More than most issues today, debates over immigration are caught up in our image of ourselves as a nation and a people and are influenced by powerful symbols such as the Statue of Liberty or even “the border” that can be manipulated and misunderstood by all parties to the debate. To make any progress toward resolving the conflicting interests at stake in immigration policy, we need to reconsider some basic aspects of this complex and fraught issue.
The Library is honored to host Dr. Peter Skerry, professor of political science at Boston College and a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, for a program that will address these important national issues. Skerry is a contributing editor at American Purpose and a member of the editorial board of Society.
He has published in a variety of scholarly and general interest publications, including the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Public Interest, Foreign Affairs, and American Purpose. His books include Counting on the Census: Race, Group Identity, and the Evasion of Politics, Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority, and he is currently completing a study of Muslims in the United States.