Beyond Borders: Migration and the Next California
On March 10, 2011, Beyond Borders: Migration and the Next California will bring together scholars, writers, and community organizers into a dialogue about borders, the communities they divide, and the people who cross them. A reception will follow the symposium to celebrate the launch of Boom: A Journal of California. In order to open a conversation about international migration in California, speakers in Beyond Borders will focus on what the U.S.-Mexico border has been in the past, and then think about what it might become in the future. Can we find ways of thinking about border futures in borders past?
Kelly Lytle Hernández, author of Migra! The History of the U.S. Border Patrol, will deliver the keynote address: “Amnesty or Abolition? Race, Freedom, and the Future of the Illegal Alien in America.” Responses from Kevin R. Johnson, Dean of the UC Davis School of Law, Rubén Martínez, award-winning journalist, author, and performer, and José Padilla, Executive Director of California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., will follow.
The symposium will also include a roundtable discussion moderated by Louis S. Warren (Professor of History, UC Davis) and Carolyn de la Peña (Professor of American Studies, UC Davis), co-editors of Boom: A Journal of California. This symposium marks the inaugural issue of Boom, which will appear in March 2011, in print and online. Thoughtful, provocative, and at times playful, Boom aims to create a dialog about the vital social, cultural, and political issues of our time, in California and beyond. Boom includes a wide range of works, from scholarly articles forming the gravitational center of each issue, to shorter, often informal works.
Beyond Borders is open to scholars, journalists, policy makers, activists, and members of the general public, and will be held in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre in the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at UC Davis, on March 10, 2011 from 4:10 to 6:00 pm. A reception for the launch of Boom will follow the symposium. Space is limited. Please pre-register for this event online.
KJ