An insidious terminology has taken root in the United States: it distinguishes “heritage Americans” from the rest of us. It is a euphemism for white Anglo-Saxon Protestants and, increasingly, also for evangelical nationalists. This language is being deployed systematically. In practice, the U.S. Supreme Court has legalized a control apparatus in which ethnicity—even how someone speaks, how they dress, what they do for a living—can be used as justification for federal officials, quasi-military forces such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to detain someone and ask them, “your papers, please.”
In Minnesota right now, ICE’s actions have become a form of state terror—raids, detentions, fear in immigrant neighborhoods, and public protests—and have included lethal force, with the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents. But this is also happening elsewhere, through new processes that are quiet and publicly invisible.
On January 5, 2026, after working for sixteen years at the University of Colorado, the Human Resources Department sent me an email saying that I had not submitted documents proving that I was a legal resident or a U.S. citizen. The university insisted that I had not provided that documentation when I was hired. And I was required to present physical proof of my citizenship (my U.S. passport) to a university official for verification. I am a foreigner in my own country.
The email used the calm language of administration. Was it, as they said, a “routine internal review” applied to everyone? The key sentence was simple: “This step must be completed by presenting original, acceptable documents… Copies are not accepted.”
University staff told me I was not being singled out. But none of the “heritage Americans” in my History Department, with Anglo and German surnames, were asked to come in and physically prove their citizenship. I was: Martínez-Dávila. And a colleague in my department—employed for more than twenty-five years—was also forced to present her papers; yes, she also had a Spanish surname. What are the odds? One hundred percent in the United States.
When I shared this publicly on a professional network, a stranger replied with the kind of phrase that normalizes everything: “Nobody cares. Show the papers and that’s it.” The demand becomes banal, ordinary. Public humiliation becomes something insignificant—something you are told to endure in silence.
What is so alarming—and so disorienting—is that I am descended from Spaniards with Indigenous Mexican roots. My family founded Spanish San Antonio, Texas, in 1718. My genes tell the truth: 33% Iberian, 16% Sephardic Jewish, and 25% Native American. Who, then, is the “heritage American” here?
My family relationship with Texas carries its own archive of paradoxes, embodied in Juan Nepomuceno Seguín: my ancestor. Born in 1806, he was a Texan leader in the revolution for independence. And he was at the Alamo. On February 25, 1836, during Santa Anna’s siege of the Alamo, Juan Seguín was sent by Colonel William B. Travis to request military reinforcements from the Texan general James Fannin. Juan was the only survivor of that ill-fated demonstration of resistance and courage.
The rest is history and the origin of our battle cry: “Remember the Alamo!” Later he organized the only Texan (Hispanic American) company that fought in the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. He then returned to San Antonio and supervised the burial of the Alamo dead.
And then the story turns: after serving in the Senate of the Republic of Texas, growing Anglo hostility toward Texans pushed him to flee with his family to his former enemy, Mexico. In other words: the American founding myth includes Spanish-speaking patriots and, in my case, it is literally blood—as it is for millions of people with Spanish ancestry.
Back to the present. In the United States, someone like me—like millions of people with Spanish ancestry—can be required at any moment to prove their nationality. In Minnesota, the pressure has become visible in the streets. In Colorado, I lived the quieter version: not a raid, not a checkpoint, but an institutional email that ends in the same place: hand over your documents.
Spaniards know—in a way Americans do not—how quickly identity hardens through paperwork. Under Francoism, the state activated the “obligation to present” the national ID card (DNI) and imposed the requirement to prove identity in order to move through ordinary life. I am not saying the United States is Francoist Spain. I am saying this: when institutions normalize documentary demands—and when those demands fall unequally on certain surnames and certain faces—history issues a warning.
In the United States we are “fine” for now… until we aren’t. That is the lie we tell ourselves until the day we can’t anymore.
Last year I began the process of obtaining Spanish citizenship not only for practical reasons, but also profoundly personal ones. As a professor of medieval Spain and Spanish colonial America, I have devoted my life to finding and reassembling that communion with Spain. I feel Spain’s pull as home: my real home. But now love is not the only reason. Need is. I wonder whether I will need that citizenship not as a symbol but as a refuge, before it is too late.
Roger Martínez-Dávila is a professor of medieval Spanish history at the University of Colorado.
A medievalist of Spanish origin in the age of ICE: a foreigner in his own country.
Martínez-Dávila, Roger. “Un medievalista de origen español en los tiempos del ICE: extranjero en su propio país.” El País, February 7, 2026. }=
https://elpais.com/internacional/2026-02-07/un-medievalista-de-origen-espanol-en-los-tiempos-del-ice-extranjero-en-su-propio-pais.html.
I am a historian, digital humanist, and public scholar working to reimagine how the past informs a more connected future. My research explores how Christian, Jewish, and Islamic communities shaped medieval and early modern Europe, especially through Sephardic Jewish and converso histories. I believe the humanities should deepen understanding, foster human connection, and spark imagination across global contexts.
