Migration has been one of the most formative experiences in the history of human development and societal change. In today’s globalizing world more and more people live transnational or transcultural lives.  Migration influences economic development, social change, and international politics. Second and third generation in-migrants help shape the culture of receiving societies. Historical research shows that none of these developments are new;  rather, the movement of people in the present is often historically grounded. Transnational connections date back to the 19th century, migration patterns, migration networks, and migration systems can be traced to the distant past. Historians provide in-depth diachronic analyses and bring a historically grounded understanding to today’s debate of (im)migration issues. The importance of migration and the debates surrounding it have generated a growing demand for experts in many areas, including education, social services, administration, industry, commerce, and the policy arena. For them, an in-depth and historically based analytical knowledge of migration-related issues is essential. 
A group of faculty in the Department of History at Arizona State University study migration and acculturation in the past and present from a global perspective.  Historians of migration at Arizona State University integrate research and teaching on

• the structures of the migrant-sending societies and social changes caused by the loss of laborers as well as the financial remittances from migrants
• the interrelationships between sending and receiving societies and the actual processes of migration
• the impact of migrants and their native-born children on receiving societies and their evolution.

Located in a region presently experiencing dramatic in-migration, Arizona State University includes related social science and humanities units, such as the North American Center for Transborder Studies and the School of Global Studies, which also offer excellent training, seminars and other resources. An interdisciplinary MA in Migration Studies is in the advanced planning stage.
The graduate program in the Arizona State University Department of History enables students to acquire an overview of migration-related topics and to pursue in-depth research on a various migration-related themes. Migration studies are integrated into the core courses of the graduate programs (mainstreaming and contextualizing) as well as offered as specialized research seminars. To add to the program, the department cooperates with Anthropology, Social Justice and Political Science.

Faculty

Brian Gratton  reviews migration patterns in the United States, Latin America and Europe over the last 120 years.  His research, supported by several federal grants, has led to representative comparative studies of ethnic groups in U.S.history. He is the Director of "Refuge & Rejection," an on-line the Project for work by humanists on refugees.

Christiane Harzig (coordinator)
Christiane Harzig teaches the history of migration. She has published widely on gender and migration issues as well as on migration policies in the U.S., Canada and Europe. She also specialized on German immigration to North America. Currently she is working on migration systems of household workers in a global and historical perspective.

Dirk Hoerder teaches global migration history and labor migrations. He published on continental migrations in Europe and North America and on transoceanic migrations in the White and Black Atlantic and Pacific. He specializes on issues of acculturation in receiving societies and intercultural contacts. His synthesis of global migrations in the second millennium was widely acclaimed.

Anna Holian teaches modern German and Eastern European history.  She is currently writing a book about displaced persons in post-World War II Germany, which examines how narratives about National Socialism and Soviet communism provided a basis for identification and conflict among individual DPs. With Brian Gratton, she directs the web-based project “Refuge and Rejection."

Laurie Manchester specializes in Russia history. The book she is currently researching, “The Colonial World through Russian Eyes,” focuses on Russians who traveled or migrated to China, Africa and Latin America from the 1860s to the start of the second World War.   

Arturo Rosales