A Tale of Two Venezuelan Diasporas

After a Forced Exodus, We’re All Rebuilding Our Lives. Geography, Time, and Class Only Seem to Deepen Our Divides

American media covers only two types of the 7 million-plus immigrants who have left Venezuela in the past decade.

The first consists of the refugees and asylum seekers who walked across the border after perilous journeys through South and Central America, pressing their luck in a country with ever-increasing immigration restrictions. Last fall, Governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott turned the plight of nearly 50 of these Venezuelan immigrants into a cruel political theater when they loaded them in buses and planes to move them outside of their states. Neither worried …

by José González Vargas | May 1, 2023

How Does Culture Immigrate?

Artists and Scholars Explore the Ways Their Work Helps Them Understand Homeland

by Talib Jabbar | March 17, 2022

Home can be physical or imagined—a point of departure and return but also a memory or feeling. When migrants and immigrants move across borders, they bring along the places they …

My Jewish Ancestors Fled Spain. Will Returning Feel Like Home—Or Just Another Diaspora?

Pursuing the Country’s Offer of Citizenship Feels Like Claiming Privilege When What I Want to Claim Is Justice

by Kathleen Alcalá | April 29, 2021

When the government of Spain passed a law that offered citizenship to the descendants of Jewish people expelled 500 years ago by the Inquisition, half the people I knew sent …

What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Local’ in Hawai‘i?

A Honolulu-Born Mainlander Reflects on How Demographic and Economic Change Are Making an Idealized Aloha State Identity Obsolete

by Peter Hong | October 9, 2018

The story of the modern Hawai‘i diaspora is a paradox: Many of us who grew up in Hawai‘i in the second half of the 20th century developed a powerful sense …

How Venezuela’s Oil Riches Fueled a Literary Explosion

In the Mid-20th Century, Writers Seized on the Conflicts Laid Bare by Petroleum's Power to Reshape Society

by José González Vargas | October 5, 2018

On December 14, 1922, a gusher of petroleum was discovered in Zulia, a rural area of western Venezuela. For nine days the oil showered onto the surrounding farmland, scaring the …

Hurricane Maria ‘Lifted the Veil’ on Puerto Rico’s Broken System

The Island Must Confront Past Mismanagement, or Face Outsize Future Disasters

by Fernando Rivera | September 18, 2018

On September 20, 2017, when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, the media, government officials, and the American public were in awe when the island lost electricity and went dark. More …

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