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The Department of Sociology Presents: Dr. Jenny Van Hook

On Wednesday, February 19, 2025, the Sociology Colloquium Series will feature Dr. Jenny Van Hook. Dr. Jennifer Van Hook is interested in demography, immigrant integration, and health. Her research focuses on the factors that support or impede the integration of immigrants and their children. She also researches the health and well-being of immigrants and their children, unauthorized migration, and the impacts of immigration status.

Colloquia Title and Topic: Texas-Style Exclusion: Mexican Americans and the Legacy of Limited Opportunity

While Americans largely support legal immigration, this support is conditional on the basis that immigrants “make it on their own”. European-origin Industrial Era immigrants came to U.S. impoverished, worked hard, and achieved the American Dream seemingly on their own. Mexican immigrants, the nation’s largest contemporary immigrant group, are often accused of being dependent on the government and refusing to integrate into American society the “right way.” In their new book, Texas-Style Exclusion, Jennifer Van Hook and James D. Bachmeier evaluate these claims by using linked census and archival schooling data to investigate how American society has responded to different groups of immigrants over time.