Europe: The New Melting Pot? The Nanovic Institute for European Studies, University of Notre Dame

Abstract

The University of Notre Dame has long figured importantly in migration studies in North America. Julian Samora, Father Theodore Hesbergh and so many others have endowed it with their energy and insight. Hence, it was fitting that on March 23-24, 1998, one of the first major conferences orga? nized by the newly created Nanovic Institute for European Studies would be consecrated to international migration. A special bonus for the conferees was a visit by Father Hesbergh who headed the influential Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy among the many other highlights in his long and distinguished career. The now-retired former President of the University of Notre Dame spoke forcefully in support of a universal employment eligi? bility verification document and lamented Congress' failure to legislate one. The newly invested French Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin had made several references to France as a melting pot in his inaugural address. Alec Hargreaves underscored how unusual and telling this choice of terms was. On the one hand, there is a deep-seated ambivalence about the United States, ranging from categorical rejection of race-conscious policies towards minorities, to be avoided at all costs, to a grudging admiration for the hyphenated American. Hargreaves sketched a typology of models of minor? ity and ethnic incorporation with the French Republic serving as a model of assimilation and homogenization of immigrants. Hence, the Prime Ministers choice of terms appeared to signal a departure. Hargreaves suggested that a certain convergence between the public poli? cies of various European states was occurring and that subnational and supra? national or transnational forces were reshaping the sovereign European state of yesteryear. In this context, important barriers to immigrant incorporation remained ? insecurity and socioeconomic segmentation. However, signifi-