As a researcher, I study identity, migration, and intercultural exchange from medieval Iberia to the early colonial Americas. My book Creating Conversos and my co-curation of Fractured Faiths: Spanish Judaism, The Inquisition, and New World Identities museum exhibition link archival work to contemporary questions of heritage and belonging. By conducting fieldwork in forty archives across Europe and the Americas, I help bring new sources to light for scholars and communities.nds the sources available to scholars and communities.
As an educator, I mentor students and colleagues to think structurally and ethically about the past. I co-directed the NEH-funded Immersive Global Middle Ages Advanced Digital Humanities Institute, guiding international teams using VR/AR to reimagine medieval spaces. My teaching integrates digital archives, mapping, and virtual reconstruction to cultivate interdisciplinary and global learning.
As a public historian, I design participatory pathways into the historical record. I founded Deciphering Secrets: Unlocking the Manuscripts of Medieval Spain, which has enaged nearly 50,000 people via MOOCs to study and transcribe medieval manuscripts, and I advise the BADDO Project on ethical AI in historical interpretation.
Through the Plus Ultra Collective, I build collaborations that unite scholars, technologists, and cultural institutions. My purpose is to help people and institutions reach farther — in imagination, connection, and action — by merging deep historical inquiry with innovative digital practice.
Collaborative and Core Efforts
Plus Ultra Collective
The Plus Ultra Collective combines humanistic studies and technology to deepen understanding of historical examples of intercultural interchange in the Americas, Iberia, and the Mediterranean World.
Immersive Global
Middle Ages
Deciphering Secrets:
Unlocking the Manuscripts
of Medieval Spain
Tne Immersive Global Middle Ages Institute advanced digital humanities, integrating immersive technology with traditional, global, multidisciplinary medieval studies.
A collaborative citizen science project focused on revealing the inter-religious relations of Jews, Christians, Muslims, and religious converts in medieval Spain.
BADDO
Bringing AI to the Discovery of Historiographical Data to Overcome Traditional Barriers, a study to assess the extent to which human expertise influences the objectivity and accuracy of outcomes compared to AI-generated results.
The Queen Sofía
Spanish Institute: America&Spain250
The organizations and individuals behind this initiative are developing educational programs and cultural activities across United States in celebration of 250 years of the relationship between the USA, Spain, and the Spanish-speaking world.
Sephardic Ancestry
A collection of original scholarly writings, primary sources, and peer-reviewed research that illuminates the ancestry amd history of Sephardic Jews from Spain, Portugal, as well as their diasporic migrations after 1492.
Virtual Plasencia
Virtual Plasencia is collaborative entity that is digitally recreating the virtual world of medieval Plasencia, Spain. Windows OS Virtual Plasencia App: Download here (200 Mb). Digital narrative on YouTube.com: View “La Mota”
La Reimaginación de la Edad Media Global:
Un enfoque de inteligencia artificial para explorar los intercambios culturales
Reimagining the Global Middle Ages: An Artificial Intelligence Approach to Exploring Cultural Exchanges
Expertise and Experience
Mentor students and colleagues in immersive, global storytelling — Co-directed the NEH-funded Immersive Global Middle Ages Institute (2021–23), guiding international teams to use VR/AR for experiential learning and digital research through projects like Virtual Plasencia.
Integrate teaching, research, and discovery through collaboration — Founder of Deciphering Secrets, a global citizen-science project training nearly 50,000 participants to transcribe medieval manuscripts, advance paleography, and expand open-access research collections.
Bridge scholarship and public understanding of identity — Author of Creating Conversos and co-curator of Fractured Faiths, connecting archival research on Sephardic and converso histories with contemporary explorations of heritage and belonging.
Lead ethical innovation in AI-assisted scholarship — Advise the BADDO Project (UC3M), developing explainable AI for historical interpretation and mentoring students in data ethics, digital methods, and humanistic research design.
Conduct global fieldwork and interdisciplinary inquiry — Research across 40+ archives in Spain, Portugal, the Vatican, Mexico, Bolivia, and the U.S., linking manuscripts and material culture to museums, educators, and the public.
Build inclusive, international learning communities — Founder of the Plus Ultra Collective, mentoring emerging scholars and coordinating collaborations among universities, cultural institutions, and creative technologists worldwide.
Advance global education through leadership and research excellence — Marie Curie Fellow (UC3M) and Professor of History at the University of Colorado, developing programs supported by U.S. and European funders that integrate research, pedagogy, and public engagement.
Virtual Plasencia, Spain:
The Medieval Vines of Three Faiths
(A cooperative strategy game)
Cultivate vineyards across 15th-century Plasencia, managing production and tithes while fostering collaboration between diverse religious communities. Navigate shared resources and social dynamics, ensuring interfaith trust and collective prosperity to prevent economic and social collapse (A Runway Game World)
Let's connect
I look forward to hearing from you.