Immigration History Research Center
The Immigration History Research Center promotes interdisciplinary research on international migration, develops archives documenting immigrant and refugee life, especially in the U.S., and makes specialized scholarship accessible to students, teachers, and the public.
Perspectives
Immigration. It's a hot topic. And a focus of scholarship, teaching and debate at the University of Minnesota since the 1920s. Thoughtful and provocative perspectives are offered by University faculty and graduate students on migration news. We challenge you to read and to think. This week's topic:
What I'm Reading: What Does an Illegal Alien Look Like?
Accuracy, balance, completeness, and fairness are major values emphasized in news coverage; still, the field of journalism struggles with the ideas and ideals of diversity.
Recently, I was able to observe and take part in "A Day on Diversity," led by Keith Woods, Dean of the Poynter Institute, which provides continuing education in journalism for professional and potential journalists. Woods addressed a continuing debate in journalism education: how to describe people sought by the police as suspects. News stories have stopped mentioning race and ethnic descriptors. In the journalism classroom, students challenge instructors, arguing that this is important information because readers need to know "who to look for." Woods then asked us to draw the face of a "Hispanic" person. Most of us were stumped.
The exercise could have focused on any ethnic or racial group, but it seemed to me that the choice of "Hispanic" was particularly relevant since many Americans claim to "see" illegal aliens in the Hispanic population. What does an illegal alien look like? Woods showed us the 1950s George Reeves portrayal on the "Adventures of Superman" television series. It occurred to us that Superman too was an illegal alien: he arrived from another planet, without identifying papers or legal permission to enter the country!
Why was this American cultural icon and symbol of the nation's ideals never identified as an illegal immigrant or undocumented alien in our popular culture, or in news coverage of all the various forms in which this character has been portrayed for more than 70 years? Why were Superman's adoptive parents never criticized for creating a false identity for him, complete with false documents? Could they have gotten away with it if Superman was not white, and would they have even tried? To what extent would mainstream America have questioned Superman's origins and right to be in the country if he were not white? Would mainstream America have accepted his superhero status and benevolent nature if he were not white? What are some links between the origins and activities of superheroes and their apparent race or ethnicity, and their acceptability in American society and continuing popularity in American culture?
Clark Kent - that is to say, Superman's false human and American identity - is a journalist but as Superman Kent is frequently interviewed or photographed by his colleagues Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. To what extent can we say they were doing their job as journalists when they failed to issues of illegal immigration and undocumented alien-ness when covering the Superman story? It seems to me these kinds of questions could be used in discussions about the bases and characteristics for being perceived as a member of "an acceptable group" in American society, and how they change over time.
Nahid Khan, Ph.D candidate, School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Collections
IHRC has created a vast archive of newspapers, oral histories, and personal papers, along with the organizational records of immigrants and refugees and the agencies created to serve them. Holdings are particularly rich on the labor migrants who came to the U.S. between 1880 and 1930s, on the displaced persons who arrived in the U.S. after World War II, and on the refugees resettled in the United States after 1975. Holdings include archives, books, periodicals and digital sources.
Scholar Events
IHRC seminars, lectures and workshops bring a highly specialized and multi-disciplinary group of University of Minnesota researchers into dialogue with their national and international peers, with university and high school students and their teachers, with journalists, photographers and filmmakers, and with communities of immigrants and ethnic Americans. The IHRC collaborates with the Institute for Global Studies to offer a special series of events called Global REM (Race, Ethnicity, and Migration). Videotapes of the seminars are available on the Global REM Website.
Community
The IHRC engages with many communities in the Twin Cities, and in Minnesota and beyond. It is especially qualified to bring into dialogue the many scholar-specialists from the University of Minnesota with high school students and their teachers, with print and non-print media workers, and with individuals from local immigrant and ethnic communities. The IHRC also works with a community support group, the Friends of the IHRC, to offer special lectures and events. These provide an opportunity for conversation and socializing as well as a way to highlight the place of the IHRC collections in preserving the heritage and promoting the study of immigrant history.
In the News
What I'm Reading: What Does an Illegal Alien Look Like?
Accuracy, balance, completeness, and fairness are major values emphasized in news coverage; still, the field of journalism struggles with the ideas and ideals of diversity.
Recently, I was able to observe and take part in "A Day on Diversity," led by Keith Woods, Dean of the Poynter Institute, which provides continuing education in journalism for professional and potential journalists. Woods addressed a continuing debate in journalism education: how to describe people sought by the police as suspects. News stories have stopped mentioning race and ethnic descriptors. In the journalism classroom, students challenge instructors, arguing that this is important information because readers need to know "who to look for." Woods then asked us to draw the face of a "Hispanic" person. Most of us were stumped.
The exercise could have focused on any ethnic or racial group, but it seemed to me that the choice of "Hispanic" was particularly relevant since many Americans claim to "see" illegal aliens in the Hispanic population. What does an illegal alien look like? Woods showed us the 1950s George Reeves portrayal on the "Adventures of Superman" television series. It occurred to us that Superman too was an illegal alien: he arrived from another planet, without identifying papers or legal permission to enter the country!
Why was this American cultural icon and symbol of the nation's ideals never identified as an illegal immigrant or undocumented alien in our popular culture, or in news coverage of all the various forms in which this character has been portrayed for more than 70 years? Why were Superman's adoptive parents never criticized for creating a false identity for him, complete with false documents? Could they have gotten away with it if Superman was not white, and would they have even tried? To what extent would mainstream America have questioned Superman's origins and right to be in the country if he were not white? Would mainstream America have accepted his superhero status and benevolent nature if he were not white? What are some links between the origins and activities of superheroes and their apparent race or ethnicity, and their acceptability in American society and continuing popularity in American culture?
Clark Kent - that is to say, Superman's false human and American identity - is a journalist but as Superman Kent is frequently interviewed or photographed by his colleagues Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. To what extent can we say they were doing their job as journalists when they failed to issues of illegal immigration and undocumented alien-ness when covering the Superman story? It seems to me these kinds of questions could be used in discussions about the bases and characteristics for being perceived as a member of "an acceptable group" in American society, and how they change over time.
Nahid Khan, Ph.D candidate, School of Journalism and Mass Communication.