The Robert A. Friedman Lecture for 2011
"Farewell to the American Dream? Anti-Immigrant
Sentiment and the Future of Citizenship" will be the
central question explored by historian Paul R. Spickard in
this 2011 Robert A. Friedman Lecture at Baruch College, which is free and open to the public.
A Professor of History at the University of California at
Santa Barbara, Spickard is the author or editor of sixteen
books, including Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race,
and Colonialism in American History and Identify (2007)
and Japanese Americans: The Formation and
Transformations of an Ethnic Group (2009).
Spickard suggests that the promise of the American
dream, that people from all over the world would be able
to come to the United States and enter freely into the
fruits of American citizenship, has never been honored
in the same way for peoples of color as it has been for
the children of Europe. Still, the notion that anyone
could come here and become an American has remained
a core part of American identity.
Recent US debates have turned vitriolic against two
varieties of newcomers: Mexicans and people from the
Middle East. Both are cast in public imagery as
threatening presences, eternal foreigners who can never
become true Americans. Does this signal a change in the
American political landscape, or is it something we have
seen before? On one hand, anti-immigrant sentiment
has always been present in the United States. On the
other, there might just be something new and sinister at
work in the present anti-immigrant moment.
Spickard’s lecture traces the tradition of the American
welcome to foreign peoples, as well as the equally
powerful American xenophobic tradition. It describes
the rhetoric, goals, and methods of the anti-immigrant
movement that currently operates in American political
culture. It assesses the chances that specific anti-
immigrant goals, such as an end to birthright citizenship,
might in fact be achieved. And it points toward what
must happen if meaningful immigration reform, and a
restoration of the promise of the American dream, is to
be achieved.
Robert A. Friedman, MBA ('67), Emeritus Trustee, Baruch College Fund is a retired partner of The Goldman Sachs Group, L.P. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1968 and served as a member of the Management Committee, as the Chief Financial Officer and as partner-in-charge of the Goldman Sachs Asset Management Group. He is also a founding principal of Sage Capital Management Corp.
Date:
March 15, 2011
Time:
12:45 PM
–
2:00 PM
College:
Baruch College
Address:
55 Lexington Avenue
Manhattan
Building:
Newman Vertical Campus
Room:
3-150
Phone:
646 312-4334
Email:
Admission:
Free