A Brief Note

Buried in end-of-semester grading, but want to point to something I’ll be writing about more as we close out the year: immigration. My class at Rutgers interviews a number of members from three groups in New Jersey that advocate for the undocumented. Most of the people they talked with were undocumented, and there is a real and palpable fear in those communities based on Trump’s promises on deportation and birth-right citizenship. Yes, Trump won a larger percentage of the Latino vote than in the past, a larger portion than any Republican in quite some time. But the reasons are varied, and they demonstrate the fiction of the Latino monolith. National origin and class matter, as do age and education. And a large number of Latinos who have lived and worked here for years and sometimes decades cannot vote and often fear talking publicly. The issue is a fraught one, but should not prevent journalists from reporting — and my students’ willingness to engage on this with enthusiasm is a good sign. More to come.