Borders and Immigration
Wall between U.S. and Mexico in Arivaca, Arizona (Photo by Nils Huenerfuerst)
Our 2025 Special Topic Series
The Dialogue Project’s new special topic series examines the theme of borders and immigration through the lens of multiple disciplines. Around the globe, pressing political, environmental, and social challenges connect intricately with human migration. From resource scarcity and extreme weather driving movement across borders to political violence forcing millions to flee their homelands, and displaced people grappling with basic human health, the multifaceted study of immigration—and the debate over legal and illegal immigration policies—has never been more timely or complex.
Experts and practitioners from the fields of history, sociology, anthropology, fiction, film, and political policy will lead conversations on key issues through panel discussions, conferences, and courses.
The Dialogue Project offers this special topic series in partnership with the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, and will also highlight related courses from across the Arts and Sciences.
Affiliated Courses
Courses across the Arts and Sciences relate to this year’s special topic series, including the following:
“The overwhelming complexity of today’s border dynamics necessitates that we apply an interdisciplinary lens if we are to understand what is at stake for our society and our nation.”
Desirée Garcia, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Latin American, Latino, & Caribbean Studies
Mexico As Border? Power, Violence, and the Future of U.S.-Mexico Relations
Tuesday, April 1
4:30–6:30 p.m.
Filene Auditorium and live stream
The implementation of restrictive U.S. immigration policies at the U.S.-Mexico border has increasingly depended on the cooperation of Mexico’s ruling Morena Party. An esteemed panel of experts offers an exploration of the Morena Party’s past and the future of the U.S.-Mexico relationship. With President Donald Trump’s greater scrutiny of the alleged traffic of narcotics across the U.S.-Mexico border, how will Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s new president, manage the influence of cartels and defend Mexican sovereignty?
Panelists Alex Aviña (Arizona State University), Benjamin Smith (University of Warwick), Ariel Rodriguez Kuri (Colegio de México) and Adela Cedillo (University of Houston) will publish a dossier with Nexos that discusses how Morena came to power, why it maintains popular support in Mexico, and how it has dealt with challenges created by its neighbor to the north. The dossier constitutes one of the first scholarly assessments of Mexico’s ruling party. This event promises to provide the Dartmouth community a unique opportunity to see U.S.-Mexico relations from the Mexican perspective, and to assess the future of immigration policy under the second Trump presidency and the new Sheinbaum administration.
If Not Immigrants, Who? Food Labor in the Era of Mass Deportation
Tuesday, April 29
5–7 p.m.
Moore Hall B03 and live stream
Only one-third of farm workers in the United States are U.S.-born, leaving most of our food system reliant on immigrant labor, including a significant number of undocumented workers. President Trump’s initiation of mass deportation raises the question: Who will harvest the crops? This panel will consider the cost of mass deportation to the U.S. food system and explore alternatives to immigrant labor, including proposed expansions of guest worker programs and mechanization. This distinguished panel represents a range of experts, from a local farm owner to an international farm consultant, to scholars and advisors of government agencies and farm justice organizations.
Children of Cuarón: Speculative Futures Through Cinematic Fiction Conference
Feb. 20-22
Schedule and panelists
Authors, filmmakers, historians, and literary scholars convene for a series of film screenings and panel discussions that explore how speculative fiction in literature and film provides opportunities to discuss some of the most pressing concerns now confronting our global society.
Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 film Children of Men includes graphic depictions of border spaces and the mass deportation of immigrants, set within a near future in which sterility and environmental crises have hardened political borders and destroyed social bonds. Border crossing, environmental decline, childbirth, and women’s bodies are also themes in Octavia Butler’s novels Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. In these creative works the date in which the “futures” are set has either arrived (Butler’s 2024) or is about to arrive (Cuarón’s 2027), which makes this conference timely for 2025.
Read an Arts & Sciences story about the conference.
Panel Conversation: What Is Mass Deportation?
Monday, Jan. 13, 4-6 p.m.
Filene Auditorium and livestreamed
The Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies hosted a panel of experts to shed light on the U.S. immigration system. Matt Garcia, Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of History, Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, and Human Relations, moderated a discussion featuring University of Illinois historian Adam Goodman, Brown University anthropologist Ieva Jusionyte, and UCLA sociologist Cecilia Menjívar.
Read the Dartmouth News story about this event.