Webinar: November 12, Hidden Histories of Unauthorized Migrations from Europe to the United States

Sponsored by the Immigration History Research Center (IHRC) at the University of Minnesota, this webinar will feature an anthology, Hidden Histories of Unauthorized Migrations from Europe to the United States edited by Danielle Battisti (University of Nebraska at Omaha) and S. Deborah Kang. Featuring contributions by historians and sociologists based in the United States and Europe, the anthology recovers the histories of unauthorized European migrations to the United States to explain the forces that led to the erasure of European illegality, complicate idealized narratives regarding European immigration to the United States, and unravel racialized accounts of undocumented immigration that have criminalized and demonized Latinx people. Click here for registration.

Here is the publisher's abstract for the book:

"Often depicted as the nation’s iconic legal immigrant, unauthorized European migrants are often overlooked by scholars, policymakers, and the media. This volume tells the stories of European migrants who adopted irregular migration strategies to enter and remain in the United States throughout the twentieth century. Contributors explore facets of this history with essays on migration patterns from Russia, Italy, Ireland, the Ottoman Empire, and Poland. They also offer important arguments about the treatment of unauthorized European migrants by states and societies on both sides of the Atlantic and how the reception of undocumented immigrants has been and continues to be impacted by the dynamics of racial, class, and gender constructions in the United States and abroad. As the contributors show, the reception accorded unauthorized European migrants frequently obscured and even normalized their irregular migration strategies, easing their access to American citizenship.

Revealing and insightful, Hidden Histories of Unauthorized Migrations from Europe to the United States sheds new light on our intertwined notions of race, legality, and immigration."