Mexico Seminar: Los Otros: Race, Norms, Corruption and Immigration in Mexico

Date: 

Wednesday, September 22, 2021, 6:00pm to 7:15pm


For a recording of this event, click here.

Speakers: Pablo Yankelevich, Professor and Chair, Center for Historical Studies, El Colegio de México; José C. Moya, Professor of History, Barnard College
Moderated by: Diane Davis, Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University

Join us for a discussion of Pablo Yankelevich’s acclaimed book Los Otros: Raza, normas y corrupción en la gestión de la extranjería en México, 1900-1950, winner of the 2021 Howard F. Cline Book Prize in Mexican History of the Latin American Studies Association. This work focuses on the all-important capacity of a state, in this case Mexico, to decide who legally becomes a member of its nation—who is “us” and who is “other.” From a comparative hemispheric perspective, Mexico is a fascinating case of immigration policy and practice. Despite lacking an important influx of immigrants in modern times, it instituted some of the most restrictive naturalization laws in the region, leading to widespread corruption involving immigrants and authorities. Moreover, while post-revolutionary governments were avowedly racially inclusive, their migratory norms were driven by marked racial prejudices.

Pablo Yankelevich is Professor and Chair at the Center for Historical Studies at El Colegio de México. His research focuses on contemporary Latin American history, the history of exiles and political refugees in Latin America, as well as the history of migration and revolution in Mexico. His works include European and Latin American Social Scientists as Refugees, Émigrés and Return‐Migrants (co-edited, 2018); Raza y política en Hispanoamérica (co-edited, 2017); Inmigraciones y racismo. Contribuciones a la historia de los extranjeros en México (2015) Ráfagas de un exilio. Argentinos en México, 1974-83 (2009); and México, país refugio: La experiencia de los exilios en el siglo XX (2002). Professor Yankelevich holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Studies from Mexico’s National Autonomous University, and is a member of the Mexican Academy of History.

José C. Moya is Professor of History at Barnard College, and taught previously at the University of California, Los Angeles. He specializes in the history of Latin America and global migrations. Professor Moya directs the Forum on Migration at Barnard and the Columbia University Institute of Latin American Studies. He is the author, among other books, of Atlantic Crossroads: Webs of Migration, Culture and Politics between Europe, Africa and the Americas, 1800-2020 (2021); The Oxford Handbook of Latin American History (edited, 2011), and the award-winning Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires (1998). His works have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, German, French, and Mandarin.

Diane E. Davis is the Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Trained as a sociologist, Davis’s research interests include the relations between urbanization and national development, comparative urban governance, socio-spatial practice in conflict cities, urban violence, and new territorial manifestations of sovereignty. Her books include Transforming Urban Transport (co-edited, 2018); Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Conflicts in the Urban Realm (2011); Discipline and Development: Middle Classes and Prosperity in East Asia and Latin America (2004); Irregular Armed Forces and their Role in Politics and State Formation (co-edited, 2003); and Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (1994).

See also: Virtual, Mexico