Sullivan Galleries Conference Room
33 S. State St., 7th floor
Global Encounters Lunch Series
Lunch Provided
This presentation will demonstrate the political activism of the leaders of the Chicago chapter of El Centro de Acción Social Autónomo- Hermandad General de Trabajadores [Center for Autonomous Social Action- General Brotherhood of Workers], or CASA-Chicago. It was one of the most important immigrant rights organizations to emerge from the Chicano Movement. CASA-Chicago organizers transcended discourses of belonging based exclusively on the boundaries of the nation-state as they engaged with transnational sin fronteras politics and imaginings.This talk will highlight how CASA-Chicago activists were informed by political ideologies and organizing experiences in Mexico as well as broader Marxist-Leninist thought. This presentation will map the transnational contours of Mexican and Latina/o/x immigrant rights organizing during the 1970s.
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Speaker Bio Dr. Myrna García is an Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Latina and Latino Studies Program. Her research interests include: critical ethnic studies, race and ethnicity, comparative im/migration, and Chicana/Latina feminism. Dr. García’s research explores Latina/o/x immigration activism (1965-1986). She engages oral histories and archival research to document the youth activism undertaken by members of the Chicago chapter of the Center for Autonomous Social Action (CASA), one of the most important immigrant rights organizations to emerge from the Chicano Movement. CASA-Chicago youth in the 1970s conceptualized a “sin fronteras politics” as a transnational imagining that brought ethnic Mexicans together, regardless of birthplace, generation, or citizenship statu
