Countywide : Panels to Address Immigration Issues

Two local institutions will be hosting upcoming discussions about one of Southern California’s most controversial topics: immigration.

Several prominent professors and activists will talk about illegal immigration as part of a panel discussion this evening at Cypress College. Another discussion at Cal State Fullerton next week will feature an immigration attorney, a local Catholic vicar and others.

The presentation hosted by Cypress College, “Xenophobia and the Scapegoating of Undocumented Workers, Families and Students: Chicano and Chicana Perspectives,” will focus on illegal immigrants and their rights.

Participants include Rudy Acuna, Cal State Northridge Chicano Studies professor; Marta Lopez-Garza, a sociology professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and Susan Alva, an attorney for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Luz Calvo, a Cypress College instructor, said she organized the panel in response to the furor over immigration and an ad in the school newspaper earlier in the year that read: “Illegal aliens are stealing your education.”

“I wanted to do something to have a more academic and scholarly discussion of it,” Calvo said. The Cypress College discussion will be from 7 to 9 p.m. in Room 216 of the Lecture Hall.

The second discussion will be Wednesday at Cal State Fullerton. Titled “The Human Side of Immigration,” it will feature speakers such as Rusty Kennedy of the Orange County Human Relations Commission; Gary H. Manulkin, immigration attorney; Msgr. Jaime Soto, vicar for the Latino community in the Diocese of Orange, and Irene Martinez, executive director of the Delhi Community Center in Santa Ana.

The talk is part of the second annual National Conference Forum on Diversity and Pluralism presented by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, Orange County region.

Organizers invite the public to attend the forum at the Titan Pavilion in the University Center at 7:30 p.m.