Orlando Patterson

“The present wave of immigrants and their children are rapidly assimilating into an ever-vibrant American mainstream culture, and at a pace greater than the Europeans who came during the previous large wave,” wrote Orlando Patterson in the New York Times in 2009. Patterson, who was born in Jamaica, is a historical and cultural sociologist at Harvard University. He is the author of several books including Freedom in the Making of Western Culture (1991), which was awarded the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and more recently The Cultural Matrix: Understanding Black Youth (2015). Patterson has also written three novels, and has published widely in the national press for publications such as the New York Times, the New Republic, and the Washington Post. He is a founding member of Cultural Survival, a leading advocacy group for the rights of indigenous peoples, and for several years was a board member of Freedom House, an independent watchdog organization that promotes freedom and democracy around the world. He is the recipient of several awards and is a longstanding member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Updated 2018