Debunks the pervasive and self-congratulatory myth that our country is proudly founded by and
for immigrants and urges readers to embrace a more complex and honest history of the United
StatesWhether in political debates or discussions about immigration around the kitchen table
many Americans regardless of party affiliation will say proudly that we are a nation of
immigrants. In this bold new book historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz asserts this ideology is
harmful and dishonest because it serves to mask and diminish the US s history of settler
colonialism genocide white supremacy slavery and structural inequality all of which we
still grapple with today.She explains that the idea that we are living in a land of opportunity
founded and built by immigrants was a convenient response by the ruling class and its brain
trust to the 1960s demands for decolonialization justice reparations and social equality.
Moreover Dunbar-Ortiz charges that this feel good butinaccurate story promotes a benign
narrative of progress obscuring that the country was founded in violence as a settler state
and imperialist since its inception.While some of us are immigrants or descendants of
immigrants others are descendants of white settlers who arrived as colonizers to displace
those who were here since time immemorial and still others are descendants of those who were
kidnapped and forced here against their will. This paradigm shifting new book from the highly
acclaimed author of An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States charges that we need to
stop believing and perpetuating this simplistic and a historical idea and embrace the real (and
often horrific) history of the United States.
