Imagine walking into a college classroom in early 2025, not knowing whether the people around you feel safe, angry, terrified, or all three. Outside, immigration enforcement has become visible in a way many Americans have never experienced. Inside, students are asking questions that have no easy answers: Who belongs here? What does the Constitution promise? Why do some immigrants get welcomed and others treated as threats? For professors who teach American history, these are not abstract questions. They are the questions of the moment, made urgent by raids, detentions, and a political climate that often feels hostile and unpredictable. In…

At first glance, this is not a story. It is a block of geographic data, the kind that sits quietly behind an online form: a menu of states, a blank line for a zip code, a long scroll of countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. It might appear when you order a package, register to vote, open a bank account, or sign up for a streaming service. In the language of software, these are “required fields”—functional, neutral, unemotional. They exist to make sure your order arrives at the right door, your ballot is counted in the right precinct, your records are…