The video of the LWVW Opening Meeting, held on October 7, 2021 at St John the Evangelist and via Zoom, is now available! Our guest speaker, Dr. Catherine Simpson Bueker, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, Emmanuel College, spoke about the current demographics in Wellesley and how civic engagement is generated:
“At the most basic level, civic engagement, true civic engagement and by that I mean participating in the day-to-day operations of our public lives and institutions, as opposed to what we know to be the politics of disenfranchisement and destruction, is based upon relationships. We engage because we care about each other as friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens. We care about our institutions. We build this from the bottom up, small-scale, nuts-and-bolts engagement through relationships and trust. … We have got to see beyond the white picket fences that have long symbolized Wellesley and make sure the front gate is open to everyone." - Catherine Simpson Bueker, 10/7/2021
(Video courtesy of Wellesley Media)
Catherine has taught at Emmanuel College in Boston for the past 15 years. She focuses on issues of race, ethnicity, immigration and civic engagement and has published books, chapters, essays, and peer-reviewed articles on those topics. Her research has been read and cited hundreds of times, including in the National Academies of Sciences report, The Integration of Immigrants into American Society (2015). Her books include From Immigrant to Naturalized Citizen (LFB Press 2006) and The Experiences of Women of Color in an Elite US Public School (Palgrave MacMillan 2017). Her articles have appeared in the journals The International Migration Review; Race, Ethnicity, and Education; The Journal of International Migration and Integration; and Contexts, among others. She has also published entries related to race and immigration in the Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism. Her current project focuses on the ways in which established Americans do or do not recognize and experience increasing diversity in their community. She has been a Visiting Scholar and Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. Dr. Bueker holds a BA in American Studies from Cornell University and an MA and PhD in Sociology from Brown University.
Slides from Dr. Bueker's talk may be found 
here.
The following articles by Dr. Bueker may be of interest:
Many thanks go to James Joyce of Wellesley Public Media for hosting the Zoom "On Demand" video and to Cathy Bueker who gave us her time and expertise in a very interesting and informative talk.
