We have always moved.

Illustration of a multigenerational group walking across an East African lake valley at dawn.

Africa → beyond

Humanity spread through many migrations.

Illustration of North African, Levantine, and European travelers on a Roman road.

Road to Rome

Three continents met on these roads.

Historical illustration of Sephardic Jewish families arriving at an Ottoman Mediterranean port in 1492.

Iberia → Ottoman lands

Expelled from Spain. Resettled across the Mediterranean.

Historical illustration of French Huguenot refugee families arriving on the English coast in 1685.

France → England

Persecution drove French Protestants abroad.

Illustration of an Irish family waiting beside a packet ship in 1847.

Ireland → North America

Hunger crossed the Atlantic with them.

Railroad laborers working among rocks near the opening of Summit Tunnel in the Sierra Nevada.

China → Sierra Nevada

They cut a railroad through the Sierra.

Stereoscopic photograph of immigrants awaiting examination inside Ellis Island.

Cork → Ellis Island

Millions arrived through one island.

Italian mother and children standing among luggage in the Ellis Island baggage room in 1905.

Italy → New York

A family, and everything they could carry.

Crowded deck of the Komagata Maru in Vancouver in 1914.

Punjab → Vancouver

Racist law kept 376 passengers offshore.

Close portrait of a Syrian woman photographed at Ellis Island.

Syria → New York

One person. Not a wave.

Mexican agricultural laborer topping sugar beets near Stockton, California, in 1943.

Mexico → California

Recruited for labor. Kept temporary.

Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru surrounded by refugees during the 1947 Partition of India.

Punjab → India and Pakistan

A border appeared. Millions had to move.

Hungarian refugees arriving from a Red Cross train in Utrecht on November 14, 1956.

Hungary → Utrecht

Nearly 200,000 fled the crushed uprising.

Asian Ugandan refugees and their luggage inside a Canadian reception centre in 1972.

Uganda → Canada

Expelled from Uganda. Resettled in Canada.

Vietnamese refugees waiting in a small boat during a U.S. Navy rescue in 1984.

Vietnam → open sea

Eight days at sea. Then rescue.

Bosnian refugees arriving with their belongings at an asylum centre in Haarlem in December 1992.

Bosnia → Netherlands

They arrived with what survived.

Syrian refugees gathered outside Stockholm Central station in September 2015.

Syria → Stockholm

Syria to Stockholm, by train and on foot.

Ukrainian refugees resting on rows of seats inside a Romanian train station in 2022.

Ukraine → Romania

A station became a shelter.

Speculative image of diverse civilian families arriving at a Mars colony in 2050.

Earth → Mars

The first Martians will be immigrants.