The Harvey Kaye State of Democracy Lecture with Dr. Sergio González

Commemorating the public engagement and broad intellectual spirit of UWGB Professor Harvey Kaye’s career, the Harvey Kaye State of Democracy series addresses some of the most urgent questions facing our democracy, including in the fields of workers’ rights, immigration, racial inequality, public health, technology, and journalism. This evening we will welcome Dr. Sergio M. González, Assistant Professor of History at Marquette University. A historian of twentieth-century U.S. migration, labor, and religion, his scholarship focuses on the development of Latino communities in the U.S. Midwest. He is the author of Mexicans in Wisconsin (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2017) and the co-editor of Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics Since 1945 (New York University Press, 2022) with Felipe Hinojosa and Maggie Elmore. His most recently published book, Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin (University of Illinois Press, 2024), explores the relationship between Latino communities, religion, and social movements in the twentieth century Midwest. González’s current research expands on these themes through two new projects. The first examines the history of sanctuary movements in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, exploring the pivotal role religious institutions and people of faith have played in developing contemporary social movements for immigrant and refugee justice. His second project analyzes the central role the Midwest has come to play in the country’s fraught immigration politics, studying the century-long record of anti-immigrant sentiment in the region and the social movements that have risen to combat it.

This event is free and open to the public. Registration on this site will hold your seat until 6:15pm. A reception will follow the event.