Tokyo press conference for Japanese Foreign Ministry officials, former Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, and veterans of the...
View ArticleYes, I’m Muslim—and German
Wars across Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan have sent millions of refugees fleeing to Europe in recent years, the majority of them Muslims. How to integrate these refugees into liberal (but often...
View ArticleGerman Identity Is Too Black and White
Özcan Mutlu, a member of Germany’s Bundestag, says that while in America eclectic heritages are sources of pride, in Germany, you’re either German or you’re not. He spoke at the Zócalo Public...
View Article‘Brexit’ Is a Losing Game
In 1975, the United Kingdom voted on quitting Europe for the first time—just two years after it had joined the European Economic Community. A flip in power from the pro-European Conservative Party to...
View ArticleMy Transnational Son Has a Passport to Optimism
A couple of weeks ago, my 3-year-old son, Max, agreed to let me take him to school by bicycle. This was momentous because recently he’s been insisting that we are crocodiles, and thus incapable of...
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