C-SPAN Gets History Lesson In U.S. Refugee Policy

Contemporary debate about refugees suffers from a “profound history deficit,” Duke historian Gunther Peck told a classroom full of Duke undergraduates Thursday.

History buffs can learn more about that deficit when C-SPAN’s “American History TV” airs an hour-long episode devoted to Peck’s lecture later this summer. 

On Thursday, a crew from C-SPAN’s “American History TV” followed along as Peck described shifting U.S. attitudes towards refugees. The lecture was part of his course “Immigrant Dreams, U.S. Realities,” which covers U.S. immigration policies from 1850 to the present. 

In Thursday’s class, Peck described how previous U.S. generations embraced refugees fleeing newly Communist countries of Eastern Europe as allies in the fight against Communism. Yet in other ways, the current refugee debate echoes past ones, with security concerns and humanitarian values foremost in both cases.

“There’s a profound history deficit in the contemporary discussion about refugees,” Peck told his students. “It’s as if there’s no history to U.S. refugee policy.”

The episode will air this summer as part of the continuing C-SPAN series on American history.

Photos by Megan Mendenhall / Duke Photography