Dispatches from the Stars

A WT SPOTLIGHT feature

Reimagining Sanctuary & Asylum through Speculative Migrant Futures

An overwhelming majority of the 43.3 million immigrants who live in the United States today are people of color, with over 11 million of these immigrants being undocumented. This reality reflects the explicit racism of the American immigration system which leads to the disproportionate displacement, detention, and deportation of undocumented Black, Indigenous, and folks of color deemed as “aliens ineligible for citizenship” under white nationalist immigration policy.

DISPATCHES seeks to reimagine citizenship and sanctuary for folks at the intersection of migration and race. How can we envision alien futures that exist within & beyond migration and homelands? If a world of migrant sanctuary without borders should exist, we must be the ones to create it and tell how it happened. Every country carved out of violence unmade and turned towards places we learn to love. Every immigration agency and detention center turned to dust. DISPATCHES invites work that constructs alternate realities for aliens of color, particularly through the lens of Afrofuturism, magical realism, speculative fictions, and other re-renderings of the imagination. DISPATCHES will be edited by Safia Elhillo, Janani Balasubramanian, Alan Pelaez Lopez, and Jess X Snow.

We welcome submissions by all undocumented, noncitizen, and/or 1st generation immigrants of color, as well as all BIPOC globally, who have stories about struggling with obtaining documentation or have otherwise experienced violence under the U.S. immigration system. Submissions will close on November 5th. Submissions are free and all contributors will be paid. We will accept submissions exclusively through Submittable.