The
Center for Advanced Study (CAS) at the University of
Illinois sponsors
an annual interdisciplinary initiative to provide
an opportunity for faculty and students to engage in a
prolonged study on a topic of interest to a wide range of
disciplines
and methodologies across campus. The CAS Initiative for
2008-09 is on Immigration: History and Policy, chaired
by Jim
Barrett,
History, and Gale Summerfield, WGGP and Human and Community
Development. It brings together scholars in the social
sciences, law,
computer science, engineering and humanities to explore
new approaches to immigration and its controversies.
Events
held as part of the CAS Initiative
on Immigration are detailed at the Center for Advanced Study's
website and below:
Migration today directly affects all of the world's societies. The United Nations estimates cross-border migration at 192 million people and this fails to account for much unauthorized immigration. The issue has generated remarkable controversy. The concentration of immigrants is extremely uneven, with most settling in the more developed countries like the United States, where legal immigrants comprise about 11 percent of the population. Since 9/11, nations are increasingly implementing regulations to restrict the flows of immigrants at the same time that they are promoting flows of good and services. Workers in rich countries fear immigrants will work for lower wages, leading to wage cuts and job loss for longer-term residents. Work permit programs institutionalize transnational families. Millions of women and children are trafficked annually as domestic or sex workers. The positive side of immigration is less visible. Contributions of immigrants to the economies, cultures and political landscapes of their host countries rarely make the headlines.
Immigration: History and Policy, the Center for Advanced Study campus-wide initiative for 2008-09, addresses these and other pressing immigration issues. Bringing together leading scholars from numerous disciplines, this initiative explores new approaches to immigration and its implications for our society and our own lives.
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Spring 2009 Past Events
Multiculturalism and Immigrant Integration: Political Debates and Social Realities in Europe
Karen Schonwalder, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Gottingen, Germany
Monday, February 23, 2009, Noon
Center for Advanced Study (912 W. Illinois, Urbana)
Bring your lunch; beverages provided
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Migrant Remittances: Transforming Communities
Gale Summerfield, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives, Illinois
Tuesday, March 3, 2009, 4:00pm
Music Room, Levis Faculty Center (919 W. Illinois, Urbana)
Comments: Noreen Sugrue, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives, Illinois
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Irish Everywhere: Irish Americans and the Making of the Multicultural City
Jim Barrett, History, Illinois
Tuesday, March 10, 2009, 4:00pm
Music Room, Levis Faculty Center (919 W. Illinois, Urbana)
Comments: Dave Roediger, History, Illinois
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Immigration and Multi-lingual America
Gillian Stevens, Sociology, Illinois
Monday, March 16, 2009, Noon
Center for Advanced Study (912 W. Illinois, Urbana)
Bring your lunch; beverages provided
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Monday, March 30, 2009, Noon, World Migration History and the Politics of Newness, Adam McKeown, History, Columbia University, Center for Advanced Study (912 W. Illinois, Urbana), Bring your lunch; beverages provided. Sponsored by Center for Advanced Study, WGGP, and others. This event is part of the Center for Advanced Study Initiative on Immigration: History and Policy.
Most histories of world migration from 1840 to 1940 erase more than 100 million long distance migrants that did not depart from Europe. This forgetting underpins the claims of newness and crisis that have shaped understandings of globalization and calls for migration reform over the last century. The spatial dimentions of this forgetting frame a geopolitics of newness, reform and the constant reproduction of global difference and inequality.
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Global Economic Change and Migration of Asian Women: What Are the Issues?
Jean Pyle, Regional Economic and Social Development, University of Massachusetts at Lowell
Monday, April 6, 2009, Noon
Center for Advanced Study (912 W. Illinois, Urbana)
Bring your lunch; beverages provided
As large numbers of Asian women migrated internationally for work over the past few decades they often encountered challenging socio-economic environments. This migration presented serious policy dilemmas for national governments. On the one hand, governments seeking to find viable employment for their citizens often developed strategies that promoted emigration. On the other hand, governments feel pressures to ensure the well-being of their citizens abroad. The current global economic downturn has intensified these challenges as emigrants have lost jobs abroad and opportunities for migration have diminished. This presentation provides a multi-level overview of the issues from that of the individual, her household, and her community to the region, nation and the international arena.
