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When:
April 30, 2020 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
2020-04-30T18:00:00-06:00
2020-04-30T20:00:00-06:00
Where:
New Mexico History Museum Auditorium
113 Lincoln Ave
Santa Fe, NM 87501
USA
Cost:
Free

Due to current travel restrictions and the New Mexico public health emergency status, this event has been postponed.

We choose to use certain words. They are part of a political discourse, or a personal discourse, that reflects the way we think about the world as individuals and as a society. So, you can change those things, just by being conscious of what it is you are trying to accomplish in the world.” – Leo Chavez


Leo Chavez, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, presents “Latinos in the Crosshairs: The Construction of Latinos as a Threat in Political Rhetoric.” Chavez explores the historic use of political rhetoric targeting immigrant communities and the impacts these messages have on today’s Latino populations. He also shares insights from his most recent research project, developed in conjunction psychologist Belinda Campos, which examines the psychological health of people targeted in negative political messages. Working with 280 UCI students of Mexican descent, the study showed, for example, direct correlations between negative messages about immigrants with heightened perceptions of stress and lower perceived well-being.

Professor Chavez has been working on transnational migration since the 1980s. He is the author of Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants in American Society (1stedition 1992; 3rdEdition, Wadsworth/Cengage Learning 2013), Covering Immigration: Popular Images and the Politics of the Nation (University of California Press 2001), The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation (Stanford University Press, 1stedition 2008; 2ndedition 2013) and Anchor Babies and the Challenge of Birthright Citizenship (Stanford University Press, 2017). His research often explores media representations with a focus on immigration.

Chavez received the Margaret Mead Award in 1993, the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists’ Book Award for The Latino Threat in 2009, the Society for the Anthropology of North America’s award for Distinguished Achievement in the Critical Study of North America in 2009, and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2017.

This lecture is supported by

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation