About this episode

This episode explores the historical context of European border crossings and the implications for modern border politics.

"Go back to your country." It’s the favorite phrase of border hawks and armchair historians across the Western Hemisphere. But what happens when we actually crack open a history book and look at the paperwork? In this episode of *The Forefront Radio*, we examine the historical irony of modern border politics. Somewhere between the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria—three ships that nobody’s grandmother filed a visa application for—certain groups decided they were "native" to a continent they hadn't even stepped foot on until the 1490s. From the total absence of European populations pre-1492 to the invention of "whiteness" in the 17th-century Virginia colonies, we trace the timeline of how military invasions got rebranded as "exploration," and how waves of European refugees fleeing their own continent's self-inflicted world wars became the arbiters of who belongs on stolen land. We also dive into the "erasure by paperwork"—unpacking the devastating history of how colonial administrators reclassified Native peoples to seize land, the "Five Dollar Indian" phenomenon, and how this exact same playbook was deployed across…

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Host: The Forefront Radio

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Places: Western Hemisphere, Virginia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina

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