Press Releases

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Social Science Experts Available for Stories on U.S. Immigration Policy

The following experts are available to provide journalists with context and analysis of various aspects of U.S. immigration policy. All of them belong to the network of scholars and practitioners assembled by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) for creating and guiding the field of immigration studies. The SSRC has been running a program concerned with migration and immigration issues since 1994, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

If you have difficulty reaching any of the individuals below, feel free to contact Mary-Lea Cox, communications director, Social Science Research Council, by e-mail at cox@ssrc.org or by phone at 212.377.2700. See also: SSRC Issue Forum: Border Battles.

Josh DeWind: U.S. immigration, international migration, immigrants’ rights
Josh DeWind has directed the SSRC’s program on migration since 1994. For 12 years he was professor of anthropology at Hunter College, City University of New York. With Charles Hirschman and Philip Kasinitz, he co-edited The Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience, a collection of interdisciplinary essays surveying and defining the field of U.S. immigration studies.
Office: 212.377.2700 ext. 603
E-mail: dewind@ssrc.org
Web site: http://www.ssrc.org/staff/viewstaffmember.perl?sid=17

Richard Alba: Immigration, assimilation, education, race and ethnicity, New York State’s changing population dynamics
Richard Alba is distinguished professor of sociology and public policy at the University at Albany, State University of New York. His most recent book, co-authored with Victor Nee, is Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration.
Office: 518.442.4669
E-mail: r.alba@albany.edu
Web site: http://www.albany.edu/sociology/socweb/Directory/alba.htm

Susan B. Carter: Past and contemporary perspectives on employment, wages, and dynamics of immigrants in US labor markets, statistical history of U.S. immigration
Susan B. Carter is a professor of economics at the University of California, Riverside. With Richard Sutch, she is the general editor of Historical Statistics of the United States, the most comprehensive collection of quantitative information on the history of the United States available, the most recent edition of which appeared in February 2006.
Office: 951.827.1589
E-mail: susan.carter@ucr.edu
Web site: http://www.economics.ucr.edu/people/carter/index.html

Wayne A. Cornelius: Political economy of immigration, immigration control, U.S.-Mexican relations, labor migration
Wayne A. Cornelius is distinguished professor of political science and holds the Gildred chair in U.S.-Mexican relations at the University of California, San Diego, where he also directs the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies. He is the author, co-author, or editor of more than 240 publications dealing with the political economy of immigration and immigration policy in advanced industrial nations, Mexican politics, and U.S.-Mexican relations. His current research focuses on the impacts of U.S. border enforcement on Mexican migration.
Office: 858.822.4447
E-mail: wcorneli@ucsd.edu
Web site: http://polisci.ucsd.edu/faculty/cornelius.htm

Rodolfo O. de la Garza: Immigrant politics, Hispanic immigrant settlement and incorporation, Latino public opinion and electoral involvement
Rodolfo O. de la Garza is the Eaton professor of administrative law and municipal science at Columbia University and vice-president for research at the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute. Among his many publications are the books Sending Money Home: Hispanic Remittances and Community Development and Latinos and U.S. Foreign Policy: Lobbying for the Homeland?
Office: 212.854.3646
E-mail: rod2001@columbia.edu
Web site: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/polisci/fac-bios/de-la-Garza/faculty.html

Jonathan Fox: Mexican migrant involvement in the United States; Mexican social, civic and political movements; indigenous Mexican migrants
Jonathan Fox is a professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He recently co-edited the report “Invisible No More: Mexican Migrant Civil Participation in the United States,” published by the Woodrow Wilson Center, and the book Indigenous Mexican Migrants in the United States. He is currently finishing a book called Accountability Politics: Voice and Power in Rural Mexico (under contract with Oxford University Press). He frequently appears as a commentator in major broadcast and print media.
Office: 831.459.5897
E-mail: jafox@ucsc.edu
Web site: http://people.ucsc.edu/~jafox/

Donna R. Gabaccia: U.S. immigration history, women and gender, migration in world history
Donna R. Gabaccia is the Rudolph J. Vecoli professor of immigration history at the University of Minnesota, where she directs the Immigration History Research Center. She is author of the acclaimed We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans, and she recently co-edited, with Vicki Ruiz, the volume American Dreaming, Global Realities: Rethinking U.S. Immigration History.
Office: 612.625.4800
E-mail: drg@umn.edu
Web: http://www.ihrc.umn.edu/about/facExp.php?UID=drg