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Forum on Immigrants in the Local Community
Moderator: Zsuzsanna Fagyal, French, Illinois
We Wanted Workers, We Got People: Rural Midwest and Corporate Labor Recruitment Among African and Latino Migrants
Faranak Miraftab, Urban and Regional Planning, Illinois
Parenting Among Chinese Immigrants Living in Central Illinois
Angela Wiley, Human and Community Development, Illinois
Tuesday, April 21, 2009, 4:00pm
Music Room, Levis Faculty Center (919 W. Illinois, Urbana)
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CAS 587 Immigration: History and Policy
Graduate Seminar
Mondays 3:00 - 4:50pm
Instructors: Gale Summerfield and Jim Barrett
Enrollment by permission of instructor
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Immigration Film Series
Titles and locations
Past Fall 2008 Events
Alejandro Portes
Professor of Sociology and Director,
Center for Migration and Development, Princeton University
Migration and National Development
Thursday, Sepember 11, 2008, 4:00 p.m.
Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory, Urbana
The lecture will review opposite positions on the relationship between migration and the socio-economic development of sending countries and regions and the theoretical schools that underlie each of them. In order to adjudicate between these competing perspectives, it is necessary to distinguish between the human capital compositon of different migrant flows, their duration, and their structural significance and change potential. This theoretical discussion culminates into a typology that seeks to clarify under which conditions migration can have developmental effects and under which it will be contrary to the advancement of home communities and countries. Policy implications of this analysis, in particular the role of governments in sending and receiving nations, are examined.
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Enchiladas, Dim Sum, and Apple Pie:
Immigration and Food
Chancellor Richard Herman, Jorge Chapa, Martin Manalanson, Amy Gajda
Wednesday, Sepember 24, 2008, 4:00 p.m.
Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center, 919 W. Illinois, Urbana
We launch the CAS Campus Initiative by probing our understanding and experience of the relationship between immigration and food. Chancellor Herman will address the significance of immigration for our university and for us as individuals. Several scholars will briefly and informally discuss the relationship between Asian, Latina/o, and other migrations and the notion of "ethnic" and "American" food. We will finish up with informal conversation and the experience itself -- a spread of ethnic foods representing a range of immigrant communities.
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Nancy Foner
Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center,
City University of New York
What's New About the New Immigrants?
Tuesday, October 7, 2008, 4:00 p.m.
Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory, Urbana
A hundred
years ago a massive wave of immigration dramatically changed the United States. Today, a similar influx is again transforming the nation. In what ways is history being repeated? And what -- and how much -- is different from the past? The talk will explore both parallels and contrasts between immigration then and now as well as ways that the legacy of the past has helped to shape the immigrant experiences -- and reaction to immigration -- today.
On WILL FOCUS-580: Friday, October 3, 2008, 10:06 am
Nancy Foner on Immigration
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Forum/Panel on Comparative Immigration Policy
Doug Kibbee, Alejandro Lugo, Dorothee Schneider
Moderator, Gale Summerfield
Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 4:00pm
Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center (919 W. Illinois, Urbana)
How are nations around the world dealing with the challenges presented by immigration? How do US policies differ from those in other societies? Are our own national policies addressing the most important issues and how might we reform these policies? Each of our speakers will address the issue of immigration policy from a different point of view -- the European Community nations, Mexico, and the United States in comparative perspective. Then we open the floor for your questions and ideas on the subject.
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In the Trails of the Historic Diaspora: Africa's New Global Migrations and Diasporas
Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, History, University of Illinois at Chicago
Monday, November 3, 2008, 4:00pm
Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum (600 S Gregory, Urbana)
Professor Zeleza's presentation will explore the scale of Africans' contemporary global migrations and how they compare to those from other world regions. What are the forces behind the African migrations and their impact and implications for the region? This presentation interrogates conventional understandings of the intersections between globalization, migration, diasporization, and development for Africa and for the global South more generally.
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Other campus immigration events:
The Fall 2008 Friday Forum lecture series of the University YMCA begins September 12 with Pulitzer Prize finalist and author Luis Urrea. The lecture entitled "Crossing the Devil’s Highway: Immigration in the United States” will be held at the University YMCA, 1001 S. Wright St., Champaign, and is the first lecture of the fall series, “Sick of Sound Bites? Real Issues for the Next Admninstration.” Talk description: In May 2001, 26 Mexican men scrambled across the border and into an area of the Arizona desert known as the Devil’s Highway. Only 12 made it safely across. As immigration continues to become a larger and larger issue in our communities and in our nation, Urrea’s “The Devil’s Highway” has become the story for a movement. YMCA website: http://www.universityymca.org/friday_forum.html
The Asian Educational Media Service is pleased to announce a new collaboration with the Spurlock Museum: AsiaLENS: AEMS Documentary and Independent Film Series, at the Spurlock Museum Knight Auditorium http://www.aems.uiuc.edu/events/asialens.htm<http://www.aems.uiuc.edu/events/asialens.htm> This series of free public film screenings and lecture/discussion programs--organized by the Asian Educational Media Service in collaboration with the Spurlock Museum--presents recent documentary films on issues in contemporary life in Asia. At each event, a local expert will introduce the film and lead the audience in a post-screening discussion. NEXT TUESDAY, September 16, our first AsiaLENS event: Golden Venture: A Journey Into America's Immigration Nightmare (Directed by Peter Cohn, 2006, 70 minutes. In English and Chinese with English subtitles.) Poshek Fu (Professor of History, Cinema Studies, and East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Director of the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, UIUC) leads the discussion. A trans-Pacific story launches our series, highlighting an issue that touches nearly everyone’s lives in some way: illegal immigration. Following the legal travails and eventual fates of a group of illegal Chinese immigrants shipwrecked on Long Island in 1993, Golden Venture gives us a window into the constant circulation of Chinese laborers to and from the U.S., showing both the attraction of sojourn in the U.S. and the sacrifice it entails.
