Devi Mays Lectures on Forging Ties, Forging Passports: Migration and the Modern Sephardi Diaspora

Forging Ties, Forging Passports is a history of migration and nation-building from the vantage point of those who lived between states. In the aftermath of World War I and the Mexican Revolution, migrants traversed new layers of bureaucracy and authority amid shifting political regimes as they crossed borders. Ottoman Sephardi migrants in Mexico resisted unequivocal classification as either Ottoman expatriates or Mexicans. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the JDC Archives, Mays considers the shifting notions of belonging, nationality, and citizenship through the stories of individuals and families who navigated these transitions in their everyday lives, as well as through the paperwork they carried.

This program is part of the JDC Archives webinar series The Latin American and Caribbean Jewish Experience in the Twentieth Century.

Devi Mays, Ph.D is Associate Professor of Judaic Studies and History at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Forging Ties, Forging Passports: Migration and the Modern Sephardi Diaspora (Stanford University Press, 2020).