Welcome to a new academic year! I am looking forward to the great programming the IHRC has planned for the months ahead. In the face of escalating attacks on immigrants and the erosion of democratic institutions, I am heartened by the brilliant scholars, students, and community organizations with whom the IHRC collaborates. Please join us to connect and to strategize. I hope to see you at our Open House on September 9.

Sincerely,

Llana Barber

Current initiatives to restrict birthright citizenship would have broad implications for many American communities. Why does the US have birthright citizenship? How have immigrants and other populations shaped US citizenship, and how would proposed changes affect different groups? Our panel of experts will provide the historical context for today’s birthright citizenship debate.

The History of the Present webinar series is designed to give historical context for a contemporary immigration issue, aimed at both an interdisciplinary scholarly audience and the general public. 

This webinar is co-sponsored by the Department of History.

Between Inter-Minority Relations

and Foreign Relations:

Italians, Japanese, and Chinese in the San Francisco Bay Area During the Global Crisis, 1929-1941

On July 25, 2025, Shinya Yoshida, PhD candidate in History, presented on the research he conducted as a recipient of the 2024-2025 Italian American Immigration Endowed Graduate Research Fellowship. His presentation focused on how foreign relations in the 1930s, marked by the Great Depression and the territorial ambitions of Italy and Japan, intersected (or not) with racial and ethnic relations in the San Francisco Bay Area from the perspective of Italian migrants.



This event was co-sponsored by the Immigration History Research Center Archives at the University of Minnesota Libraries.

IHRC Academic Year Graduate Fellows

The IHRC has awarded two IHRC Academic Year Fellowships for the 2025-2026 academic year. These awards support graduate students from any discipline at the University of Minnesota working on migration-related topics.

Congratulations to our 2025-2026 Academic Year Fellows!

Vincent Kancans, PhD candidate in Germanic Studies with a minor in Moving Image Studies is the recipient of the American Latvian Association Graduate Fellowship in Latvian American Studies. His dissertation focuses on post-WWII migrants from the Baltic states and how ordinary citizens use technical media to challenge state and corporate power structures.

Johara Suleiman, PhD candidate in Social Work is the recipient of the Graduate Fellowship in Finnish American Studies for research on how Minnesotan Child Protection Service impacts Somali mothers' understanding of the system, its purpose, and their mothering selves. Note that the Finnish American Fellowship is available for students studying a wide variety of immigrant communities as long as the project meets the award parameters.

Graduate Student Publications

IHRC summer fellow Alisa Kuzmina (PhD candidate in History) recently published two articles about her experience in the Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRCA). Divided Lives, Connected in the Archive: What My Research Taught Me About Loving Across Borders and The Emotional Textures of the Archive: What My Research Taught Met About Positionality were published in Perspectives on History. These excellent reflections are must-reads for anyone interested in archival research.

Graduate Student Connections

This year Xun Yu, a graduate student in Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development in the College of Education and Human Development, will be our Graduate Assistant and will lead our graduate student programming. We look forward to introducing her to you in future newsletters and at IHRC events.

Graduate students from any department or college at UMN with an interest in global migration and/or immigration to the US are encouraged to reach out to the IHRC and participate in our programs. This is an opportunity to network with other students and scholars, share your work in progress, attend social events, and receive career development information. Students can contact us at ihrc@umn.edu for more information.

The Migration Scholarship Circle, a collaboration with the UMN Law School's Binger Center for New Americans, is a discussion of works-in-progress by UMN migration scholars. The goal of the Circle is to provide UMN faculty, staff, and students an opportunity to present unpublished projects at in-person, relatively informal workshops. Presenters will be asked to share their scholarship-in-progress ahead of time. 

Interested in presenting your work this academic year? Please complete the presenter form to indicate your interest in presenting your own work-in-progress. 

Our kickoff event for the workshop series will be Friday, September 5 from 3:30-5:00pm. Saida Abdi and Catalina Zapata will present their work on Refugee Youth and Family Mental Health. The workshop will take place in the School of Social Work, McNeal Hall, Room 10, 1985 Buford Ave, St. Paul, 55108.

We hope you will join us. No RSVP required.

19th Twin Cities Arab Film Fest

September 24-28, 2025

Main Cinema

More information Here

September 24, 2025

6:00pm

Best Buy Theater, Northrop

84 Church St. SE,

Minneapolis, MN 55455

Reyna Grande is a bestselling author known for her powerful explorations of immigration, family separation, and the cost of the American Dream.

Sonia Guiñansaca is an international award-winning queer migrant indigenous Kichwa-Kañari poet, cultural strategist and social justice activist.

The Liberal Arts Engagement Hub at the University of Minnesota has announced its 2025-2026 Residencies. These partnerships between the university and community organizations advance a culture of connection, creativity, and community engagement.

This year, the IHRC is supporting a residency entitled 50 Years: The Diasporic Journey of Southeast Asians in Minnesota. This Hub residency presents a series of grassroots storytelling events commemorating 50 Years of the diasporic journey of Southeast Asians in Minnesota, uniting our Southeast Asian communities and the broader Minnesota region through firsthand narratives and key historical moments. This storytelling series will center the personal experiences of Southeast Asian communities, capturing accounts of migration, adaptation, and renewal since families’ first arrival here, and investigating how individual experiences have shaped community identities and contributed to Minnesota's culture and historical landscape.

Project Partners:

• Southeast Asian Diaspora Project (The SEAD Project)
• Dr. Palita Chunsaengchan, Assistant Professor, Asian & Middle Eastern Studies

A full list of residencies is available on the Liberal Arts Engagement Hub Website.

The Liberal Arts Engagement Hub also announced that Yuichiro Onishi, Associate Professor in the African American and African Studies Department, will serve as director. Read more about his appointment here. Onishi served as interim director of the IHRC from 2018-2020. We look forward to continued collaboration with Prof. Onishi and the Liberal Arts Engagement Hub.

IHRC Director Llana Barber's 2021 article, "Latine Rebellions and Why They Matter," was recently reposted in the Latin American Review of Books. This article was first published by The American Historian. The article explores a history of uprisings in the US against a backdrop of systemic racism, and was re-published as ICE began its presence in Los Angeles in June 2025. Barber writes, "Understanding these uprisings is important, as they show us the shape of systemic racism in the second half of the twentieth century, as well as the fierce struggle against it. These rebellions remind us that politics are made not only by politicians, lawyers, and professional advocates, but also by working-class and poor people defiantly claiming their right to the city: its public spaces, its resources, and the power to shape its future."

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