Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

by Patty Krawec

The story of America as a nation of proud immigrants is a myth, one that Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz unpacks in her book Not “A Nation of Immigrants.” Put simply, immigrants come to a place and join with the existing political order. Settlers come to a place and impose a political order. Those who came here by force—such as African people who were enslaved—or those who come through desperation—such as economic or climate refugees or those fleeing war—are welcomed by that political order only according to their usefulness. Those seen as threats are contained in prisons and migrant detention centers, just as Native people were contained in reservations. The United States has never been “a nation of immigrants.” The Haudenosaunee offered settlers a kind of immigration—a way to join with the existing political order through the Two Row Wampum. Instead, the United States chose to become a settler-colonial nation, imposing a new order.