ASU renames dept: Transborder Chicana/o & Latina/o Studies
Filed under Members in the news | Comment (0)The recently expanded and renamed Transborder Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies Department at ASU focuses on U.S. and Mexican regional immigration policy and economy, media literature and arts, and transborder community development and health – areas that have a significant impact in the Latino community.
“In the first decade of the 21st century, 40 percent of the U.S. Mexican-origin population was born in Mexico,” says Velez-Ibanez. “Moreover, Mexican Americans now live in every state of the union, and large numbers of other Latino groups now live in close proximity to what were formerly nearly exclusive Mexican urban concentrations in cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and others.” Continue reading »
AAHE Hispanic [sic] dissertation competition
The American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education has launched an outstanding dissertation competition “open to anyone who has completed a dissertation that focuses on hispanics in higher education OR to any hispanic that who has completed a dissertation in the social sciences, broadly defined, between June 1, 2004 and August 1, 2007.”
First place winner receives $5,000. in addition, ETS will publish the winner’s work in an appropriate ETS publication and the winner will be invited to ETS in Princeton, NJ to give a seminar on their research. There are additional prizes for finalists. Complete information and application guidelines available here.
Deadline: September 10, 2007
Filed under Jobs and fellowships | Comment (0)L.A. Conference: Stop Guatemalan femicide
On March 21st and 22nd, 2007, MuJER and Loyola Marymount University will be hosting an international conference in Los Angeles on the violent murders of women in Guatemala which has surpassed 2,500 since 2001. (Amnesty International)
The purpose of the conference is to create a safe space to lecture and debate the femicide, its theories, the culture of violence behind this issue, and actions to take. It will create a network of US supporters for Guatemalan women and human rights organizations. It will promote international pressure on the Guatemalan government to address the lack of justice, insecurity, and increasing number of women murders.
–submitted by Alicia Partnoy
Filed under Announcements | Comment (0)Fellowship: Postdoc for Analyses of U.S. Latino Dynamics
NATIONAL HISPANIC INSTITUTE ESTABLISHES POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP FOR ANALYSES OF U.S. LATINO DYNAMICS
March 12, 2007: The National Hispanic Institute recently established a competitive twelve month postdoctoral fellowship for analyses of social and organizational dynamics exhibited by regional Latino communities throughout the United States. The intent of this fellowship is to promote new knowledge about salient trends occurring throughout various strata of the U.S. Latino community.
The application deadline for the NHI Postdoctoral Fellowship for Analyses of U.S. Latino Dynamics is Monday March 26, 2007. Continue reading »
Filed under Jobs and fellowships | Comment (0)Diss Award: Latino Studies, LatAm Studies Assoc
2007 Call for Nominations and submissions:The Latino Studies Section (LSS) of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) announces its 2007 Research and Dissertation Award and invites nominations and submissions. The LSS Research and Dissertation Award is given for the best doctoral dissertation, in English or in Spanish that focuses on Latina/o communities, issues, and topics. Preference will be given to dissertations that apply a comparative approach within national, hemispheric and/or international contexts and to those that explore Latina/o social movements and activism to enhance our understanding of the Latina/o experience. The work may be grounded in any disciplinary field. The competition is open to Ph.D.’s from institutions in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean who deposited their dissertation in 2006-2007. Continue reading »
Filed under Jobs and fellowships | Comment (0)Great general references on immigration costs & impact
Borrowed directly from Texas journalist Marissa Trevino of Latina Lista:
The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children released the most in-depth and impartial study on family immigrant detention titled “Locking Up Family Values: The Detention of Immigrant Families” (2007), finding:
- [the detention center] is a former criminal facility that still looks and feels like a prison, complete with razor wire and prison cells.
- Some families with young children have been detained in these facilities for up to two years. The majority of children detained appeared to be under the age of 12.
- At night, children as young as six were separated from their parents. Separation and threats of separation were used as disciplinary tools.
- People in detention displayed widespread and obvious psychological trauma. Every woman we spoke with in a private setting cried.
- At Hutto pregnant women received inadequate prenatal care.
- Children detained at Hutto received one hour of schooling per day.
- Families in Hutto received no more than twenty minutes to go through the cafeteria line and feed their children and themselves. Children were frequently sick from the food and losing weight.
- Families in Hutto received extremely limited indoor and outdoor recreation time and children did not have any soft toys.
The Texas State Comptroller released a report, “Undocumented Immigrants in Texas: A Financial Analysis…2006″, finding that “The absence of the estimated 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas in fiscal 2005 would have been a loss to our gross state product of $17.7 billion. Undocumented immigrants produced $1.58 billion in state revenues, which exceeded the $1.16 billion in state services they received. However, local governments bore the burden of $1.44 billion in uncompensated health care costs and local law enforcement costs not paid for by the state.”
The Public Policy Institute of California released a similar report titled How Immigrants Affect California Employment and Wages finding that
- There is no evidence that the influx of immigrants over the past four decades has worsened the employment opportunities of natives with similar education and experience.
- There is no association between the influx of immigrants and the out-migration of natives within the same education and age group.
- Immigration induced a 4 percent real wage increase for the average native worker between 1990 and 2004.
- Recent immigrants did lower the wages of previous immigrants.
And on the “immigrants cause crime” myth, sociologists Ruben Rumbat (Sociology, UC Irvine) and Walter Ewing (Anthro, IPC) found overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that immigrants are a fraction as likely to commit crime as the native-born: “In every ethnic group, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants, even those who are less educated, said the study by the Immigration Policy Center, an immigrant- advocacy group in Washington. This holds especially true for Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans, who make up the bulk of the illegal population. See a pdf of their report here
And finally, Dowell Myers (USC, Urban Planning) is arguing that babyboomers worried about the future of their Social Security really need to be encouraging the education and development of immigrant populations to strengthen the [especially Latino] taxpaying U.S. middle class. Baby Boomer self-interest could be a powerful political ally, no?
Marissa’s blog is highly recommended reading, by the way.
Filed under New Publications | Comment (0)ICE Raids in Massachusetts a mess…
Sweatshop conditions, undocumented workers flown out of state stranding children, and government contracts….
“Mayor Criticizes raid for disrupting families” (LATimes)
“Massachusetts Protests Feds’ Immigration Flights”
