World Insights: Ohio's New Immigration Story

How do Mexicans and Central Americans end up in Ohio? Which industries depend on migrant labor and are those migrants taking jobs from other Ohioans? Are Ohioans (most of whom trace their ancestry to immigration) welcoming? Are newcomers a fiscal burden to counties and schools? Why is Ohio considered a border state and what is happening in terms of border and immigration enforcement locally? Does the US need more enforcement of its immigration laws? Or different laws? Come to this session to discuss these and other questions you have, from the perspective of a professor -- not a pundit or politician. Nancy Powers is the assistant director of the Center for the Study of American Democracy at Kenyon College, where she teaches political science courses on Latin America, immigration and citizenship, and global poverty. Before reentering academic life in 2011, Powers worked for several years, in Florida and in Ohio, as an advocate with faith-based organizations working for immigration reform and farmworkers' labor rights, for which she was honored in 2005 as a Woman of Distinction, by Tallahassee Community College. Today, she partners with scholars from four other liberal arts colleges in an ongoing study of the immigration experiences of rural Latino immigrants in Ohio. Author of one academic book on poverty and democratic politics in Argentina, and several academic and journalistic articles, Powers is a native of northeast Ohio and has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Notre Dame.