Charles Hirschman: Immigration and ethnicity, population studies, education and migration
Charles Hirschman is the Boeing international professor of sociology and public affairs at the University of Washington. His research interests range from immigration and ethnicity in United States to social change in Southeast Asia. He recently contributed a chapter entitled “Immigration and an Aging America: Downward Spiral or Virtuous Circle?” to a forthcoming volume on the impact of demographic changes on the well-being of older persons (eds. K. W. Schaie and P. Uhlenberg).
Office: 206.543.5035
E-mail: charles@u.washington.edu
Web: http://faculty.washington.edu/charles/

David R. Howell: Labor market competition at the local, national, and international levels
David R. Howell is a professor at Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy, a division of the New School, in New York City. He is also a faculty research fellow at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (The New School) and a research scholar at the Political Economy Research Institute (U-Mass Amherst). His recent work includes research on the wage effects of recent immigrants and the economic status of foreign-born workers in New York City. Among his recent publications is the edited volume Fighting Unemployment: The Limits of Free Market Orthodoxy (Oxford).
Office: 212.229.5400 ext. 1416
E-mail: howell@newschool.edu
Web: http://www.newschool.edu/milano/fac_howell_d_fc.aspx?s=3:6

Rey Koslowski: International migration, homeland security, European integration
Rey Koslowski is an associate professor of political science and public policy at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where he directs the Center for Policy Research Program on Border Control and Homeland Security. One of his current research projects examines efforts by the United States and other advanced industrialized countries to control migration using new information technologies, in order to meet the needs of globalizing economies. He recently edited the volume International Migration and the Globalization of Domestic Politics.
Office: 518.442.5314
E-mail: rkoslowski@uamail.albany.edu; koslowski@earthlink.net
Web: http://www.albany.edu/~rk289758/

Douglas S. Massey: Latin American migration (particularly Mexico), immigration policy debates; race, ethnicity, and segregation
Douglas S. Massey is Henry G. Bryant professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University and the co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton’s Office of Population Research. He is the author, with Jorge Durand and Nolan Malone, of Smoke and Mirrors: U.S. Immigration Policy in the Age of Globalization.
Office: 609.258.4949
E-mail: dmassey@princeton.edu
Web: http://www.soc.upenn.edu/People/masseydouglas.html

Ruth Milkman: Labor unions and immigration, immigrants in the U.S. labor market, U.S. labor history
Ruth Milkman is a professor of sociology at UCLA, where she directs the Institute of Industrial Relations. She has written extensively on labor issues and is the author of L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement, published last year by the Russell Sage Foundation. She has also contributed op-eds on labor issues to major newspapers, including the New York Times.
Office: 310.206.5215
E-mail: milkman@soc.ucla.edu
Web: http://www.soc.ucla.edu/faculty.php?lid=951&display_one=1

Mae M. Ngai: Origins of illegal immigration in the United States, immigration and citizenship, transnational migration, race and ethnicity
Mae M. Ngai taught history at the University of Chicago and is now a professor in the Department of History, Columbia University. Her first book, published in 2004, was Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. In response to the May 1 marches that took place last year, she contributed an op-ed to the Los Angeles Times entitled “How Grandma Got Legal,” about the history of legalizing unauthorized immigrants.
Office: 212.854.4646
E-mail: mn53@columbia.edu
Web: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/history/faculty/h_faculty_profile_ngai.htm

Alejandro Portes:  Structural origins of international migration, immigrant incorporation, migrants’ transnational ties and home country development Alejandro Portes is Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck professor of sociology at Princeton University, where he directs the Center for Migration and Development. He is the author of some 220 articles and chapters on international migration, immigrant and second generation incorporation in America, Latin American and Caribbean urbanization, economic sociology, and related topics. He has a chapter entitled “The Informal Economy” in the forthcoming Handbook of Economic Sociology, co-authored with William Haller. 
Office: 609.258.4436
E-mail: cmdweb@princeton.edu
Web: http://sociology.princeton.edu/Faculty/Portes/

