Undesirables: Queering the History of U.S. Immigration Policy

Julio Capo, Jr., author of Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940, will give a talk on the regulation of sexual and gender difference at the U.S. borders. Capo will provide a historical overview of the critical ways sexuality and gender have collided with constructions of race and ethnicity to create “desirable” and “undesirable” categories of migrants and immigrants. This talk will focus on two case studies from the Caribbean: Bahamian workers who entered Florida in the 1910s and 1920s and the Mariel boat lift of 1980 that saw roughly 125,000 Cubans enter the United States.