In honor of Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Mench? Tum’s visit to Alan Hancock College, scheduled for Oct. 23, the college’s Fall Faculty Lecture Series is focusing on themes of migration.
Knowing that the phrase “lecture series” doesn’t exactly inspire people to get out on a Friday night, Hancock Language Arts Chair Kate Adams wanted to do things a bit differently.
“We wanted to offer things other than the straight-up lecture,” she said. “The panels are quite different: faculty members telling stories of their own migration, rather than stories of the migrant.”
The first lecture in the series featured Hancock instructors relating their own stories of migration, and there were some interesting ones: The Scot who spent 15 years in Turkey before ending up at Hancock, and the instructor who told the tale of her Jewish family’s persecution and migrations throughout history. There were stories of eating fried baby sparrows and cow placenta soup while teaching English in Thailand. Or the instructor with 16 aunts and uncles and 125 cousins, whose second husband’s mother had a number tattooed on her forearm and had lost her husband and children in concentration camps.
No, these stories aren’t part of what would be considered a typical lecture series.
The most recent event, Teatro Aztl?n: Esperanza’s Journey, was a combination of theater, music, and lecture, telling the story of a young girl and her family crossing the border to “El Norte.” Regardless of which side of the immigration debate you come down on, this particular presentation put a very human face to an issue that’s often reduced to talking points and hate-filled rhetoric.
The aim here wasn’t so much to change minds as to broaden perceptions, Adams said, adding that her hope is to get people talking—and thinking—about the topic.
“All you have to do is to sit through one UCSB economic forecast or drive down the freeway to see how dependent our lives are on the immigrant, documented or otherwise,” Adams said.
On Oct. 24, Alberto Restrepo Ubach will present “Reflections: The ‘New Immigration,” a discussion of America’s most recent wave of immigrants in the context of the nation’s immigration history.
For more information about Allan Hancock College’s Fall Faculty Lecture Series, call 922-6966 or visit hancockcollege.edu.
This week’s School Scene was compiled by Intern Nicholas Walter and Staff Writer Amy Asman. Information should be sent to the Sun via fax, e-mail, or mail.
This article appears in Oct 9-16, 2008.
