Conference Will Focus on Latino Immigrants

Trends of Latino immigration will be the topic for a conference this weekend at UC Irvine.

Titled “The New Californios: Images, Integration and Policy Toward Latinos,” the conference will focus on demographic changes in California as well as current U.S.-Mexico relations.

Frank Del Olmo, assistant to the editor of the Los Angeles Times, will be the event’s keynote speaker.

The conference, which begins at 1:30 p.m. today and continues through Saturday, will include several round-table discussions that are open to the public.

“New Political and Demographic Realities of Newcomers in California” will center on the state’s changing demographics as more Latinos immigrate. The discussion will be led by UC San Diego sociologist Lisa Catazarite and Dale Maharidge, author of “The Coming White Minority.”

David Hayes-Bautista, a professor at UCLA, and Thomas Saenz, attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, will lead “State and Federal Policy Responses to Immigrant Integration,” a discussion of implications of recent state and federal policies targeting social services for immigrants.

Several UC Irvine professors will also participate.

The event is sponsored by UC Irvine’s Research on Latinos in a Global Society. University researchers predict that there will be no majority group in the state if current immigration trends continue. Their studies also project that more than half of the immigrants entering the United States settle in California.

Admission to the conference is free. Meals will be available for a nominal fee.

Information: (714) 824-5997.