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cas: initiative AY 2009
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Immigration - History and Policy
These events are held in anticipation of the 2008-2009 CAS Initiative on Immigration - History and Policy which will bring together scholars in the social sciences, law, computer science, engineering and humanities to explore new approaches to immigration and its controversies. CAS Resident Associates Jim Barrett (History) and Gale Summerfield (Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program) will lead this initiative.
Supporting Units
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March 6, 2008
Thursday, 4:00pm
Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum
600 South Gregory Street, Urbana
Donna Gabaccia
Director, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota
Organization of American Historians (OAH) Distinguished Lecturer
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Nations of Immigrants
Even as it again debates immigration restriction, the United States is almost alone worldwide in proclaiming itself a "nation of immigrants." Many Americans wrongly assume that immigrants had a uniquely important role in the making of America. In fact, many nations have depended on migration to build their populations and workforces. And even the United States did not embrace this label until quite recently. Why do other nations not view themselves as "nations of immigrants?" And what exactly is it that Americans celebrate with this assertion of uniqueness? By acknowledging the global nature of international migrations, we can not only answer such questions but begin to assess the choices that create "nations of immigrants" and differentiate them from other nations created from populations of mobile foreigners.
 
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Related event in Fall, AY2008
October 11, 2007
CAS/MillerComm2008
Understanding America's Immigration "Crisis"
Douglas Massey
Department of Sociology, Princeton University
Streaming video and audio of this presentation are available at CAS/MilllerComm2008 site
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January 31, 2007
Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.
Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center
919 West Illinois Street, Urbana
Eliseo Medina
Vice President, Service Employees International Union, Washington, DC
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The New Immigrant Work Force: Unions, Community and the American Dream
Eliseo Medina has been a national leader in the unionization of recent immigrants in the US, many of whom work in low paying jobs. Beyond improving the living standards of these immigrants, the Service Employees International Union has trained them to be effective leaders in their neighborhoods and communities, encouraging their participation in an expanding myriad of housing, educational, political and economic activities. A top leader of one of the nation's largest labor unions, Mr. Medina will make the case for a more inclusive national immigration policy and a more constructive approach to our nation's immigrants.
Eliseo Medina's visit is cosponsored by the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations with additional support from African American Cultural Center, Asian American Studies Program, College of Law, Department of History, Department of Sociology, Office of Minority Student Affairs, Service Employees International Union Local 1, Union of Professional Employees and University YMCA.
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February 6, 2007
Tuesday, 4:00 p.m.
Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center
919 West Illinois Street, Urbana
Presented by Jim Barrett, History with comments by Augusto Espiritu, History
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Global, Local, and Personal: Understanding the History of Immigration to the United States in the Twentieth Century
Few experiences convey the transnational quality of historical change more dramatically than migration, yet we seldom consider what such massive population movements meant on a human scale - to the immigrants themselves. The experience shaped people who were themselves transnational in the most profound sense. Immigration to the US might best be understood by what might be termed an "inter-ethnic" approach that stresses contacts between diverse ethnic and racial groups and the creation of transnational cultures in the very heart of American industrial cities. Focusing primarily on the last great period of mass immigration from the end of the nineteenth century through the 1920s, Barrett suggests the many levels at which immigration was experienced - from the global to the personal, and analyzes scholars' changing understanding of these immigrants and their worlds. Probing the subjective dimension of immigration history returns us to one of our oldest questions, one that remains relevant in the midst of a massive new immigration today: What did it mean to be an "American" and how did people from diverse backgrounds make this transition?
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| Other Spring 2007 campus events focused on immigration include:
Related event in Spring 2006
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