IMMIGRANTS' PROTECTIVE
LEAGUE CENTENNIAL LECTURE
WITH DR. ERIK CAMAYD-FREIXAS
Thursday, November 20
5:30-7pm
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
Residents' Dining Hall
800 S. Halsted
Reservations recommended. Please call 312.413.5353.
SPANISH TRANSLATION WILL BE PROVIDED.
Lecture and discussion with Dr. Erik
Camayd-Freixas of Florida International University, with short
presentations by Mary Meg McCarthy, Executive Director of the National
Immigrant Justice Center, and John Sorensen, editor of the recently
published Grace Abbott Reader.
On May 12, 2008, the largest immigration raid in
U.S. history took place in Postville, Iowa, at Agriprocessors, Inc., the
nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) agents raided the plant and arrested 389 undocumented immigrants, who
were then put into fast-tracked criminal and deportation hearings.
Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas was one of the
federally certified interpreters called to translate in the aftermath of the
raid. In his widely circulated essay "Interpreting after the Largest ICE Raid
in U.S. History: A Personal Account," Dr. Camayd speaks out against the
proceedings, denouncing the criminalization of
workers, current immigration enforcement tactics, and the politics of
intolerance.
Dr. Camayd will share his experiences as part of the
Immigrants' Protective League Centennial Celebration. The IPL was an
immigrants' rights organization founded by Grace Abbott and other Hull-House
residents in 1908. The IPL provided legal aid, employment assistance,
citizenship and English classes, and fought against raids and deportations. The
IPL later merged with Traveler's Aid Society and is now the National
Immigrant Justice Center of Heartland Alliance.
Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas is Professor of Latin
American Literature, Director of the Translation & Interpretation Program,
and Director of the Research Initiative on Immigration Reform at Florida
International University. A Harvard-trained analyst, prolific author, and
expert linguist at federal and state courts, Dr. Camayd has trained more than
3,000 interpreters and regularly works on Spanish television broadcasts of
presidential speeches, debates, and special events. He has interpreted
internationally for eight different heads of state, as well as for Pope
Benedict XVI. Dr. Camayd was one of 16 interpreters who served the full
two weeks at the Postville Iowa hearings after Immigration and Customs
Enforcement conducted the largest single-site immigration raid in U.S. history,
at AgriProcessors, Inc. He made international headlines with his essay,
"Interpreting after the Largest ICE Raid in U.S. History: A Personal Account,"
denouncing the criminalization of workers, and deconstructing the totalitarian
agenda of immigration enforcement and the politics of intolerance of what he
calls "a dark period in American history."
Mary Meg McCarthy has served as the
director of NIJC since 1998 and oversees all aspects of NIJC's legal services
and advocacy on behalf of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers as well as
programmatic and operational functions of NIJC. Under Mary Meg's direction,
NIJC has built a pro bono network of more than 700 attorneys in Chicago alone
and has become the leading immigrant and human rights program in the Midwest.
Prior to joining NIJC in 1998, Mary Meg practiced civil litigation at the law
firm of Horvath & Lieber and served as a pro bono attorney for NIJC's
asylum project. Mary Meg is a 1989 graduate of Loyola University School of Law
and is licensed by the State of Illinois.
John Sorensen is the Executive Director of
the Abbott Sisters Project in New York City. He has written and lectured
extensively on the lives and work of Grace and Edith Abbott. He has most
recently edited the Grace Abbott Reader, published by the University of
Nebraska Press in 2008.
This event is co-sponsored by: National Immigrant Justice
Center, Chicago Jobs With Justice, March 10th
Movement, and the UIC Department of Latin American and Latino Studies.
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Internet group address: http://groups.google.com/group/ChicagoMayDay
To send e-mail: [email protected]
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