15th Annual De Jong Lecture in Social Demography

The New Reality at the Mexico - U.S. Border

Douglas S. Massey, Ph.D., Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

Undocumented migration from Mexico ended in 2008 and has been zero or negative for 12 years. Along the southern U.S.  border undocumented Mexicans have been replaced by unauthorized Central Americans.  What in the year 2000 was a massive inflow of single adult male Mexican workers traveling to jobs in the U.S. has been replaced by a much smaller inflow of Central American families and unaccompanied children seeking not jobs but refuge. Dr. Massey will explain how and why this transformation occurred, and what it portends for the U.S. in the coming decade.

Discussants:

Amy Hsin, Associate Professor of Sociology, Queens College, City University of New York

Kevin Thomas, Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies, The University of Texas at Austin

Agenda:

9:00 - Welcome

9:05 - Dr. Doug Massey will present The New Reality at the Mexico-U.S. Border; followed by 5 minutes for clarification questions

10:00 - Break

10:10 - Dr. Kevin Thomas

10:35 - Dr. Amy Hsin

10:55-11:45 - Audience Q&A with all presenters

Lecture Sponsors:

The De Jong Lecture is supported by the Gordon F. and Caroline M. De Jong Lectureship in Social Demography Endowment, administered jointly and supplemented by the Department of Sociology and Criminology and the Population Research Institute at Penn State.

View Previous De Jong Lectures

Gordon F. De Jong is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Demography, former Director of the Graduate Program in Demography, and Senior Scientist Emeritus with the Population Research Institute at Penn State. Caroline M. De Jong, a former middle school teacher, has been involved in numerous community, church, and university-related organizations including the American Association of University Women, Stay-and-Play Nursery School, Presbyterian Women, and the Centre County Board of Elections.