The School of Humanities is excited to feature Dr. David Greer for a Humanities Chapel on March 1 from 11:20-11:50 in the Central Auditorium. Today’s contentious debates over immigration—that is, over whether and how to restrict, regulate, and administer it—are hardly unprecedented in American history. Standing out among earlier debates were those over the so-called “New Immigrants” of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The recently erected Statue of Liberty may have proclaimed “world-wide welcome” and beckoned the world’s tired, poor, and “huddled masses yearning to be free,” but the volume and patterns of immigration rapidly expanded and shifted so that many Americans grew increasingly anxious, fearful, and distrustful toward the newcomers.
This presentation will discuss the context and character of the “New Immigration” and, through audience engagement with a series of contemporary political cartoons, trace the changing contours of American attitudes and debate over immigration policy, perhaps gaining some insight for our own times. We will conclude by considering how Christian perspectives might inform ideas expressed in this debate.
