United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta, California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and European Parliament member Mario Soares are among the policy-makers, activists and leading scholars from the United States and Europe who will address issues of citizenship, immigration, racism and policy at a major conference, “In Migration: Immigration, Racism and Policy in California and Europe,” to be held March 30 to April 1 in Claremont, Calif.
The conference, free and open to the public, is sponsored by the European Union Center of California and Scripps College Humanities Institute.
“These are topics of vital interest for California and for the member states of the European Union since, with the decline of nation states, the movement of people across borders is now routine,” said Nigel Boyle, associate professor of political studies at Pitzer College and deputy director of the EUCC. “Cross-border mobility has forced a rethinking of citizenship and has polarized the political spectrum in both Europe and California.”
The conference brings together politicians, activists and academics for what promises to be a stimulating and productive discussion on the forces that will shape the next century, according to Boyle.
Huerta, co-founder and secretary-treasurer of the United Farm Workers of America, will present the keynote address on Thursday, March 30, at 7:30 p.m.; her talk is co-sponsored by the Pitzer College Strategic Initiative Fund.
Bustamante will discuss “Lessons from the Politics of Immigration in California,” on Friday, March 31, at 9:30 a.m. A panel discussion titled “In Migration: Comparing Europe and California” will follow Bustamante’s talk at 11 a.m.
Soares, a member of the European Parliament and former Prime Minister and President of Portugal (the member-state currently holding the presidency of the Council of Ministers of the European Union) provides the European perspective on immigration, including comments on the EU’s policy towards Austria and an overview of the challenges faced by the European Union, on Saturday, April 1, at 9 a.m.
All keynote addresses are in Balch Auditorium on the Scripps College campus. Other conference panels will address the topics of citizenship, culture and race; rights, justice and law; immigrant and immigration policies; and mobilization of immigrant workers and voters.
The conference opens on Thursday, March 30, at 4:15 p.m. with welcoming remarks by Scripps President Nancy Y. Bekavac in the Alexa Fullerton Hampton Room of the Malott Commons at Scripps, followed by a 4:30 p.m. address by Harry Pachon, president of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute and professor of political and Chicano studies at Pitzer College.
The documentary “OaxaCalifornia,” which follows the lives of a migrant family from Oaxaca to California and back, will be screened at 8:15 p.m. in the Humanities Auditorium.
A conference web site is available here. For more information, contact Claire Bridge at (909) 621-8326.