Podcast Series
The Other Side of the Water:
Immigration and the Promise of Racial Justice
In the weeks leading up to our virtual conference, we are pleased to present “The Other Side of the Water: Immigration and the Promise of Racial Justice” - a six-episode podcast series discussing the intersection of immigration and racial justice. The series will lay the groundwork for the conference by exploring some current racial justice movements for Black immigrants and the influence of Jean v. Nelson.
We are fortunate to be joined by nationally acclaimed writers, scholars, activists, and legal advocates who will share stories and pivotal insights each week and frame the plight of Haitian asylum seekers in the 1970s and 1980s within today’s legal, political and social climate. In giving space to these collective voices, this series will memorialize the individuals, activists and advocates who have been fighting the battle for Black immigrant rights since the 1980s and who continue to do so today.
Listen and subscribe on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
Episodes
Episode 1
Reflections, with Edwidge Danticat
The podcast series begins with a conversation between host Ellie Happel and nationally acclaimed and award-winning writer Edwidge Danticat. Danticat shares personal accounts from her childhood in Haiti, her experience emigrating to the U.S. in 1981, and her work and identity as an immigrant artist. Danticat arrived in the U.S. at a time when thousands of Haitians sought political asylum to escape the political persecution and extreme poverty of the Duvalier regime. The year 1981 also marked the beginning of the U.S. policy to detain immigrants arriving from Haiti and other parts of the world. The detention policy was widely challenged in a series of cases that culminated in Jean, the topic of episode two.
Episode 2
The Story of Jean v. Nelson
In Episode 2, host Raymond Audain revisits Jean and Justice Marshall’s dissent with some of the people closest to the litigation. The episode features Ira Kurzban, Irwin Stotzky, Muzaffar Chishti, Richard Revesz, and Steven Forester.
Episode 3
Anti-Blackness and the Criminalization of Immigrants – Part One
In part one, host Sarah Hamilton-Jiang meets with immigration Professor Alina Das, co-director of NYU School of Law’s Immigrant Rights Clinic; Nana Gyamfi, Executive Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration; and Historian and Associate Professor Carl Lindskoog of Raritan Valley Community College to consider the history of anti-Blackness and criminalization in immigration law. Through this recounting of history, the episode explores the role of anti-Blackness in the development of our modern-day immigration carceral system.
Episode 4
Anti-Blackness and the Criminalization of Immigrants – Part Two
In part two, host Sarah Hamilton-Jiang continues discussions on anti-Blackness in immigration law with Nana Gyamfi of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration and Professor Alina Das. The episode explores the challenges Black immigrants face in the era of Trump, and how to address some of those challenges within the immigrant rights movement.
Episode 5
Movement Lawyering and Immigrant Racial Justice
In episode five, host Ellie Happel returns to explore past and current approaches in organizing, activism, and movement lawyering to vindicate the promise of equal protection for immigrants of color. Featured guests—organizer Ninaj Raoul, Executive Director of Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, and attorney Sejal Zota, Co-Founder and Legal Director of Just Futures Law—discuss how social movements are essential to legal progress, sharing lessons from the 1990s movement for Haitian immigrant rights and more recent organizing to challenge increasingly oppressive immigration laws.
Episode 6
Racial Borders, with E. Tendayi Achiume
The series concludes with a conversation with E. Tendayi Achiume, U.N. Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, and Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. In this episode, Achiume explores the global challenges facing immigrants of color and the “racial borders” that define our world.
Hosts:
Raymond Audain
Senior Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
Sarah Hamilton-Jiang
Legal Research Consultant
Ellie Happel
Haiti Project Director, Global Justice Clinic at New York University School of Law
Production:
Keecee DeVenny, Digital Media Associate, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
Zach McNees, Editor/Mixer