UCLA education professor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco.
Immigration reform and education may not seem connected at first, but for University of California, Los Angeles education professor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, it is the epicenter of his research and upcoming guest lecture, “Rethinking Education in the Age of Vertigo: Further Thoughts on Globalization, Immigration and Inequality.”
His talk is the highlight of CSUN’s Michael D. Eisner College of Education Third Annual Research Colloquium, which will take place Wednesday, Oct. 29, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. in the University Student Union’s Northridge Center. Miguel Ceja, the director of CSUN’s doctoral program in Educational Leadership, is co-hosting the event.
Suárez-Orozco will explore the best ways to prepare students and young adults in an immigrant-saturated country to succeed in higher education, the labor market and citizenship, according to his abstract.
Adele Gottfried, director of research enhancement for the College of Education, said Suárez-Orozco’s talk is highly appropriate for the CSUN community.
“It applies to our teacher education programs, but perhaps more widely to the CSUN community,” she said. “We have a fair number of students in our campus who do come from immigration backgrounds. I would assume that it would intimately relate to our student body at CSUN, as well as to people going into professions that will work with immigrant populations.”
Suárez-Orozco is on the forefront of immigration and Latino studies at UCLA. Since 2008, he has published five books that discuss immigrant students, Latino migration to the United States, its impact on the workforce and how to see immigration as part of the bigger picture instead of an issue.
According to his book “Latinos: Remaking America,” while Latinos make up the majority of the Los Angeles population (47.6 percent, according to a 2008 study), they also hold a high unemployment rate.
“There is an ever more urgent need to ease the transition of Latino youth via schooling to citizenship and the labor market,” according to the book’s forward.
Gottfried said the talk will explore new perspectives on education and help educators better understand how to work with a growing immigrant population.
Faculty, staff, alumni and the public are welcome to attend the colloquium. Attendance is free and parking is $6 without a CSUN parking permit. The University Student Union’s Northridge Center is located on the east side of the university’s campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge.
For more information, please email adele.gottfried@csun.edu.