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PORTSIDE CULTURE

YES, SUPERMAN HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN IMMIGRATION STORY  
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Andrew Slack, Jose Antonio Vargas
July 12, 2025
The Hollywood Reporter
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_ Accusations that James Gunn has “politicized” Superman come
laughably late, as the world's most famous superhero has always been
political, write narrative strategist Andrew Slack and Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas. _

'Superman' , Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection

 

When filmmaker James Gunn
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new _Superman
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story
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critics accused him of politicizing Superman. But you can’t
politicize the truth. Superman has been an “illegal alien” for 87
years—a fact we helped America remember when we launched our 2013
campaign
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Superman Is an Immigrant.
 
Of course, we couldn’t have predicted Donald Trump—the man DC
Comics literally used 
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their model to reboot Lex Luthor in 1986—waging war on the very
immigrants Superman represents. In 2000, Luthor became president in
the comics, complete with an anti-alien agenda. No one imagined the
real President Trump would follow the same playbook.
 
Superman entered America without papers, a baby refugee fleeing a
dying planet. Like countless immigrants before him, he changed his
name from the foreign-sounding (in his case, Hebrew)  Kal-El
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the anglicized Clark Kent. He learned new customs, balanced his
heritage with his adopted culture, and used his unique abilities to
serve the nation that initially feared him.
 
This isn’t subtext—it’s text. Superman’s creators, Jerry
Siegel and Joe Shuster, were children of Jewish immigrants who
understood displacement intimately. In 1938, as Hitler rose to power,
they created a hero who embodied their American dream: someone who
could protect the vulnerable because he knew what it meant to be cast
aside. Superman’s very essence springs from being what he called
“a universal outsider
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This outsider status isn’t incidental to his heroism; it’s the
source of it. Those who have known rejection become champions of
acceptance. Those who have felt powerless fight for the defenseless.
 
Today, that outsider would be deported. In fact, without birthright
citizenship, Superman would never have existed at all. Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster, born in Cleveland to Jewish immigrant parents, would
have been stripped of citizenship and deported to Nazi-controlled
Europe—to face certain death in countries they’d never known.
 
No Jerry and Joe means no Superman. No Superman means no superhero
genre. The children of immigrants who followed their lead—creating
Batman, Captain America, Spider-Man, and at least 90 percent of all
iconic superheroes—would have met the same fate. The modern
mythology that defines American popular culture worldwide: all erased.
 
Superman endures because he represents something larger than politics:
the American paradox itself. We are a nation built by the
displaced—willing immigrants and unwilling slaves, refugees and
dreamers, all orphaned from somewhere else. Superman, the ultimate
orphan, transforms this shared wound into purpose, proving that our
greatest strength comes not from where we’re born, but from what we
choose to become.
 
In 2013, our campaign sparked a national conversation through a simple
selfie challenge: Americans sharing their family immigration stories
while declaring “Superman Is an Immigrant.” Critics inadvertently
amplified our message—every time they said the phrase to mock it,
they reinforced the undeniable truth of it.
 
As Gunn’s film opens and Trump’s deportation machine accelerates,
that truth feels more urgent than ever. Superman returns to theaters
just days after America’s final Fourth of July before its 250th
birthday. The question isn’t whether we’ll continue celebrating
our independence, but whether we’ll remember what made us super in
the first place.
 
At Monday’s premiere, Gunn said
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about kindness, and I think that’s something everyone can relate
to.” But media on the right, in fact, does not seem able to relate
to this message of kindness. On _Fox News_, Jesse Watters joked under
a “Superwoke” chyron that Superman’s cape reads “MS-13” and
questioned whether he is “from Uganda.” The conservative
outlet _Outkick_ argued that America doesn’t have “to be
‘kind’ just because a fictional character from another planet
brought some good to a fictional Earth,” and that “America is
desperate for apolitical entertainment.”

[Nicholas Hoult As Lex Luthor And David Corenswet As Superman In
Warner Bros. Pictures’ Superman]
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[DAVID CORENSWET as Superman in “SUPERMAN,” a Warner Bros.
Pictures release.]
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Accusations of “politicizing” Superman come laughably late. Since
1938, Superman has defined “the American Way” through action. In
1940, while the isolationist America First movement preached
neutrality, Superman took on Adolf Hitler. In 1949, he spoke directly
to schoolchildren: “If you hear anybody talk against a schoolmate
because of his religion, race, or national origin—don’t wait: tell
him THAT KIND OF TALK IS UN-AMERICAN.” He promoted vaccines, helping
fund the polio vaccine. He exposed the Ku Klux Klan’s secrets on
national radio. When a gunman opens fire on immigrants, blaming them
for stealing his job, Superman blocks every bullet. He stood between
peaceful protesters and riot police after Ferguson. After the murder
of George Floyd, he declared: “Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and
transform us. And on my soul, I swear… until my dream of a world
where dignity, honor and justice becomes the reality we all share —
I’ll never stop fighting. Ever.”

Superman is America’s conscience wearing a cape—and that terrifies
critics because they’re supporting a real-life supervillain.

Our greatest superpower as a nation has always been our ability to
welcome the stranger and watch them soar. Like Superman himself,
America draws its strength not from what it was born with, but from
what it chooses to become—a place where the orphaned can find home,
where the powerless can discover their power, where those who flee
dying worlds can help build new ones.
 
In choosing fear over hope, walls over welcome, we don’t just betray
Superman’s legacy—we abort our own future. The real superheroes
have always been immigrants. It’s time we started acting like we
believe it.
 
_Andrew Slack is a narrative strategist who co-founded the__ Harry
Potter Alliance_
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over a million fans worldwide for social justice. He writes about how
ancient and modern myths shape democracy and is working on a book
exploring mythology’s role in American civic life._
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_Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist,
Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and founder of the immigrant storytelling
non-profit __Define American_ [[link removed]]_. An
updated edition of his memoir, _Dear America: Notes of an
Undocumented Citizen_, for 2025 is now available._

* Superman
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* Immigrants
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* Progressives
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* MAGA
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* Jewish immigrants
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* DC Comics
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* Trump
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* james gunn
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