New information about IHRC's collections on-line
New information about additional ca. 350 archival collections has recently been made available on the IHRC web site.
Continue reading "New information about IHRC's collections on-line" »
New information about additional ca. 350 archival collections has recently been made available on the IHRC web site.
Continue reading "New information about IHRC's collections on-line" »
There are many links between the IHRC and the Iron Range in Minnesota (IRMN). The Center is currently developing a project focusing on exploring these connections. Continue
Previous Collections Updates
Haven Hawley, IHRC Program Director
Although I’ve only been on the job since late August, my work as the new IHRC program director has settled into a busy pattern of meetings, research, and friendly faces, highlighted by glimpses of the Mississippi River flowing past Elmer L. Andersen Library. Underneath the banks of that river, in caverns carved out of sandstone and limestone, the collections of the Immigration History Research Center are secure but at capacity. Dealing with the lack of space for expansion is among the most pressing of the challenges – and opportunities – on which staff will be focusing in the coming year. I find inspiration from learning about the origins of the Immigration History Research Center and the work of people like Timothy Smith.
Continue reading "Turning Challenges into Opportunities -- An IHRC Tradition" »
The Migration Policy Institute has recently published a report under the title Bridging Divides: The Role of Ethnic Community Based Organizations in Refugee Integration.
Two examples of such organizations are documented in the IHRC collection of Refugee Studies Center Records for two of the dominant refugee groups in the Twin Cities area, from Southeast Asia and Somalia.
The annual meeting of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) is held in Minneapolis July 11-14, 2007. Many fine print and book arts enthusiasts are among the participating crowd. Can the IHRC collections offer items of interest to this group?
Among the refugees arriving in the United States in the last decade and a half, a large group comes from Liberia. Many of them have settled in Minnesota. Learn more about the Liberians from the IHRC collections and even more from a project sponsored recently by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Following negotiations between former IHRC Head of Research Collections/Associate Director Joel Wurl and Janusz Krzyzanowski, President of the Polish American Immigration and Relief Committee (PAIRC) in 2005-2006, the Immigration History Research Center has recently received ca. 100 linear feet of archival records of the PAIRC. The collection spans the years 1946-2001.
The IHRC has recently received the initial shipments of materials from Professor Sucheng Chan, scholar of Asian American studies. This is the first installment of a large amount of published and unpublished materials that are scheduled to arrive over the next couple of years. The recent shipment comprises 15 linear feet of contemporary as well as older scholarship on Asian Americans (including copies of dissertations from universities nation-wide), fiction by Asian Americans, periodicals and research source files, particularly pertaining to Professor Chan's research on Cambodian refugees.
About half-a-century ago, many voices in the United States were calling for a major overhaul of the immigration law. Of the foreign born at that time, the largest group were those born in Italy. And not surprisingly, Italian Americans were very active in trying to change the immigration laws they viewed as discriminatory and unfair. In the name of equality, they were willing to join forces with some other immigrant groups whose nationalities were not favored by the quota system of the 1952 Walter-McCarran Act. Shortly after the enactment of that legislation, the American Committee on Italian Migration (ACIM) was established by Italian Americans.
- reads a headline from the London Times above an article reporting on refugee crisis in the Middle East. "About three million [Afghan] refugees in Pakistan, two million in Iran, and two million so called 'internal refugees' mostly living in Kabul, together constitute the world's biggest refugee population." The date is not in 2006 or 2007 but rather March 26, 1988, following the announcement of the anticipated withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Someone working at the United States Committee for Refugees clipped this article, and now it can be found - along with many other items providing information on refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and many other parts of the world over two and a half decades from ca. 1970 to 1995 - in one of the major archival collections held at the Immigration History Research Center - the Records of the United States Committee for Refugees (recently renamed United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants). A new, preliminary folder inventory for the collection has been made available for the first time on-line.
Images of several items selected from this collection are available for viewing at the IHRC web site by clicking here.
The IHRC has always collected documentation on how applicants for the United States citizenship have been tested by the government and what has been provided to help them prepare for the examinations. These volumes include various English lessons manuals, textobooks on citizenship or "Americanization" and practice questionnaires issued by the government or service organizations assisting the foreign born. The latest addition to this group of materials is the New Pilot Naturalization Exam recently released by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (November 30, 2006). The 144 questions and answers as well as more facts about the test redesign are available at the US CIS web site. See if you'd pass!
Resources beyond IHRC holdings. A new web site has been launched providing information about the foreign-born and ethnics in Minnesota - "Ethnic Trends".
A new research guide "Reparations, Reconciliation and Forced Migration" by Megan Bradley has been made available by the Forced Migration Online network at their web site.
Due to staff reorganization, the IHRC office hours have been temporarily changed to Monday - Friday, 10:00 - 12:00 a.m. and 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. until further notice. Thank you for your understanding.
...by an editorial group at Encyclopaedia Britannica that identifies and screens other Web sites to supplement the encyclopaedia's own content. These Web sites, called iGuide sites, are then presented as recommended resources for online readers. The IHRC's Web site (http://www.ihrc.umn.edu/) has been approved as a Britannica iGuide site. Listen to a 90 second "U Moment" describing this announcement http://www.ihrc.umn.edu/events/media/britannica_iguide.mp3.
compiled by FlorenceMae Waldron for a workshop with the Northfield Public Schools, held at the IHRC on June 12, 2006 (one page, pdf format).
of selected books, online aids, and published collections, prepared by IHRC staff and distributed at the Center’s February 17 symposium on oral methodologies, has been posted as a reference for interested researchers. (in pdf format)
Minnesota Community Campaign consortium offers a resource kit to help groups welcome new Minnesotans. The kit may be seen at the IHRC. (Description)
Available free (pay $1.60 US postage + $1.50 handling fee = $3.10; inquire if non-US). Contains essays, detailed inventory, photographs (some text is also online in this site's “Research Sources”).Contact IHRC to order.