WORCESTER, Mass. – Timothy Meagher, associate professor of history at Catholic University of America, will give a talk titled “Rethinking Assimilation: Irish Americans and Catholics in America” on Nov. 2 at 4 p.m. in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.
Talk of assimilation — or more often its failure — is in the air everywhere these days, from discussions over illegal immigrants in America to heated debates over apparent Muslim immigrant separatism in Western Europe. But what does assimilation mean and how useful is it as a concept to understand how immigrant people adapt? Looking back on the history of the Irish and other Catholics in America, Meagher will explore the meaning and utility of the term assimilation, suggest a new understanding of the old notion of the “melting pot” and, in the process, try to explain such important phenomena as the making of Red Sox Nation and why the blue states are blue.
Meagher is the author of several works, including The New York Irish (with Ronald Bayor; The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) and Inventing Irish America: Generation, Class, and Ethnic Identity in a New England City, 1880 to 1928 (University of Notre Dame Press, 2000).
The event is sponsored the department of history.
Catholic University Professor to Discuss Assimilation in Talk at Holy Cross
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