Historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez has spent much of her career examining the connections between race, immigration, and the power of the state. In her new book 'Racist by Design: Two Centuries of US Immigration Control,' she traces the history of American immigration policy back more than two centuries, arguing that race has been central to the ways the nation has regulated who can enter, remain, and belong.
Hernandez is the Thomas Lifka Endowed Chair of History at UCLA and the author of 'Migra,' 'City of Inmates,' and 'Bad Mexicans. She is also a 2019 MacArthur Fellow, she brings decades of scholarship to the history of American immigration control.
