Saket Soni, a leading voice in the campaign to reform America’s guest worker experience, is a keynote speaker at the April 11-12 Global Goes Local Conference.
Music, economics, labor organizing and oral history are among the perspectives on the immigrant experience at Global Goes Local 2016.
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In its sixth year, the conference on social conditions of Minnesota immigrant workers is April 11-12 in Atwood Memorial Center. Minnesota is home to more than 400,000 immigrants from nations such as Mexico, India, Laos, Somalia and Vietnam.
The conference is free and open to the public. Parking is $1.50 an hour in the 4th Avenue Ramp, which is less than a block from Atwood.
Among the presentations:
Economist Bruce Corrie will discuss the economic benefits Minnesota derives from immigrants, including more youth, high rates of entrepreneurship, connections to global opportunities and high rates of civic engagement. Learn more about the Concordia University professor at ethniccapital.com.
Mike Hasbrouck ’87 and Stearns County Pachanga Society will perform “Cruzando Fronteras: A Musical Story about Immigration Told in Words, Music and Images.” A guitarist and singer, Hasbrouck is a St. Cloud State professor of Spanish in the Department Languages and Cultures. The seven-piece Pachanga Society will welcome guest accordionist Dan “Daddy Squeeze” Newton.
Mike Hasbrouck, left, Spanish professor and guitarist/vocalist with the Stearns County Pachanga Society.
Saket Soni will talk about organizing guest workers and day laborers. Soni is the executive director of New Orleans-based National Guestworker Alliance. Among other positions, the alliance argues the federal government’s guest worker program encourages labor exploitation, wage theft and worker mistreatment. Meet Soni.
Students in Mary Wingerd‘s HIST 675 Oral History class will host a panel discussion on its “We Are Minnesota: Recent Immigrant Oral History Project.”
Global Goes Local is organized by the Faculty Research Group on Immigrant Workers in Minnesota, which is funded by the School of Public Affairs and the College of Liberal Arts. The Corrie lecture is sponsored in part by the Office of the Dean of the Herberger School of Business.
Pachanga Society’s performance is sponsored by Learning Resources Services, Latin American Studies Program and the Department of Languages and Cultures.
The research group is directed by Stephen Philion, professor of sociology. For more information, email [email protected].
