Racist by Design

Historian Kelly Lytle Hernández argues that white supremacy has shaped every aspect of the American immigration regime in this nuanced and powerful new book. She explains how southern states passed some of the nation’s first immigration bans to restrict Black arrival in response to the 1791 Haitian revolution. She shows how the Supreme Court used cases about Chinese exclusion to declare immigration law outside the guardrails of the Constitution. She reveals how early twentieth century eugenicist