Spring 2021 Events
Book Release Event
The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity
April 23, 2021 | 5 p.m. | Zoom link available with registration
Bounded by desert and mountains, El Centro, California, is isolated and difficult to reach. However, its location close to the border between San Diego and Yuma, Arizona, has made it an important place for Mexican migrants attracted to the valley’s agricultural economy. In 1945, it also became home to the El Centro Immigration Detention Camp. The Shadow of El Centro tells the story of how that camp evolved into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service Processing Center of the 2000s and became a national model for detaining migrants—a place where the policing of migration, the racialization of labor, and detainee resistance coalesced. Using government correspondence, photographs, oral histories, and private documents, Jessica Ordaz reveals the rise and transformation of migrant detention through this groundbreaking history of one detention camp. The story shows how the U.S. detention system was built to extract labor, to discipline, and to control migration, and it helps us understand the long and shadowy history of how immigration officials went from detaining a few thousand unauthorized migrants during the 1940s to confining hundreds of thousands of people by the end of the twentieth century. Ordaz also uncovers how these detained migrants have worked together to create transnational solidarities and innovative forms of resistance.
Speaker Bio: Jessica Ordaz is an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. She received her doctorate from the University of California Davis in American History. During the 2017-2018 academic year, Ordaz was the Andrew W. Mellon Sawyer Seminar postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington, which focused on comparative racial capitalism. Her first book, The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity, was released in March 2021. Her second project will explore the multifaceted history of veganism and plant-based diets throughout the Americas, focusing on colonization, food politics, and social justice. This research will illuminate the wider and transnational history of Latinx veganism and how communities of color have engaged with questions of animal, human, and plant relations for centuries.
Celebrating the Indigenous Americas (March 1-5, 2021) is a week of virtual events that centers the contribution and presence of Latin American Indigenous languages, science, politics, cultures and arts. Planned panels and roundtables cover food sovereignty, bilingual education, social movements, land reclamation, migration, environmental justice, university-community partnerships, broadcasting and communication. We also invite audiences to join us for hip-hop concerts, poetry readings, cooking lessons, film screenings, and much more.
This event is sponsored by the Latin American Studies Center, the U.S. Department of Education, Title VI IFLE (International and Foreign Language Education), The Center for Native and Indigenous Studies, University Libraries, the American Music Research Center, the CU Boulder Museum of Natural History, and the Center for Humanities & the Arts.
All event times are in Mountain Standard Time (MST). Please register for discrete events by visiting our Eventbrite page.
The University of Colorado at Boulder provides real-time captioning in English and ASL interpretation for events upon request. Requests for real-time captioning in English and interpretation should be submitted at least 72 hours in advance of the event. Please email lasc@colorado.edu for assistance.
Democracy in Motion: Social Movements from Peru to Chile | February 3, 5 p.m. MT
In 2019 and 2020, social movements in South America have brought thousands to the streets to advocate for reform and new constitutions. Chile made history in 2020 when voters overwhelmingly chose to draft a new constitution. Just a few months later, in November 2020, Peruvians took to the street calling for a new constitution and fair elections, manifesting the largest youth-led protests in recent history. Our panel of scholars and activists discusses the state of democracy and social movements in Peru and Chile, and how the region's experience of transitional justice and human rights commissions shape current understandings of social justice and reform.
Panelists:
- Andrea López (OLA, Vanderbilt University)
- Loreta Alva Mansilla (PUCP, Paremos el acoso callejero)
- Bernardita M. Yunis Varas (CU Boulder)
- Ignacia Cortés Rojas (PUCC)
Moderators:
- Montserrat Madariaga (UT Austin), Javier Muñoz-Díaz (OLA)
This event is co-hosted by the Latin American Studies Center at CU Boulder and Observatorio de Las Américas (OLA-Colorado).