immigration | The Port Rail

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Biden Administration to Deliver Peace and Prosperity to Central America, Part 2

May 4, 2021

Returning to where we left off last week, the United Fruit Company emerged as one of the great titans in American commerce and industries, so controlling in Latin America that the Costa Ricans had a nickname for it, “Mamita Unai,” or “Mama Uni.” Much money was made, but most went to American banana importers and […]

Biden Administration to Deliver Peace and Prosperity to Central America, Part 1

April 12, 2021

This is part 1 of a two-part Port Rail on the history of the Americas, North, Central, and South, and the current immigration crisis or challenge or whatever you want to call the open border policy the Biden administration has put into place with respect to the border and immigration. If it hasn’t become perfectly […]

Taking a Privilege

March 19, 2020

I am taking a privilege today to tell you about a forthcoming visit to the University by Ambassador Lino Gutiérrez, former U. S ambassador to both Nicaragua and Argentina. He served as U. S. ambassador to Nicaragua from 1996-1999 and as ambassador to Argentina from 2003-2006. Ambassadors hold the highest foreign service assignment to the […]

Violence in Latin America

January 19, 2019

The latest immigrant crisis at the border between the U.S. and Mexico to keep us occupied over the past few months raised a serious question, not to say that the immigrant crisis is not serious enough. And the question begs some good answers in the U. S. media and among those who run this country, […]

Things were always better back when….

December 2, 2018

We’ve heard old timers say frequently that things were always better long ago in their youth. Music, morality, mothers and just about any category you can think about are remembered fondly and with great longing for the past. But, was it all that great? Well, some would say–definitely. Today we even have a word for […]

The New Hispanic America

December 2, 2018

A few years ago, I discovered a Hispanic in my home. Awkkk, what’s happening here? The invasion of the Mexican gardeners? Confession: when I first came to Tuscaloosa in 1972 to teach Latin American history at UA, there were hardly any Spanish speakers in town, other than a few odd balls like me and the […]

Immigration, Redux

February 11, 2017

It is time to visit immigration-land once again, especially to correct many absurd and patently wrong assumptions about this hot button issue. The first immigrants to North America were, of course, the ancestors of the American Indians who arrived maybe fifteen or twenty thousand years ago. The second wave of immigrants were your ancestors and […]

On Walls

February 11, 2017

You know, as an historian, one can get cynical about the human condition. A short sampling of modern “wall” phrase making might include the following: Ronald Reagan: “Tear down this wall!” Donald Trump: “Build the wall!” Robert Frost: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” And we could add the more memorable line in […]

Immigration and the Bible

April 24, 2016

When not tending my garden or working on my current writing projects, my attention is often drawn to life today and life yesterday. Or, put another way, my tendency is to compare how we live today and how we lived yesterday. And by yesterday I feel free to range from yesterday, literally, which would be […]

Immigrants in U. S. and Europe Vastly Different

February 15, 2015

I am going to explore the obvious here, but sometimes the obvious is, well, so obvious that we tend to ignore it. At its simplest level, the major streams of modern immigration into Europe are vastly different from the major streams of modern immigration into the United States. Most of the immigrants going into Europe […]