The germ of the idea for this book lodged itself in my mind while I was sitting in a cramped office in Athens, Greece, where I interviewed Médecins Sans Frontières’s director of medical operation support, Apostolos Veizis, about what I then called the migrant “crisis.” He patiently but methodically exposed and shot down every assumption embedded in my neophyte questions. I owe a debt to him for that. The circuitous reconstruction of my ideas about migration and migrants that followed ultimately resulted in this book. The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting made my reporting on asylum seekers in Greece and my visit with Veizis possible. Their support is invaluable to so many journalists. I’m proud to count myself among them.
I wrote the proposal for this book in a narrow, deep valley nestled in the Himalayas, listening to the sounds of a river roaring with glacial meltwater and gazing at the deodars slowly inching their way up the mountains. I couldn’t have hoped for a more visceral and heart-stopping view of the drama of a world on the move and the urgency of addressing it. I thank Geetika Nigam and Ritesh Sharma for their gracious hospitality and the steady supply of egg parathas and chai they delivered to sustain me.
To write this book, I tapped the expertise of scholars in a wide variety of fields, from biogeography and conservation biology to genetics, anthropology, and the history of science. Camille Parmesan’s work on species on the move was especially critical. She was generous with her time, explaining her findings, pointing me to the research of others, and helping me make the contacts that led to my first sightings of checkerspot butterflies. Spring Strahm, Dave Faulkner, and Alison Anderson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shared their butterfly-chasing entomological expertise, as did Stu Weiss of the Creekside Center for Earth Observation. In Vermont, Jeff Parsons led me on a tour of the northern borderlands; in Boston, Pardis Sabeti and her colleagues explained their research deciphering the intricacies of human diversity; in Hawaii, Rebecca Ostertag and Susan Cordell shared their innovative research transcending the native-alien divide; in Texas, the forensic anthropologists Kate Spradley and Tim Gocha allowed me to tag along on their excavation of unmarked migrant graves. I thank them all.
Everywhere I went, I found migrants trapped in detention centers and in refugee camps, and those forced on the run who were willing to speak to me, despite the duress of living in the shadows. I am humbled by their journeys and grateful that they shared them with me. Heroic aid groups and activists, including Syrian-American Medical Society, Médecins du Monde, Frantz André in Montreal, and Pastor Dieufort J. “Keke” Fleurissaint in Boston, organized meetings and translations to make it possible.
I’ve cited only a portion of the scholars who were willing to talk to me. Mark A. Davis, Jonathan Marks, Warwick Anderson, Nils Christian Stenseth, Peder Anker, Hugh Dingle, Alan de Queiroz, and Martin Wikelski were especially generous and forthcoming. Several of them reviewed early versions of the manuscript and offered helpful suggestions, including Reece Jones, Betsy Hartmann, Matthew Chew, and others.
Anthony Arnove has supported my work in many ways for years. Michelle Markley has offered her deep insights. I’m proud to call them friends. Celia and Ian Bardwell-Jones hosted me in the beautiful house they built under Hawaiian volcanoes. Philippe Rivière of Visionscarto not only designed the maps in this book along with Philippe Rekacewicz, he offered critical editorial feedback, too. They gave more than I could have asked for. My agent, Charlotte Sheedy, and my editor, Nancy Miller, and her team at Bloomsbury supported me throughout the development of this book. It wouldn’t exist without them. I thank them all.
When I first started writing this book, I expected to have to dig deep to unearth evidence of antimigrant science in today’s politics. The 2016 election upended those expectations. As anti-migrant rhetoric and policy surged to the forefront of our politics, the evidence I needed appeared in the news seemingly daily. Writing parts of this book became technically easier but psychically harder.
My growing circle of activist friends and allies helped me find light in the darkness. So did my own mongrel tribe of migrants and border crossers: Mark, who always listened, read it all, and took me sailing when I couldn’t think about it anymore; Zakir and Kush, who are models of the kind of grace, engagement, and kindness that those inheriting the climate-disrupted world we’ve created will require; and my parents, who crossed the ocean for a new life and showed me what resilience and courage looked like.