The Paradox of the Mexico-U.S. Border

Why is it that at a time when Mexican migration across the Southern U.S. border is historically low, public dialogue surrounding the Mexico-U.S. borderland continues to be divisive and heated? On this episode, Dr. Patrick Spero and Dr. Douglas Massey explore the history and paradoxes of the Mexico-U.S. borderland. They delve into the decades of research that Dr. Massey and colleagues have done for the Mexican Migration Project. Ultimately, they consider what, if any, policy decisions could and should be made to resolve the limbo of undocumented workers and the increasingly bombastic rhetoric around immigration issues in the United States.

Dr. Douglas Massey is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University and an APS Member. He has been the co-Director of the Mexican Migration Project with Dr. Jorge Durand for over 35 years. Dr. Massey has published widely on international migration, race and housing, discrimination, education, urban poverty, stratification, and Latin America, especially Mexico.

• Full recording of Douglas Massey’s talk entitled “The Mexico-U.S. Border in the American Imagination,” APS Meeting, April 2015

• Douglas Massey, “The Mexico-U.S. Border in the American Imagination”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 260 no. 2 (June 2016): 160-177.

• Douglas Massey, “Understanding America’s Immigration ‘Crisis’”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 151 no. 3 (September 2007): 309-327.