Week 3
likely to become a public charge
Key Questions
What does it mean to be a “public charge”? Why have people been historically excluded on the basis that they are “likely to become a public charge”?
What is the historical relationship between immigrants and welfare? How did immigrants become excluded from welfare?
What was Proposition 187? How did it impact the national conversation around immigrants and welfare?
Required Materials:
Sarah Coleman, The Walls Within: The Politics of Immigration in Modern America, “‘To Reward the Wrong Way Is Not the American Way’: Welfare and the Battle Over Immigrants’ Benefits”
Immigration Nerds, “The Origins of Public Charge”
Supplementary Materials:
California State Archives, “Looking Back at Proposition 187 Twenty-Five Years Later”
Jessica Ogilvie, “Proposition 187: Why a Ballot Initiative That Passed In 1994 Still Matters”
Gustavo Arellano, “Prop. 187 Forced a Generation to Put Fear Aside and Fight. It Transformed California, and Me.”
KCET, “187: The Rise of the Latino Vote”
Maddalena Marinari, “Cuccinelli's ‘Bootstraps’ Line Reflects Historical Amnesia of ‘Public Charge’”
Lisa Sun-Hee Park, “Criminalizing Immigrant Mothers: Public Charge, Health Care, and Welfare Reform”
Margot Canaday, The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America, “‘A New Species of Undesirable Immigrant’: Perverse Aliens and the Limits of the Law, 1900-1924”
Hidetaka Hirota, “The Moment of Transition: State Officials, the Federal Government, and the Formation of American Immigration Policy”
Julio Capó Jr., Queer and Trans Migrations: Dynamics of Illegalization, Detention, and Deportation, “‘Prevent Miami from Becoming a Refugium Peccatorum’: Policing Black Bahamian Women and Making the Straight, White State, 1890–1940”
Julio Capó Jr., “The Racist, Sexist, Classist, and Homophobic Past of the ‘Public Charge’ Clause”