Please join Center for Houston’s Future on Wednesday, September 9, for a conversation with Loren Steffy about his new book with Stan Marek, Deconstructed: An Insider’s View of Illegal Immigration and the Building Trades.
Illegal immigration is one of the most challenging issues facing America. Histrionics rule the day, and debate over what to do about the estimated eleven million undocumented workers in the country has become bitter and divisive.
Immigrants have long been the source of America’s economic strength. Yet our immigration laws have always been ill-defined and arbitrary, based largely on fears of the moment and aimed at limiting particular groups of people.
Deconstructed unravels these economic issues and shows the ineffectiveness of America’s policies through the eyes of a man who has watched first-hand the immigration crisis unfold during the past forty years.
When Stan Marek took over the drywall company started by his father and uncles, he never expected to find himself at the vanguard of the immigration debate. A descendant of Czech immigrants, Stan has grown increasingly concerned about the economic impact of illegal immigration on the construction industry, as well as the dangers and hardships it poses to the immigrants themselves. He has watched the construction business devolve from one that offered middle-class careers for working people to one that traps illegal immigrants in the shadows – paid in cash, without overtime or benefits, and unable to fully participate in our economy.
In Deconstructed, business journalist Loren C. Steffy traces Stan’s own family immigration history and shows how it has intertwined with the fits and starts of U.S. immigration law for more than a century. The book explains the economic forces driving illegal immigration and shows how laws to prevent it and punish the newcomers ignore economic reality.
When
Wednesday, September 9
12:00 - 1:30 p.m. CDT
Via Zoom – join information will be provided to registrants