The migrant detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz is closed, but much about it remains unresolved. There are lawsuits over detainees’ treatment, environmental claims over damage to protected wetlands and uncertainty about the future of the airstrip it was built on.

One aspect of the South Florida facility has drawn far less attention, though: the name itself, and the long history of associating alligators with racist ideas about people of color.

I’m a historian of wildlife, the environment and American culture who has studied the cultural and environmental history of the American alligator. My research shows that the species has carried a variety of meanings in the United States, ranging from a prized source of leather for luxury fashion to an emblem of Florida identity. Less well known is the reptile’s role in the nation’s history of racial stereotyping. For generations, alligators featured prominently in imagery intended to demean Black Americans.

Whatever the intentions of those who named and promoted the facility, Alligator Alcatraz echoed a long tradition of using alligators in ways that have reinforced racist imagery and dehumanizing stereotypes.

Constructing Alligator Alcatraz

Located on a remote landing strip surrounded by Big Cypress National Preserve, about 6 miles north of Everglades National Park, Alligator Alcatraz sparked controversy from the beginning. Critics argued that the detention center housed immigrants in unsafe and inhumane conditions, limited access for lawyers and family members, and imperiled sensitive, federally protected wetlands. Seminole and Miccosukee people denounced it as a threat to their sacred homelands. Some detractors even characterized it as a concentration camp.

In a lengthy exposé for The Atlantic, journalist Eric Schlosser decried the facility........

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