A Nation of Immigrants?

America is often referred to as a land of liberty: a nation built by immigrants, arms open to welcome the refugees arriving at our borders. However, Americans have also been forced to leave their homes in the past 250 years. Fleeing discrimination, climate crises, and the shadows of war, American refugees have faced uncertain welcomes and the pain of exile.

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The bosom of America is open to receive…the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations” -George Washington, 2 December 1783

_{Welcome to all! Color lithograph by J. Keppler in Puck, 1880}

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Four California Stories

Here, the California Migration Museum tells four stories of American refugees. Learn about the Black citizens who left San Francisco in the 1850s; the “Okies,” who fled the Dust Bowl only to be turned back at the California border; the U.S. citizens who were coerced into returning to Mexico during the Great Depression; and the young men who passed through Berkeley on their way to Canada in the 1960s, determined to escape the Vietnam Draft.

_{Martial law on Colorado border stops migratory laborers, 1936. Photo by Arthur Rothstein.}

The History We Remember

At a time when American history is at risk of being erased, these stories remind us of past moments when the ideals of America were stretched so thin that some citizens felt they had no choice but to leave and seek a better future elsewhere. Their stories raise questions that are startlingly relevant to the times we live in today. How does a culture of hostility coerce people into “self-deporting” – sometimes to a place they’ve never visited? Can we take the right to travel freely across US state borders for granted? When does emigration become an act of political resistance? How can we shape the future of California – a state in which almost / more than 10 million of us are immigrants?

I no longer recall the number of our political exiles, but it was more than too many and disgraceful for a nation prideful of its democracy".  -Arthur Miller on the McCarthy era, 17 June 2000

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_{Migrant worker on California highway, 1935. Photograph by Dorothea Lange.}

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