Rockefeller Center Conference Focuses on Latino Immigration

America’s Latino population is more than 30 million and growing.

Yet, as the nation absorbs one of the largest waves of immigration in its history, knowledge about the Latino population – which makes up a large part of that wave – is inadequate, according to researchers at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

To help bridge this knowledge gap they’ve organized a conference scheduled for April 6 through 8, called “Latinos in the 21st Century.”

The conference, which will be held at the Rockefeller Center and at the Graduate School of Education’s Gutman Conference Center, is being conducted against the backdrop of many rapid changes sweeping the country, including the evolution of the knowledge-based economy, globalization, and continued large-scale immigration. The conference’s aim is to bring scholars together to begin mapping a future agenda for research on Latino studies.

“The dominant feature of the new immigration is the Latino-ization of immigration into the U.S.,” said Professor of Education Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, co-director of the Harvard Immigration Project and one of the conference’s organizers.

The keynote address will be delivered Friday, April 7, at 6 p.m. by former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros in Longfellow Hall’s Askwith Lecture Hall.

Conference participants will examine a variety of topics involving Latino life in the United States, including culture and language, family life, health, education, citizenship and politics, immigration, history, labor, and civil rights.

In examining these topics, the conference will examine research from around the country on street gangs, Latino identity, substance abuse, and the effects of the 1996 welfare and immigration reforms.