The Diversity Bell That Trump Can’t Un-ring

To be sure, many of these diverse people living within the borders of the United States were by design invisible. They were not all citizens. The first census of the United States, in 1790, counted “slaves,” “free white males” over the age of 16, “free white males” under the age of 16, “free white females,” and “all other free people,” a sort of catchall used for nonwhite people who were not enslaved. Moreover, the United States in the late eighteenth century only had a small geographic footprint, and much of the North American continent’s diversity was located outside of it. Even if African Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, and Asian Americans are recognized as part of the nation now, they wouldn’t necessarily have been counted as part of America then. Much of the nation’s diversity now is the result of relatively recent legislation such as the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which President Lyndon Johnson signed into law during a ceremony at the base of the Statue of Liberty, and which Republicans have bemoaned ever since.

Yet none of these considerations diminishes the fact that many of the diverse peoples living in the United States today descended from these diverse communities in the past; or, even if they aren’t direct descendants, they see some of their own experiences reflected in those of earlier inhabitants who shared their culture. They want to learn their history in order to understand their place in the United States today. They seek their own roots in the larger story of their nation. Their experience of the United States hews much more closely to Rodriguez’s understanding of the country than to Huntington’s, so the challenge right now is to keep asserting Rodriguez’s version of history more than Huntington’s. This project faces significant headwinds, but like the wind blowing from the west, and rivers that run deep and steady, there’s also an incredible demand for it that will not cease.

As much as Trump and Christopher Rufo may not like it, the classes on Latino history that I teach at Northwestern have had full enrollment for several years now. Each time I teach one, I try to incorporate some new directions of the field, including a growing focus on Afro Latino communities, Indigenous Latinos, and gender discrimination, subjects driven by blossoming scholarship. Since 2022, I’ve also been teaching a Latino history course for the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. The course is full of high school history teachers who are hungry for more content to teach their Latino students and others. In the three years that I’ve taught it, more than 500 instructors from more than 35 states (and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Mexico) have enrolled, including the expected blue states but also red states like Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Texas, and even Nebraska.