Marc R. Rosenblum: U.S. immigration policymaking, U.S.-Latin American relations, Latin American politics
Marc R. Rosenblum is the Robert Dupuy professor of Pan-American Studies and an associate professor of political science at the University of New Orleans. He is the author of The Transnational Politics of U.S. Immigration Policy and of numerous articles in academic journals. In the spring of 2006, he worked as a counsel to Senator Edward Kennedy during the Senate’s immigration debate. He has a chapter entitled “Immigration and U.S. National Interests: Historical Cases and the Contemporary Debate” in the forthcoming Immigration and Refugee Policy in a Post-9/11 World (eds. Gary Freeman, Terri Givens, and David Leal).
Office: 504.280.6462
E-mail: mrosenbl@uno.edu
Web: http://poli.uno.edu/Faculty/facultywebpages/Rosenblum/RosenblumNew.htm

Jorge Santibáñez Romellón: International migration between Mexico and the United States
Jorge Santibáñez Romellón served as president of El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF), in Tijuana, Mexico, an institute that specializes in the study of the Mexican-U.S. border, from 1998 to 1996. An expert on migration between Mexico and the United States, he lectures and publishes extensively on this and related topics.
Office: (+52) 664.631.6300 ext. 1152 or 1155
E-mail: santi@colef.mx
Web: http://www.colef.mx

Saskia Sassen: Globalization and international human migration, global cities and diasporic networks, transnationalism, urban sociology
Saskia Sassen is Ralph Lewis professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and a Centennial visiting professor at the London School of Economics. She has written extensively on immigration, cities, global capitalism and electronic markets. Her most recent book is Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages. She has written comments for the New York Times, the Guardian, the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, Newsweek International, and OpenDemocracy.net, among others.
Office: 773.702.7279 (best is a.m.)
E-mail: s-sassen@uchicago.edu
Web: http://sociology.uchicago.edu/faculty/sassen.html

Richard Sutch: U.S. economic history, economic effects of immigration, economics of slavery and emancipation
Richard Sutch is distinguished professor of economics and history at the University of California, Riverside, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. With Susan B. Carter, he is the general editor of Historical Statistics of the United States, the most comprehensive collection of quantitative information on the history of the United States available, the most recent edition of which appeared in February 2006.
Office: 951.827.1589
E-mail: richard.sutch@ucr.edu
Web: http://www.csep.ucr.edu/richardsutch/index.htm

John Tirman: Migration and security
A political scientist who has written widely on foreign policy, politics and human rights, John Tirman serves as executive director of MIT’s Center for International Studies. Before joining MIT, he was a program director at the Social Science Research Council, in charge of its work on global security and cooperation. His books include 100 Ways America is Screwing Up the Worldand Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America's Arms Trade. He is also the co-author and editor of The Maze of Fear: Security and Migration after 9/11. A former Time magazine correspondent, Tirman frequently contributes op-eds and short articles to major print and online media.
Office: 617.253.9861
E-mail: tirman@MIT.edu
Web: http://web.mit.edu/cis/tirman.html; http://www.johntirman.com/

Aristide Zolberg: Politics of international migration, immigration policies and the making of American identity and society, global refugees
Aristide Zolberg is Walter Eberstadt professor of political science and history at the New School for Social Research within the New School, a university in New York City, where he also directs the International Center for Migration, Ethnicity, and Citizenship.  His most recent book is A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America.
Office: 212.229.5747 ext. 3091
E-mail: arizol@newschool.edu
Web: http://www.newschool.edu/gf/polsci/faculty/zolberg_a/index.htm; http://www.newschool.edu/icmec/ari.htm

About the SSRC’s work on migration:

Since 1994, the Social Science Research Council has been working to strengthen the field of international migration studies. Initially focused on the immigrant experience in the United States, the activities of the Migration Program examine migration internationally—most recently in relation to development, religion, and education. The three major organizational vehicles for the program’s international work include thematically-focused research teams, collaborative working groups, and research fellowships.

About the Social Science Research Council (SSRC):

The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) engages practitioners, policymakers, and academic researchers in all the social sciences and related professions, as well as in the humanities and natural sciences, on important public issues, with the goal of bringing necessary knowledge to public action.

Quick Links:

For more on the immigration experts mentioned in this release, go to: http://borderbattles.ssrc.org/