Friday, January 23, 2009
An educational panel discussion with Avi Chomsky, Bill Fletcher Jr., Jeannette Huezo and Oscar Chacon, what is the political landscape for immigration reform in 2009 in the context of the past November elections and the economic crisis?
This panel aims to educate the NALAAC Massachusetts chapter membership, immigrant rights advocates and other allies about what is currently happening in the national arena around the prospect of immigration reform in 2009. Also the organizers of the event hope to move participants from an analytical discussion illuminating the racial, cultural, and economic conflicts embedded in the current immigration debate, to a proactive construction of arguments for a more humane immigration and global labor system.
Avi Chomsky is currently a professor and the coordinator of Latin American studies at Salem State College. She has previously been a professor at Bates College and a faculty research associate at Harvard University specializing in the history of Latin America and the Caribbean. She is the eldest daughter of linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky. Her book West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica 1870–1940 relates the history of the U.S.-based companies which built railroads and cultivated bananas on the Atlantic Coast of Costa Rica and which merged to form United Fruit in 1899. It also describes how the workers, including many Jamaicans, originally of African descent, developed their own parallel socio-economic system. The book was awarded the 1997 Best Book Prize by the New England Council of Latin American Studies.
Much of her scholarly work can be traced back to the year she spent working for the United Farm Workers union back in 1976-77. She credits that experience with sparking her interest in the Spanish language, in migrant workers and immigration, in labor history, in social movements and labor organizing, in multinationals and their workers, in how global economic forces affect individuals, and how people collectively organize for social change.
Bill Fletcher Jr. a former UMASS Boston adjunct-faculty member (1982-1990) is a longtime labor and international activist and the former President and chief executive officer of TransAfrica Forum, a national non-profit organization organizing, educating and advocating for policies in favor of the peoples of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. Fletcher is also a founder of the Black Radical Congress and is a Senior Scholar for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC.
Fletcher was formerly the Vice President for International Trade Union Development Programs for the George Meany Center of the AFL-CIO. At the Meany Center, he worked with foreign labor centers, aiding them in matters of education and organizational change, as well as working to construct stronger ties between respective educational institutions.
Jeannette Huezo, is the Education Coordinator at United for a Fair Economy in Boston, MA. Jeannette coordinates UFE’s popular education work and facilitates many workshops, in particular for Latino groups around immigration, remittances and how the US economy is tied to the world economy. Originally from El Salvador, Jeannette came to the US in 1989. She has spent her life working for justice and social change. By developing confidence and leadership skills in others, she has increased the number of activists in the struggle for social change, and has empowered women, immigrants and others facing injustice to participate in the decision-making process around issues that affect their lives. Jeannette's first organizing job in United States was with the Latino Parents Association. She then went on to spend four years at the Coalition for Basic Human Needs (CBHN), organizing low-income women to fight for their rights. Then, Jeannette went to work for the Women's Institute for Leadership Development (WILD) as the Program Director / Trainer / Organizer. Following that, she worked as a Union Organizer for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 254, organizing immigrant workers like herself to find their voice as members of the labor movement.
Oscar Chacón serves currently as Executive Director of the National Alliance of Latin American & Caribbean Communities (NALACC), an umbrella of immigrant-led organizations from around the country dedicated to improving the quality of life of Latino immigrant communities in the U.S., as well as of peoples throughout Latin America. Until December, 2007, Mr. Chacon served as director of Enlaces América, a project of the Chicago-based Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights. Mr. Chacón served for most of the 1990’s as executive director of Centro Presente, Inc, in Cambridge MA, a community based organization dedicated to the empowerment of Latino immigrants throughout Massachusetts. Mr. Chacon is a frequent lecturer in national and international conferences on issues such as migration, global economics, immigrant integration, etc. He is also a media spokesperson on Latino community issues in the U.S.
