Racist by Design: A Conversation with Kelly Lytle Hernández

A Conversation with Kelly Lytle Hernández about her new book, "Racist by Design: Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration Control" Join us on Saturday, November 7, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. as we host historian and UCLA professor Kelly Lytle Hernández for a free talk on her new book, “Racist by Design: Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration Control.” The book takes a critical look at the whites-only roots of the American immigration regime, examining how generations of lawmakers and law enforcers built a system that favored white immigrants while targeting nonwhite immigrants for exclusion, punishment and removal. During the program, Professor Lytle Hernández, an advisor to the Museum’s newest temporary exhibit “Help Wanted / Leave Now: ‘Operation Wetback’ & the Revolving Door of Mass Deportation,” will sit down with fellow exhibit advisor Pablo Espinoza for a one-hour discussion, including an audience Q&A. Afterward, Professor Lytle Hernández will sign copies of the book, and guests can enjoy free guided tours of “Help Wanted / Leave Now,” on view through January 10, 2027. Light refreshments will be provided. Space is limited and advance registration is required. MEET THE AUTHOR Kelly Lytle Hernández Kelly Lytle Hernández holds The Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History at UCLA. One of the nation’s leading experts on race, immigration, and mass incarceration, she is the founder of Million Dollar Hoods, which maps the fiscal and human cost of mass incarceration in Los Angeles, the co-founder of Mapping Deportations, which has mapped every deportation in U.S. history, and the author of the prize-winning books, Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol(2010), City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles(2017), and Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands (2022). Her forthcoming book, Racist by Design: Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration Control, will be published by W. W. Norton in October 2026. In 2019, Professor Lytle Hernández was named a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow. She is also an elected member of the Society of American Historians, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Pulitzer Prize Board.