To post a local campus immigration event here, email the information to Kathy Martin kcmartin@uiuc.edu
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PAST INITIATIVE-RELATED
IMMIGRATION EVENTS
Spring 2008
Donna
Gabaccia,
Professor
of History and Director,
Immigration History Research Center,
University
of Minnesota,
Nations
of Immigrants,
March 6, 2008, 4:00
p.m.,
Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 South Gregory St., Urbana
Sponsored
by the Center for Advanced Study, WGGP, Dept. of History and
others.
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.
Fall
2007
Douglas Massey, Professor
of Sociology, Princeton University, Understanding
America's Immigration Crisis,
Oct. 11, 2008, 4:00
p.m., Knight Auditorium,
Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory Street, Urbana.
Since
1986 the United States has employed a politics of contradiction
in its relations with Mexico. With US encouragement, Mexico
joined GATT in that year and embarked on a neoliberal economic
project that opened its economy to trade, investments,
and exchange, a project that was institutionalized by NAFTA,
ratified by the United States, and fully enacted in 1994.
Over the same period, however, the US has poured increasing
resources into maintaining the illusion of a controlled
border that is impervious to the flow of Mexican workers,
even as it becomes more permeable with respect to capital,
information, goods, commodities, and services. Douglas
Massey will document the contradictory policy of growing
integration and increasing separation and then trace out
the costs of this self-deception for the inhabitants of
both countries and the people who move between them.
This lecture is held in anticipation of the 2008-2009 CAS Initiative 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.
Hosted
by: Department of History, Department of Human and Community
Development, Women
and Gender in Global Perspectives Program
In conjunction with: African American Studies and Research Program, Center
for African Studies, Center for Global Studies, Center on Democracy in a Multiracial
Society, Children and Family Research Center, Department of Agricultural and
Consumer Economics, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Department
of Human and Community Development, Department of Geography, Department of
Political Science, Department of Sociology, Global Crossroads Living and Learning
Community, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Institute of Communications
Research, Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, Latina/Latino Studies
Program, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security,
Program in South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, School of Social Work, Spurlock
Museum, Unit for Criticism and interpretive Theory
Oct.
19, 12:00 Noon, "Immigration and Human Security," Gale
Summerfield, WGGP Director and Associate
Professor, Human and Community Development, Latzer Hall,
1001 S. Wright Street, Champaign, sponsored by University
YMCA Friday Forum and others.
Spring
2007
January
31, Wednesday, Eliseo
Medina, Vice President, Service Employees
International Union, Washington, DC: "The
New Immigrant Work force: Unions, Community and the American
Dream," Levis Faculty
Center, 3rd Floor, 919 West Illinois Street.
February
6, Tuesday, Jim Barrett, Professor, History,
UI, "Global, Local, and Personal: Understanding
the History of Immigration
to the United States in the Twentieth Century," Comments
by Augusto Espiritu, Associate Professor, History, UIUC,
Levis Faculty Center, 919 West Illinois Street.
Women
and Gender in Global Perspectives Program and
Center
on Democracy in a Multiracial Society
Spring
2007 Immigration Brown Bag Series:
Monday,
February 12 noon: Sylvia Puente University
of Notre Dame
"Perspectives
on Illinois Immigrant Integration Policies" Studio
Room 1009, Doris Kelley Christopher Hall, 904 W.
Nevada Street, Urbana
Monday,
March 5 noon: Jorge Chapa
Center on
Democracy in a Multiracial Society, UI
" Our Dysfunctional Immigration System
at a Breaking Point"
Room 210, Illini Union, 1401 West Green Street, Urbana
Monday,
April 2 noon: Geoffrey Hewings Urban
and Regional Planning, Economics, UI
" Economic Advances of Immigration" Room
210, Illini Union, 1401 West Green Street, Urbana
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WGGP
Perspectives Special Issue: Gender and Human Security:
Latina/o Immigrants in the Midwest