Abstract
ABSTRACT This essay troubles the romanticized US American “nation of immigrants” narrative through its relationship to Black diasporic histories of migration. The Immigration Act of 1924 codified white ethnocentrism in US American citizenship rights, and thus represented a potential challenge to Black American citizenship claims. Here we reflect on Black American rhetorical practices as a mode of worldmaking; of laying claim to putatively white space and US American citizenship. Through this lens, Black migration and consequent transformation of space functions as a transgressive practice for a people who are perpetually positioned outside of nationality, a way of reclaiming ownership over the spoils of unwilling labor. These Black rhetorical practices echo through the diaspora, as those who built but do not own push back against the ontological negation of ethnonationalist citizenship and immigration policies dictated by white and western imperial powers, in favor of speaking themselves into belonging.
Published Version
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