Week 11: Migration, Mobility & Borders: Reading Response

Allison Brown HIST 5400: Migration, Mobility & Borders Dr. Hampton October 27, 2022 Reading Response - Week 11 Stephen Porter in Benevolent Empire: U.S. Power, Humanitarianism, and the World's Dispossessed (2017) examines the role of political refugee aid initiatives and work from other humanitarian organizations issued by the U.S. from the close of World War I to the beginnings of the Cold War, or what is defined as the short American century. Looking at a variety of different cases of refugee resettlement efforts and immigration political for political refugees and others, Porter presents questions and an argument of how and why the U.S. issued these refugee programs for individuals who were fleeing conflict, political turmoil, or religious persecution. To make this argument, Porter discusses not only the role of the government and policy, but also how NGOs and humanitarian efforts as well as individual businesses and local entities play a role in the resettlement and increase of refugees and 1 immigrants in the U.S. A broader argument that Porter constructs is that often the U.S. is motivated by ethical, cultural, and geopolitical reasoning to take in these refugees, but in turn the U.S. presents itself as exceptional in taking in these populations to itself and other international bodies and states. Through this presentation, Porter also argues that these intakes of refugees and immigrants, combined with the exceptional U.S. attitude, led to the United States’ ability to become a global, “benevolent empire.” In Chapter 7, Porter utilizes on the example of Cuban migration into the United States, through Miami and Florida following the rise of Fidel Castro in 1959 and how this shift in migration policies and unprecedented number of political refugees reshaped federal immigration policies. Running parallel to these developing policies as well, the discourse of the Cold War impacts dialogue and the acceptance of Cuban refugees. This resettlement of Cubans in turn in the U.S. through federal aid and welfare stoked “resentment from Americans who believed that the Cubans were being treated too well by their host country. This had also occurred with the arrival of previous refugees, but now, as a considerable amount 1 Stephen R. Porter, Benevolent Empire: U.S. Power, Humanitarianism, and the World’s Dispossessed (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017) pg. 3 of taxpayers’ dollars were being given to the latest group of exiles, the federal government could be seen 2 as more directly and broadly culpable.” These ideals and resentments were only amplified by Americans when Cuban refugees began to settle outside of Miami and Florida and in turn changed how and where aid was delivered to refugees in the U.S. from populations prior as this shift “represented as well a wider sea change in American refugee affairs, a dramatic departure from the relationship between what had long been the operational heart and soul of America’s diffuse resettlement network, the voluntary agencies, and a state largely willing to commit only relatively limited resources to refugees’ adjustment in the United States.”3 This shift in U.S. migration in my opinion cannot be unlinked from the broader discourse and foreign policy changes brought by the Cold War, how this shifted historiographically is also noted in Porter’s work and helps to construct broader changes in policies. Through this example of Cuban refugees and immigration, Porter also highlights the role of humanitarian and religious efforts in settling immigrants. In a connection to one of our previous readings for this course, Julio Capó Jr.’s to Welcome Fairyland: Queer Miami Before 1940 (2017), the context in which ideals towards Miami as a centre of Cuban refugees and immigration plays a role in developing sentiments of Cuban immigration more broadly.4 Porter writes of different movements in the U.S. through Congress as well as other avenues that tensions in Miami over welfare, and increased Cuban populations allowed for it to be “‘a convenient scapegoat for Miami’s ills’… The bold and unprecedented federal welfare program for the Cubans in Miami had assuaged their unacceptable material plight, but that same program fomented untenable social and political resentment. The welfare program initially designed to sustain the policy of large-scale Cuban 5 admissions was now challenging that policy’s continued viability.” 2 pg. 198 3 pg. 201 4 Julio Capó Jr., Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami Before 1940 (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). 5 pg. 198 Discussion Questions “While proponents of more robust refugee admissions often used powerfully articulated human rights rationales to justify a policy change, various factors once again pushed against their goal. First, the would-be refugee immigrants from Syria boasted no significant group of national comrades in the United States to vigorously advocate on their behalf. Second, political imperatives that had once driven Americans to support refugee programs they believed would convince the world of the country’s benevolence still existed, but seemingly in a less vigorous state. The prospects for increased admissions diminished further beginning in late 2015 when extremists tied to the group calling itself the Islamic State launched attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California. The voices of support for some of the world’s most desperate refugees sounded faint amid renewed cries to keep them out of the United States.” (219) 1.) In what ways does the dialogue of American exceptionalism in human rights/taking in refugees differ to the surrounding discourse of the U.S. on different political groups? 2.) How does race influence whether the U.S. is to act as a “benevolent empire”? 3.) Is geopolitics the driving factor in the U.S. acceptance of Cuban refugees? Or is the driving factor the ongoing threat of communism and the USSR? Would the U.S. have accepted refugees from Cuba if not for the direct threat of the USSR?