We invite you to explore Rochester’s rich (Im)migration history. Since 2015, students enrolled in Professor Molly C. Ball's Immigration and the Americas seminar course have uncovered Rochester’s rich embedded (im)migrant stories, learning how they connect to broader hemispheric movements. Rochester offers a counternarrative to the mega-city (im)migration histories of New York City, Chicago, Toronto, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires that are overrepresented in scholarly and popular studies. The course has engaged local archives, collections, and partners to provide students a hands-on opportunity to find, understand, and share these often forgotten stories and to explore their own.

Foregrounding what shapes (im)migrant motivations and experiences and the impact of (im)migrant communities provides a richer understanding of daily life and expectations. 'Rochester's (Im)migration History' invites you to see just some of the Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation materials and the projects that students have used in past courses, building excitement for a Spring 2026 exploration into new archives related to the city's Puerto Rican population and their history. It will also offer an opportunity for you to contribute your story.

(Special thanks to Rare Books Special Collections and Preservation, River Campus Center for Community Engaged Learning, Rochester Public Library's Local History and Genealogy Division, the History department, and the Rochester Area Community Foundation.)