History Book Club Presents Llana Barber
About the Event
With immigration in the news, a historical perspective is more valuable than ever to help us understand the current situation in a deeper context and beyond the sensational images and narratives online. What do current trends in immigration share with those of our nation’s past? In what ways have migration trends shifted from those earlier patterns? What are the new questions and methods driving cutting-edge historical research on immigration? What role can historians play in bringing key insights to policy discussions that are too often polarized and driven by rumor rather than reality?
Fortunately the University of Minnesota has a long tradition of excellence in immigration history. We welcome both the current and immediate past directors of the Immigration History Research Center for this critical conversation about the role of migration in our country’s past and present.
About the Hosts
Llana Barber is the Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair of Immigration History and the director of the Immigration History Research Center. She is a scholar of immigration and Latine history with a focus on the Caribbean diaspora. Her first book, Latino City: Immigration and Urban Crisis in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1945-2000 (UNC Press, 2017), explored the history of New England’s first Latine-majority city. This work emphasized the impact of deindustrialization and suburbanization on Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the Puerto Rican and Dominican activism that transformed the city. Latino City won the Kenneth Jackson Award from the Urban History Association, and the Lois P. Rudnick Prize from the New England American Studies Association.
Her current research project documents Haitian migration to the United States, Dominican Republic, and Bahamas in the late 20th century, and militarized efforts to exclude Haitian asylum seekers. Barber’s work investigates the impact of anti-Black racism on migrant experiences. She serves on the Editorial Advisory Board for the Latinx Histories series at the University of North Carolina Press and recently joined the Editorial Board for the Journal of American Ethnic History, the official journal of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society.
Erika Lee Erika Lee is the Bae Family Professor of History, Radcliffe Alumnae Professor, and the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard University. From 2012 to 2022, she was the Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair of Immigration History and the director of the Immigration History Research Center, where she co-founded three major digital humanities projects: Immigrant Stories, #ImmigrationSyllabus, and Immigrants in COVID America. She researches and teaches the histories of the United States, with emphases on immigration and Asian American history and the histories of race, xenophobia, law, gender, and society. A past president of the Organization of American Historians, Lee’s award-winning books include: At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 (University of North Carolina Press, 2003), Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America (co-authored with Judy Yung, Oxford University Press, 2010), The Making of Asian America: A History (Simon & Schuster, 2015; 2021) and America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States (Basic Books, 2019, 2021).
Join us for our next History Book Club event
March 19: Elizabeth Dillenburg (PhD 2019), Assistant Professor of History at the Ohio State University and author of Empire's daughters: Girlhood, whiteness and the colonial project in conversation with Rachel Neiwert (PhD 2009), Associate Professor of History and Sr. Mona Riley Endowed Professor of Humanities at St. Catherine University.
April 17 (Thurs): JoJo Bell, PhD Candidate in History at the University of Minnesota and author of Red Stained: The Life of Hilda Simms in conversation with William Jones, Professor of History.
You can also view recordings of our past History Book Club gatherings.