Book Talk: Rubén G. Rumbaut presents "Immigrant America"

Rubén G. Rumbaut is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and founding chair of the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association. The talk will reflect on the story of “Immigrant America” over the past half century—from its historic nadir ca. 1965 to its resurgence as a Nation of Immigrants and now to Detention and Deportation Nation—from a putative Great Inclusion to today's Great Expulsion. After five decades of accelerating migration flows, well over 40 million foreign-born persons now live in the United States; more than a quarter of them are undocumented and the subject of systematic and intensifying state persecution—a Great Expulsion which gained institutional and ideological impulse especially after 9/11 and the establishment of a huge federal detention and deportation apparatus. The historic transformation of the U.S. into a yet-again nation of immigrants will be discussed along two narrative axes—diversity and inequality. The title is a double entendre, referring at once to the country and to the book Immigrant America: A Portrait—new editions of which have been written and published in each of the past four decades, seeking to grapple with a vertiginously changing world and with this “permanently unfinished” moving target of a society.

 

A light reception will follow the talk.

 

Part of the Irene Flecknoe Ross Lecture Series is made possible by a gift from Ray Ross in memory of his wife. Co‐sponsored by UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies, UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and the Department of Sociology Contentious Politics and Organizations Working Group.

 

This event is FREE.

 

A recording of this event can be found on the UCLA CSRC YouTube channel.