“Guest Workers: Migrant Cultures and Politics, 1918-2018”

As the United States and European nations slam their doors on immigrants, businesses still demand immigrant labor in a climate of economic expansion. As a result, temporary “Guest Worker” programs are once again on the rise. This research project seeks to understand the roots and durability of the guest worker idea on a global scale by examining historical migrants’ own relationship to state-managed migration. It will focus on how the guest worker idea spread from Europe to the Americas during the interwar period and explore the meaning of migration to guestworkers in the postwar decades.