Phi Beta Kappa Scholar Tomás R. Jiménez to Deliver "Are We Still a Nation of Immigrants?" Lecture

The Knox College Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa is pleased to welcome Tomás R. Jiménez for a visiting scholar lecture and visit. The lecture will take place on October 22, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. in the Abolition Lab in Seymour Library. The lecture is free and open to the public. The lecture, entitled Are We Still a Nation of Immigrants?, explores the idea that for the last 70 years, the United States’ self-understanding has included the idea that it is a nation of immigrants. How did that idea come about, and is it still relevant today?

Jiménez is the Joan B. Ford Professor in the department of sociology, the Robert and Ruth Halperin University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and the founding director of Stanford’s Institute for Advancing Just Societies. Along with the lecture, Jiménez will have coffee conversations with students and other members of the Knox community. Jiménez will also visit a class for a discussion.

“Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s oldest honor society, and the Knox chapter tries to bring in a visiting scholar through their program about every other year,” said Katie Stewart, president of the Knox College Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and associate professor of political science and international relations. This year’s visit is part of Phi Beta Kappa’s 250th anniversary celebrations. These highlight its student-driven ideals that the arts and sciences are as vital to our democracy today as they were 250 years ago. Stewart added, “I think it’s really a great opportunity for our students, especially in some of these more informal settings, to have conversations. One of the coffee conversations will be on the question of whether we have a moral obligation to accept immigrants, another view of the larger topic.”

“The way we sometimes talk about ourselves as Americans is that we are a nation of immigrants; we’re not a nation founded on a particular race or ethnicity or religion, but that’s become so much more contested now,” Stewart said. “It will be interesting to hear his perspective as an expert in this area as to what extent that national narrative is changing or not.”

Professor Jiménez's research and writing focus on immigration, policy, assimilation, social mobility, and ethnic and racial identity. He has written three books on these topics: States of Belonging: Immigration Policies, Attitudes, and Inclusion, The Other Side of Assimilation: How Immigrants are Changing American Life, and Replenished Ethnicity: Mexican Americans, Immigration, and Identity.

The lecture is by the Robison Lecture Fund through the Knox Cultural Events Committee, and by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.