This is part of a continuing multi-disciplinary series of presentations and discussions focusing on recent scholarship about Detroit.

You are invited to attend a presentation by Ashley Johnson, Ph.D. Candidate at Northwestern University, entitled:

Underground Detroit: Illegal Europeans, Bootlegged Liquor, and the Politics of Policing America´s Motor City, 1924-1941

Between 1924 and 1941, Detroit received more illegal immigrants than El Paso, Tuscon, and San Diego combined. What´s more, the immigrants in question were from Southern and Eastern Europe, not Mexico. This talk will focus on undocumented immigrants on the northern border to explain how they crossed into the United States, where they lived, where they worked, and what this constant criminal activity meant for Detroit´s politics between the roaring twenties and FDR´s New Deal Era. How undocumented Europeans in Detroit affected ethnic communities, labor policies, and the rise of the U.S. Border Patrol will also be examined. By shifting the focus of illegal immigration and immigrants to the northern border with Canada we can better understand the relationship between immigration laws and the industrial north, and what this means for major cities today.

Date: Monday, Feb. 11, 2013
Time: 11:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Place: Room 241 in the Liberal Arts Building
Marygrove College
8425 W. McNichols (Wyoming at McNichols)
Detroit, MI 48221

Parking is free

For additional information, contact Tom Klug (tklug@marygrove.edu) 313-927-1291 or Mary Byrnes (mbyrnes4404@marygrove.edu) 313-927-1289.