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A review by zachcarter
Not a Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
4.0
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is doing the work of writing real history. I often regard Gerald Horne as the greatest living historian for the work he does on settler colonialism and the project of whiteness that was crucial for the establishment of the United States as a country built on genocide and racial slavery. Dunbar-Ortiz continues to add crucial elements to this story, and her follow up to "An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States" did not disappoint.
I want to focus in on one particular passage, as my reading of it coincidentally aligned with a recent viral post about Ron DeSantis. In it, he claims to identify culturally with "the working class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio...This made me God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving." In Chapter 2 of "Not a Nation of Immigrants," Dunbar-Ortiz critiques J.D. Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy," particularly how settlers in Appalachia came to self-indigenize themselves and how that distinction from "whites" in the rest of the country gives them cover for their animus toward Black and indigenous communities. When Donald Trump ran for president in 2015, he (and Vance) used egregious racist dog whistles, then pointed to Appalachia to serve as cover for it. DeSantis - an Italian-American born and raised in Florida who attended Ivy league schools - understands the project of whiteness and the importance of this settler ideology, and wants to get ahead of his policies before he runs for president by self-identifying as a working-class Appalachian. As both Dunbar-Ortiz and Horne remind us, this is not just history - it's the present.
The collection of topics in this book may at times feel like a hindrance - it can jump around a lot while covering so much ground - but I still feel that this is an essential read that continues to paint a picture of America that is both honest and to account.
I want to focus in on one particular passage, as my reading of it coincidentally aligned with a recent viral post about Ron DeSantis. In it, he claims to identify culturally with "the working class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio...This made me God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving." In Chapter 2 of "Not a Nation of Immigrants," Dunbar-Ortiz critiques J.D. Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy," particularly how settlers in Appalachia came to self-indigenize themselves and how that distinction from "whites" in the rest of the country gives them cover for their animus toward Black and indigenous communities. When Donald Trump ran for president in 2015, he (and Vance) used egregious racist dog whistles, then pointed to Appalachia to serve as cover for it. DeSantis - an Italian-American born and raised in Florida who attended Ivy league schools - understands the project of whiteness and the importance of this settler ideology, and wants to get ahead of his policies before he runs for president by self-identifying as a working-class Appalachian. As both Dunbar-Ortiz and Horne remind us, this is not just history - it's the present.
The collection of topics in this book may at times feel like a hindrance - it can jump around a lot while covering so much ground - but I still feel that this is an essential read that continues to paint a picture of America that is both honest and to account.