“Immigration’s dark side has become the Les Mis of our time,” said speaker Dr. Marcelo M. Suarez-Oroczo during his presentation, “Rethinking Immigration and the Family in the Age of Global Vertigo” Tuesday evening in the Cape Cod Lounge.

The lecture was part of the Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture Series, which is being supported by The Center for Research on Families at the University of Massachusetts. Suarez-Oroczo, a Member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University and the Courtney Sale Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education at New York University, spoke of the impacts of global immigration on countries and families. He has also been the author of over 20 books and 100 scholarly articles.

“Migration is written in our genetic code,” said Suarez-Oroczo, who spoke of how immigration is a natural occurrence which comes with time. “It accounts for how we became the country we are and the country we will become,” he added.

He claimed that worldwide, immigrants account for about three percent of the total population of the world, and that 1.5 billion people are shaped by the experience of immigration.

Suarez-Oroczo spoke of how the promises of a utopian future in a new country for immigrants often become a dystopian reality, with issues such as poverty and family separation causing strife rather than payoff.

“Two-thirds of migrations came through family reunification programs,” he said.

He told the audience how various factors can lead to migration to another country, such as the environmental conditions of a country.

“This is a biosocial adaptation to another environment because of unlivable conditions,” said Suarez-Oroczo.

He also said that war often changes a country for the worse, and families with the ability to leave their homeland will often do so. Fear is a cause of massive displacement among these families, said Suarez-Oroczo.

The total number of immigrants worldwide has risen by over 55 million people within the last 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell, he said. However, that number has significantly decreased since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy in September 2008. 

He also said that that the distribution of children born in the United States in 1990 was 69 percent white and 12 percent Latino, and that in 2030 it is estimated that 46 percent will be White and 21 percent Latino in the U.S. 

He commented that although conditions may worsen for countries, the overall amount of migrants remains stable throughout the world. He also said that the immigration era of today has fewer migrants than last era of migration.

Suarez-Oroczo commented that the life of a child moving to another country to be relocated with family may be difficult, but a recurring feeling of discomfort and displacement may linger. He pulled out various quotes from children reconnected with their parents and almost all of them expressed how they felt like their parents were strangers or how they missed someone else from their home.

He noticed one disturbing trend in the children of immigrants.

“Never before have so many headed to criminal justice system,” he remarked.

Tim Jones can be reached at [email protected].