Early twentieth-century anti-immigrant mobilization fundamentally reshaped American conceptions of race, ethnicity, and national belonging. This book talk demonstrates how immigrant inclusion has historically been contingent upon the exclusion and regulation of other groups, revealing selective immigration control as a central mechanism of American nation-building.

2:00 PM - 3:30 PM (Pacific Time)
UC Berkeley Social Science Building 402 & Online

In The Unruly Facts of Race, sociologist Sunmin Kim explains how American ideas about race and ethnicity were transformed in the early twentieth century as an unintended consequence of anti-immigrant mobilization. Kim's analysis shows that throughout US history, the opportunity for belonging for some immigrants was predicated on the exclusion of others. His focus on the role of facts in the early twentieth century provides a refreshing take on why the so-called "nation of immigrants" has always demonized some immigrants while cherishing others, highlighting the selection and control of immigrants as the core principles of the American nation-building project. Amid a vitriolic explosion of American immigration discourse, Kim offers a needed corrective to and context for debates around who belongs in the United States.

Dr. Sunmin Kim is an associate professor of Sociology at Dartmouth College. As a sociologist, Prof. Kim is primarily interested in examining the nexus between race, immigration, and national belonging through the lens of knowledge production. While often understood as self-evident, categories such as race, ethnicity, and citizenship are socially constructed by social scientists, government officials, and activists. Employing archival research, survey analysis, and in-depth interviews, Dr. Kim studies how their work manifests across domains such as the social sciences, immigration law, public opinion, and electoral politics. Dr. Kim has written about topics such as race and immigration policy, Asian American politics and identity, the construction of public opinion, and methods of historical sociology.

This Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative event is co-sponsored with the UC Berkeley Department of Sociology. It is hosted in partnership with the UC Davis Global Migration Center, the UC Los Angeles Center for the Study of International Migration, and the UC San Diego Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, as part of a UC Migration Centers collaboration.

Registration not required. Zoom link here: https://berkeley.zoom.us/s/92108151135

Download file: Berkeley-Interdisciplinary-Migration-Initiative,-UC-Berkeley-Center-for-Comparative-Immigration-Studies,-UC-San-Diego-Center-for-the-Study-of-International-Migration,-UC-Los-Angeles-Global-Migrati-gp-ka0.pdf

Sponsor(s): Center for Study of International Migration, Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative, UC Berkeley Department of Sociology, UC Davis Global Migration Center, UC San Diego Center for Comparative Immigration Studies