Dr. Amanda Demmer
Fredonia alumna Amanda (Ambrose) Demmer, ’10, will visit campus in April to speak to classes and offer an address.
Her talk, “Refugees and Human Rights: Historical Insights into Contemporary Issues,” is slated for Thursday, April 9 at 5 p.m., in Williams Center Rooms S204 D and E.
Dr. Demmer, who earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of New Hampshire, is an Associate Professor of History at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and an expert in the history of refugees and human rights.
Demmer’s first book, “After Saigon’s Fall: Refugees and U.S.-Vietnamese Relations, 1975-2000” (Cambridge University Press, 2021), explores the normalization of U.S.-Vietnamese relations through the lens of refugee politics, humanitarianism, and human rights. She received the Paul and Linda Austin Military History Professorship from the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors and is the author of a second book, “Silence is Complicity.”
Demmer will examine the U.S. response to refugees over time, seeking to gain greater understanding of this contemporary issue by studying the past. The United States has a complicated history related to refugees. Jews fleeing persecution in Europe during the 1930s were often denied entrance to the U.S. However, after the end of World War II, approximately 400,000 European refugees resettled in the United States. In the post-war era, the U.S. generally accepted refugees in response to specific international emergencies; for ex., Hungarians fleeing the aftermath of the 1956 Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union, Cubans fleeing Castro’s Revolution, and Vietnamese after the fall of Saigon. Today, the United States admits refugees following the criteria and procedures established by the Refugee Act of 1980. Since 1980, the U.S. has admitted approximately 3.2 million refugees. The challenges refugees around the world face are enormous: accessing housing, employment, education, and health care are difficult and complicated processes. Refugees often face discrimination and prejudice in host countries and are vulnerable to human rights violations such as sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment. Host countries also face challenges accepting refugees, as the policy infrastructure and resources necessary to provide care and opportunities to refugees are often insufficient. Host countries often find that the presence of refugees affects both domestic and foreign policies, as citizens respond to the presence of refugees in their communities. Today, of course, the issues related to refugees and immigration more generally have become quite fraught topics in the United States, with many Americans seeking to close the doors to further refugees and immigrants.
Demmer's address, which is open to the public, will place the challenges refugees to the United States face and the challenges they create in historical context to expand our understanding of this complex issue. There will be time for questions after Demmer's talk. Light refreshments will be served.
The event is funded by Fredonia College Foundation's Carnahan Jackson Humanities Fund, the Graebner-Bennett Cultural Fund and a Faculty Student Association grant.
