Introduction

Abstract

The opening chapter of Visions of Invasion explains both how and why the alien invader became a central figure in U.S. popular culture. The alien begins as a political figure in the early settler colonial U.S., imagined as a threat to the newly formed nation. Since then, the alien persona has become associated both with migrants to the United States and with science fiction tales of extraterrestrial invasion. This chapter defines the concepts of assemblage theory and rhetorical materialism that will frame the discussion of “alien-making” throughout the book. Alien-making is a rhetorical process that relies on manufacturing technologies of visibility, which, along with violent political discourses, subject migrants as alien invaders to fulfill the settler colonial fantasy of imminent threat from abroad. I contend that this process is not limited to Hollywood, but is an integral part of U.S. anti-migrant policy.