Interview with David G. Gutierrez

On February 16th, 2022 we interviewed David G. Gutierrez, a historian at UCSD in San Diego. David spoke to us about the origins of the fear of immigrants that we see so heavily in the US today. He then spoke to us about why we see the fear today. We learned about how the immigrant population is on the rise, as Latino immigrants on average have more children then white Americans. This leads to white Americans fearing that they may lose control, and lose their power.

We asked David about his various projects and books, and the book that he is currently writing, Antinomies of the Nation: Citizens and Non-citizens in a Transnational Age. David said that this project was very important to him, and he has analyzed and spent so much time researching how this spike in immigration, or rather how  this spike in the attention giving to immigration has come to be. He said that the Trump presidency took on these issues differently than any administration had before, leading to hostile treatment of the immigrants in this country. Lastly, David said that these issues have always been present, but up until recently, they hadn’t been paid attention to, and this leads to a massive phobia of immigrants and immigration in general.

Our interview with David gave us great historical insight into immigration and issues involving immigration.