MIT professor criticizes Superman as immigrant symbol in New York Times

A New York Times guest essay this week said Superman’s “overwhelming all-American power” was disturbing, explaining the paradoxical identities associated with the iconic character as an immigrant.

“In fact, I was something of the neighborhood anti-Superman,” MIT professor Junot Diaz wrote in the New York Times, reflecting on his childhood. 

“Always ready to inveigh against the Last Son of Krypton, always ready with long arguments laying out why he was dumb. What can I say?”

Diaz, a native of the Dominican Republic who teaches creative writing, should have “fallen hard for Superman,” as someone in a country that spoke English, while living with a Spanish-speaking family in an apartment. Maintaining three identities, Diaz feels that Superman does not represent him, although the superhero shares a similar experience to immigrants in America.

“From Day 1, dude just rubbed me the wrong way. There was the obvious stuff, like how goofy Superman was as a hero, how ridiculously dated his star-spangled patriotism was — Supes loved a country I’d never seen. My landfill America was way more supervillain territory,” he said.

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“Even his overwhelming all-American power disturbed me. Maybe this was because I had grown up in a country recovering from its very own dictatorial Superman or because my family had, during the 1965 U.S. invasion, experienced firsthand what America could do to people with far less power.”

Superman’s immigrant symbolism does not connect with Diaz, as both the character and the USA contain “many contradictory stories.”

“You would think Superman’s immigrant/refugee background would have represented a point of connection, but even that rankled me,” he wrote.

Diaz argued that 2025 was “an awkward time for a peace-loving refugee American like Superman to return to us. According to the professor, “We are in a time when someone like Clark Kent, an undocumented liberal-leaning journalist, could easily be scooped up by masked, unidentified government goons. Beaten, imprisoned and even deported to Sudan or Jarhanpur without due process.”

The character, first introduced in 1938, was born from the imagination of writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in Cleveland, Ohio. Both came from immigrant families. In the comics, Superman is the sole survivor of the planet Krypton, sent to Earth by his parents as their world faced destruction.

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The character is getting a new cinematic treatment.

The film, directed by James Gunn, hit theaters on Friday. It is intended to launch a new cinematic universe for the DC franchise. Actor David Corenswet stars as the new Superman, with Rachel Brosnahan playing Lois Lane.

Diaz nor Gunn immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.