Columbia University historian and author Mae M. Ngai will talk about the history of America’s immigration policies and offer perspective on the current debates over illegal immigrants when she visits Washington College on Thursday, October 22. Her talk, “The United States as a Nation of Immigrants: A Short History of an Idea,” will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Hynson Lounge, Hodson Hall, on the College campus and is free and open to the public.
A scholar of U.S. legal and political history who focuses on questions of immigration, citizenship and nationalism, Mae Ngai teaches history and Asian American studies at Columbia and is the author of Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, and The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009. Before becoming a historian she was a labor-union organizer and educator in New York City, working for District 65-UAW and the Consortium for Worker Education.
As a 2015 Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, Ngai travels to campuses across the United States to meet with faculty and students and deliver a public lecture. Her visit to Chestertown is sponsored by the Theta of Maryland chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at Washington College and by the National Phi Beta Kappa Society.
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.