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News

Speakers share ideas with CMAS

Center brought together professors from across the country to discuss immigration, improving activism

by MAYRA CRUZ
The Daily Cougar

This year's Center for Mexican American Studies conference that ended Friday brought a variety of speakers to address the many facets of Hispanic immigration.

"We try to bring in a variety of speakers to talk about the many, many dimensions of (immigration)," Tatcho Mindiola, director of the UH Center for Mexican American Studies, said.

The final speaker of the conference, Armando Navarro, professor of ethnic studies at the University of California-Riverside, was one of nine guest speakers invited to present on Hispanic immigration.

The difficulties of organizing people, political representation and protests were the focus of Navarro's speech, which addressed the historical plight of ethnic peoples in the United States, particularly the Southwest region in his presentation, "Chicano and Immigrant Empowerment: Implications for the 2008 Election and Beyond."

As of the last census, Hispanics make up the largest minority in the U.S. population, but this shift in demographics is not reflected in political representation at national and state level, Navarro said.

Although Hispanics are the largest recognized ethnic minority, bills in Congress, such as the proposed House Resolution 4437, which would have made undocumented people liable to felony charges and criminalized any aid, are still proposed. 

As a result, the bill sparked mass protests in major cities last spring. 

This year's conference coincided with the year anniversary of the demonstrations.

Navarro said the bill was "one of the most vile pieces of legislation" and urged political participation among the Hispanic community to prevent such bills from becoming laws. 

Stace Medellin, who manages a political blog called Dos Centavos, meaning "two cents," urged the Hispanic community to demand representation by keeping up to date on election candidates, political issues and voting regularly in elections.

"Learn about the candidates before you fall in love with their speeches. Learn about how they voted, what they support," Medellin said.

Liliana Castillo, president of the UH Chapter of Jovenes Inmigrantes por un Futuro Mejor or Young Immigrants for a Better Future, also urged people to get involved because immigration affects people of all nationalities who are in the country undocumented.

"We're undocumented, we're in school and we can't work," Castillo said.

JIFM is one of 15 organizations involved in a march scheduled for April 28 to show support for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act or DREAM Act, which would ease the process of gaining citizenship for undocumented minors.

"All this civil disobedience, that's great, but at the same time, we have to take a few minutes out of our day -- if there's legislation that we support or that we're against, we need to call our elected officials and tell them that we're against it. They have to take a tally on who's with them on certain legislation," Medellin said.

Among the organizations involved in the coming march are Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan or the Chicano Aztlan Student Movement, known for organizing students since the Chicano Movement in the 1960s and American Service Employees International Union, which was spearheaded last year's janitor's strikes in Houston.

"We're getting to a critical time for April 28. We're getting to a time to mobilize and we need to get together, we need to organize, we need to distribute and we need to get the students involved," Castillo said.

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