Bootlegged Aliens: How Undocumented Immigrants from Canada in the 1920s Shaped American Immigration Policy

Dr. Ashley Johnson Bavery explains how undocumented European immigrants coming over the Canadian border to work in the Detroit auto industry in the 1920s and 1930s spurred nativist discourse, influenced government policies toward illegal immigration, and shaped how business and labor unions used and positioned migrant labor. Dr. Bavery is Assistant Professor of History at Eastern Michigan University and author of Bootlegged Aliens: Immigration Politics on America’s Northern Border. Related Collections: AFL-CIO Metropolitan Detroit Records Joe Brown Papers Civil Rights Congress of Michigan Records Richard Frankensteen Papers International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit Records Henry Kraus Papers James Lindahl Papers Maurice Sugar Papers United Community Services Central Files Related Resources: Bavery, A.J. (2020). Bootlegged Aliens: Immigration Politics on America’s Northern Border. University of Pennsylvania Press. Episode Credits Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English Interviewer: Dan Golodner Interviewee: Ashley Johnson Bavery Music: Bart Bealmear