ASHP Podcast

Isabel Martinez, John Jay CollegeCUNY Graduate Center, October 24, 2014In this presentation, Isabel Martinez places the recent experiences of unaccompanied minors migrating from Central America to the United States in a historical context, describing her family’s own youth migration story which begins in Mexico, 1902. She goes on to explore some of the reasons for the recent surge in Latin American youth migration, including increased poverty, violence, and economic instability associated with the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement, the United States’ “crimigration” policies, and the kinds of media attention these groups of young people receive. Professor Martinez discusses the many dangers they confront, detailing the experiences of unaccompanied children as young as seven years old, as well as the challenges of being apprehended and the risks of going undetected. She then presents several strategies for teaching this material to students.

Maria Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, New York UniversityCUNY Graduate Center, October 24, 2014In this lecture, Professor Saldaña-Portillo addresses the multiple ways in which the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has affected the price of labor, increased narco-terrorism, and facilitated the transfer of drugs from Latin America to the United States, as well as the laundering of funds by drug traffickers in the United States and Mexico.  She situates these processes within the parallel language used to describe Islamic terrorism and the vilified image of the "Indio-barbaro del Norte," a term used in the 19th century to refer to Apache enemies of the United States and Mexico.

Lori Flores, State University of New York, StonybrookCUNY Graduate Center, April 25, 2014In this lecture Professor Flores traces the peaks and valleys of undocumented immigration, as well as the political and economic aspects of the influxes. She examines the U.S. Bracero labor program, the relationships between citizens, Bracero workers, and undocumented immigrants, and  conflicts between moral laws and legal laws. Flores covers the impact of the Hart-Celler Act on Mexican legal and undocumented immigration, the role of the U.S. in Central American civil wars and the subsequent rise of Central American immigrants, and current immigration issues including the Dream Act.

Ramona Hernandez, Dominican Studies Institute, City CollegeCUNY Graduate Center, February 7, 2014In this lecture, Professor Ramona Hernández closely examines both the statistics and the demographics of the increasing Dominican presence in the United States. Why is there a geographic shift in the locations that Dominicans are settling? How do Dominicans compare to other Latino groups in terms of assimilation into American society? Hernández overturns stereotypical perceptions that surround Dominican populations and contests the idea of applying a singular paradigm to all Latino immigrants, using the Dominican situation to illustrate the complexities that are left unexplained as a result of such classifications.

Lisandro Pérez, John Jay CollegeCUNY Graduate Center, February 7, 2014In this lecture, Lisandro Pérez unpacks the long, distinct, and prolific history of Cuban Americans and their history’s close correlation with U.S. foreign and domestic policy. He uses census materials, forms, archives, city directories, naturalization records, vital records, newspapers, and magazines spanning over 200 years to reconstruct the Cuban community politically and socially in New York City, and explains the reasons for the “Cuban exception.” This talk took place at the CUNY Graduate Center on February 7, 2014.

Orlando Hernandez, Hostos Community ColllegeCUNY Graduate Center, December 6, 2013In this talk, Professor Hernández interprets texts from Puerto Rican educator and sociologist Eugenio María de Hostos as well as the Cuban poet and scholar José Martí.  He describes the work of both writers as humanistic and cooperative, and situates both the writers and their work within the context of their influence on politics, history, and literature.

Andrés Reséndez, University of California – DavisCUNY Graduate Center, October 18, 2013In this talk, Professor Reséndez expands the traditional conception of America’s colonial past and paints a richer, more historically accurate picture of the Europeans who settled in the New World.  The “Spanish Conquistadores” were not all Spanish, all male, and all funded by the king, but were actually cosmopolitan, international professionals, often funded by private entrepeneurs who came as settlers rather than conquerors. Missionaries were not simply “good Padres” carrying the message of Christ, but rather had their own strategic plans rooted in self-promotion. Reséndez presents the new world in the colonial era as part of an increasingly international, interdependent environment of global commerce.

CUNY Graduate Center October 18, 2013In this panel discussion, Pablo Mitchell, Professor of History, Oberlin College; Virginia Sánchez Korrol, Professor Emerita, Brooklyn College; and Andrés Reséndez, Professor of History, University of California, Davis deliberate on ways to incorporate Latino/a histories into Anglo American history, often portrayed as distinct narratives. The scholars discuss the tools they use in the classroom to expand students’ understanding of what it means to be American. This discussion was moderated by María Montoya, New York University, and Lisandro Pérez, John Jay College.

Karl Jacoby, Columbia UniversityCUNY Graduate CenterMay 7, 2013In this 35 minute talk, historian Karl Jacoby complicates the story of the history of North America by presenting the history of the Plains Indians through the perspective of multiple revolutions in the late eighteenth century: the expansion of the Spanish empire along the west coast and resistance by native peoples; the U.S. revolution that resulted in westward expansion; the formation of the Ohio Confederacy by Midwestern Indian tribes; and the resurgence of the horse on the Great Plains.

Joshua Freeman, Murphy Institute for Labor Studies, City University of New YorkCUNY Graduate Center, March 7, 2013In this 45 minute talk, historian Josh Freeman describes how the New Deal expanded and fundamentally changed the role of government in American life, and why the Great Depression triggered such profound change when previous economic crises hadn’t. He also discusses the relationship between Labor and the New Deal, and how many New Deal programs excluded large numbers of female and non-white workers.