January 2007 Archives

By Donna R. Gabaccia, Professor of History and Director, Immigration History Research Center

It’s often said that bad news is real news while good news…well, good news often just doesn’t make it onto the front page. Is the only immigration news we read the bad news?

This week we went looking for the quieter immigration stories that don’t always make the headlines or even the inner pages of web and print news. Certainly in the past year, we have learned a lot about political conflicts over immigration policy in national and state capitals. Conflict and anger have been front and center in media attention to immigration. But for the reader who is willing to dig a bit, immigration stories featuring cooperation and understanding between foreign- and native-born can also be found.

By Donna R. Gabaccia, Professor of History and Director, Immigration History Research Center

Here in Minnesota, where refugees form a larger part of the foreign-born population than they do anywhere else in the U.S., it’s easy to assume that the U.S. offers refuge and a peaceful landing to most of the displaced persons of the world. Many of the refugees currently in the upper Midwest—certainly the Hmong, Somalians, and Vietnamese—fled regions that had seen both significant political violence and the engagement of U.S. military forces. So are we likely to see a large flow of refugees from Iraq in the years ahead?