America's Immigration Divide

How America’s current polarization is based upon historic regional lines

An Interview with Colin Woodard, Director of Nationhood Lab

at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs.

Colin Woodard is an American journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist,  known for his books American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, the New York Times bestseller  The Republic of Pirates, for the book Lobster Coast, a cultural and environmental history of coastal Maine, as well as three others. As Director of Nationhood Lab Woodard's project is focused on counteracting the authoritarian threat to American democracy and the  forces threatening the U.S. federation’s stability. 

Using the American Nations model Woodard demonstrates how unevenly foreign immigration has been spread and how it’s changed over the course of the past 125 years. The outgrowths of those divergent historical experiences and resulting cultural legacies help explain the current regional attitudes and divides over immigration policy. He shows how Americans, by and large, continue to see the country as a nation of immigrants and reject radical anti-immigrant policies. But as with this and other issues, in our federated and triple-branched system, public support alone is no guarantee of the political outcome.

Colin Woodard, is the author of six books including American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

 Woodard is interviewed by Pulitzer prize winner, screenwriter and novelist David Freed.