Eminent immigration expert Alejandro Portes will set the stage for the college's Critical Issues Symposium with the address "Segmented Assimilation: Prospects for the Immigrant Second Generation" on Tuesday, Sept. 25, at 4 p.m. in the Maas Center auditorium.
Eminent immigration expert Alejandro Portes will set the stage for the college's Critical Issues Symposium with the address "Segmented Assimilation: Prospects for the Immigrant Second Generation" on Tuesday, Sept. 25, at 4 p.m. in the Maas Center auditorium.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The college's Critical Issues Symposium (CIS) will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 2-3, and explore "Immigration: Shaping and Reshaping America." The event's planners originally sought to feature Portes during the symposium, but when he was unavailable for CIS itself appreciated the opportunity to have him speak in advance of it.
"We wanted him to be one our CIS keynote speakers, but he was not able to come on those days," said Derek Emerson, who is the symposium co-chair. "However, he is such an important voice in this discussion that we asked him to come earlier and help build the base for future discussions."
Portes is a premiere sociologist currently teaching at Princeton University, where he is also director of the Center for Migration and Development.
Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1944, Portes became a U.S. citizen in 1968. He is the author of several books and countless articles, and the recipient of many awards and honors.
His book, with co-author Ruben G. Rumbaut, "Immigrant America: A Portrait," was recently released in a revised and expanded third edition. The book is considered a classic in the immigration studies field. His has also just published "Rethinking Migration," published by Berghahn Books.
Portes is also a much-sought after speaker since he is able to discuss immigration issues from a variety of standpoints and with a wealth of information.
Portes is basing his talk at Hope on the most recent results from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study. The study is designed to examine the adaptation process of the immigrant second generation, which is defined broadly as U.S.-born children with at least one foreign-born parent or children born abroad but brought at an early age to the United States. The study was conduced by the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton.
Additional information about Portes and the Critical Issues Symposium may be obtained online at www.hope.edu/cis.
The Maas Center is located at 264 Columbia Ave. on the corner of Columbia Avenue and 11th Street.