Department of History, UC Santa Barbara

History Associates Talk : Alfredo Gonzalez | "An American Promise: 20th Century US Military Naturalization."
2025-11-02 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Vista Del Monte, 3775 Modoc Rd, Santa Barbara, 3775 Modoc Rd., Santa Barbara
Assistant Professor of Political Science at UCSB, Alfredo Gonzalez will speak on “An American Promise: 20th Century US Military Naturalization.”
Despite widespread recognition that modern social welfare programs stem from the protections pledged to war veterans, commitments from Congress to naturalize immigrant service members and veterans are absent in debates on the military social safety net. Legal historians have shown that after World War I, veterans’ organizations were instrumental in pressuring Congress to grant citizenship to racially ineligible war veterans, but we know less about whether veterans’ organizations have since considered naturalization a military benefit worth protecting. I explore the boundaries of military social welfare between WWI and the War on Terror, when military naturalization policy significantly changed from guaranteeing legal citizenship to merely expediting an immigrant’s ability to apply for naturalization. Understanding the development of military naturalization policy and its relationship to military welfare requires tracing how the process unfolded to reveal the extent, if at all, decision makers and veterans view political incorporation as part of the repertoire of protected benefits.

History Associates Book Club: "Lies my Teacher Told Me"
2026-01-29 17:00 - 18:00 | Mosher Alumni House, Alumni Association / UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, 93106
The History Associates and the History Department are launching a new special program “A Book in Common.” The first session is taking place on Thursday 1/29 at the Mosher Alumni House. This is a Book Club for history faculty, staff, students, History Associates, and history-minded community members. We’ll discuss Lies My Teacher Told Me (graphic novel, PDF will be available closer to the time). Food will be served.
Free book: Lies My Teacher Told me (download here)
Free dinner: please register ahead of time.
A roomy venue with space for everyone
Important food for thought: why history matters, with everything going on right now.

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History Associates Talk by Professor Anthony Barbieri on "Beyond the Mountains and Seas: Eurasian History through Travelers’ Eyes (400 BCE-1936 CE)"
2026-02-22 14:00 - 16:00 | Night Lizard Brewing Company, 607 State Street, Santa Barbara
The History associates brings to you a talk by Professor Anthony Barbieri off the department of history on his latest book. The talk narrates the integrated history of Eurasia over the last two millennia through the travel of two dozen remarkable men and women who voyaged across this vast continent and reported on their encounters with a foreign culture. It argues that, despite increasing empirical knowledge gathered about the “other,” mental projections of the “monsters at the edge of the world,” still colored peoples’ perception of the foreign “other” well into the modern era.

UCSB History Associates presents A Banned Book in Common (Apr 9, 14, 19, 2026)
2026-04-09 17:30 - 19:00, 2026-04-14 17:30 - 19:00, 2026-04-19 17:30 - 19:00 | Santa Barbara Public Library, Faulkner Gallery, 40 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara., University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States
Next two books in the series of A Banned Book in Common are
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943), by Betty Smith, and
The Hate U Give (2017), by Angie Thomas
A unique event organized by UCSB’s History Associates, we discuss books that have been targets of book banners.
Click here to RSVP and to see the flyer
