Latino Social Science Pipeline Initiative

Jeremy Peschard is a PhD candidate in history at Cornell University. His research examines federal immigration exclusions and deportations on psychiatric grounds. His dissertation, titled “Madness and Migration: Race, Immigration, and Mental Illness in the U.S. West,” examines the decades-long consequences of the Immigration Act of 1882, which barred people with physical or mental disabilities from entering the United States. Peschard’s work examines how eugenical fears of the so-called “insane aliens” shaped the development of U.S. immigration law.

Peschard’s dissertation also critically examines historical media rhetoric used to discuss insane aliens. His dissertation analyzes how broader anti-immigrant and eugenicist discourses shaped societal and medical attitudes regarding immigrant groups. He focuses on both the criminalization of mental illness, as well as conditions within state psychiatric hospitals that housed Mexicans, immigrants, and other racialized groups. Through a thorough investigation of these institutions’ archives, Jeremy Peschard explores inequality vis-á-vis the intersections of race, immigration, and psychiatric health in U.S. history. His writing has appeared in the Journal of American Ethnic History, The Washington Post, and the Radical History Review’s Abusable Past.