This mini-conference will evaluate the legacies of the 2006 marches and the current immigrant rights movement in the United States: its organization, its impact on public discourse, electoral politics and public opinion, and its ability to effectively frame the claims of non-citizens to further the goals of the immigrant rights movement. The participants will take stock of legacies and the current moment, and also theorize broader questions of how migrants can make claims in their receiving societies, as well as the substantial barriers that make “¡Sí, se puede!” so hard to achieve.

Lunch and coffee will be provided. Registration is recommended so that we can order the right amount of food.

This event is co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Sociology Department and the Scholars Strategy Network.

Schedule

Panelists and Moderators

Marching and Mobilization: How the Protests Shaped Attitudes, Politics, and Discourse

Veronica Terriquez teaches sociology at UC Santa Cruz. Her research examines how individuals’ demographic characteristics -as well as their ties to civic organizations, schools, and other institutions -reproduce or challenge patterns of social inequality.

Hana E. Brown teaches sociology at Wake Forest University, where she studies the political origins and political consequences of social inequalities.

Laura Lopez-Sanders teaches sociology at the University of North Carolina. Her research focuses on international migration, race and ethnic relations, work and organizations, and social inequality.

Chris Zepeda-Millan is an ethnic studies professor at UC Berkeley, where he chairs the Center for Research on Social Change. His research focuses on social movements, immigration, race and ethnic politics, and comparative racializations.

Taeku Lee teaches political science and researches political behavior, racial politics, public opinion, and social movements at UC Berkeley.

How to Organize? How to Make Claims?

Monica W. Varsanyi is a professor of political science and geography at the City University of New York.  Her books include Taking Local Control:  Immigration Policy Activism in U.S. Cities and States (2010) and Policing Immigrants:  Local Law Enforcement on the Front Lines (2016).

Shannon Gleeson teaches labor relations, law, and history at Cornell University. Her books include Conflicting Commitments: The Politics of Enforcing Immigrant Worker Rights in San Jose and Houston (2012) and Precarious Claims: The Promise and Failure of Workplace Protections in the United States (2016).

Walter J. Nicholls is a professor of planning, policy, and design at UC Irvine. His main area of research has been the role of cities in broad social movements. More recently, he has been studying how immigrants forge a political voice in hostile environments.

Kim Voss is a professor of sociology and Associate Dean of Graduate Division at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies labor, social movements, social inequality, and higher education.

Irene Bloemraad is a professor of Sociology at the University of California. Her research examines how immigrants become incorporated into the political and civic life of their adopted countries and the consequences of their presence for politics and understandings of citizenship.

Fabiana Silva is a PhD candidate in sociology at UC Berkeley. Her current research seeks to understand the mechanisms that perpetuate (or mitigate) group-based inequality in the labor market, with a focus on social networks and employer discrimination.

Activism and the Future: Voices from the Trenches

Meng So is the founder and director of the Undocumented Student Program at UC Berkeley. He also serves on the University of California Presidential Task Force on Undocumented Students, as well as the Leadership Board of Educators for Fair Consideration (E4FC). He is a Rockwood Immigrant Rights Fellow for a New California and lends his voice to national efforts to advocate for comprehensive immigration reform.

Caitlin Patler teaches sociology at UC Davis, where she is a faculty affiliate at the Center for Poverty Research, the Migration Studies Cluster, the Social Control Cluster, and the Human Rights Program. Her research explores citizenship and legal status as axes of stratification that significantly shape wellbeing and opportunities for mobility. Her work also explores how immigrants experience and resist exclusion in everyday life, within institutions such as schools, and through detention and deportation policies.

Lamoin Werlein-Jaen directs the Leadership Development Program at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center, where he is a senior labor educator. He has worked both as an organizer and as a professor of labor and community studies.

Jude Joffe-Block is a New America fellow and a reporter for the NPR affiliate in Phoenix, where she covers immigration and border issues. She is working on a book about how former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio pioneered local immigration enforcement initiatives, and the class action racial profiling lawsuit Latino drivers brought against his office. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Joseph Villela is the Director of Policy and Advocacy for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. He has over a decade of experience monitoring and analyzing legislation.