Afro-Latin@ Project - The Immigration & Immigrant Debate: NOV-15-2006

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The Immigration & Immigrant Debate: NOV-15-2006

The Immigration & Immigrant Debate: Perspectives From Queens Multiethnic Communities

DATE: Wednesday, November 15, 2006

LOCATION: Rosenthal Library, Room 230, Queens College, New York.

This symposium offered perspectives from Queens' multi-ethnic communities on the immigration debate and its implications and consequences for immigrants and non immigrants of the several communities of the borough.

Two panels of distinguished scholars, political representatives, and students from Queens College and from the borough of Queens addressed a number of related issues to the current debate, including those related to demographic trends and composition; economic participation; political representation; cultural, national, and racial identity, and patterns of cooperation and conflict.

This symposium was organized by the Afro-Latin@ Project of Queens College; the Asian-American Center of Queens College, and the Africana Studies Program at Queens College. It was co-Sponsored by the Office of the Borough President, Queens; the Dean of Social Science; The Joseph Murphy Center; the Social Science Research Center, SEEK Program, the Professional Staff Congress, Q.C., ALAS; the Legal Society for Minority Students; the Political Science Club, and the Haitian Club.

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Symposium Attendants

More than 300 people attended the symposium

Dr. George Priestley

Afro-Latin@ Project, QC, and moderator of symposium

Dr. James Muyskens

President of Queens College; he brought greetings

Hon. Hiram Monseratte

Queens Councilman

Dr. Madhulika Khandelwar and Dr. Evelyn Julmisse

Co-organizers of the symposium

Dr. Madhulika Khandelwar and Dr. Evelyn Julmisse thumb

Dr. Marcia-Baynes Smith

Associate Professor of Urban Studies, QC

Hon. Jeffrion Aubry

New York State Assemblyman

Dr. Segundo Pantoja

Director of Ethnic Studies, BMCC, CUNY

Dr. Francois Pierre-Louis

Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Queens College

Jose Peralta

New York State Assemblyman

Ms. Cheryl Wertz

Representative from New Immigrant Community Empowerment

Welcome Message

My name is George Priestley and I am the Director of Latin American and Latino Studies and Principal Investigator of the Afro-Latin@ Project at the college. First, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to the Ford Foundation for funding our exploratory project, and ask you all to put your hands together in a show of our appreciation to Dr. Irma McClaurin, Ford Foundation representative and Program Officer.

Second, I would like to introduce the co-organizers of this symposium, two wonderful colleagues who brought enormous energy, dazzling creativity, and firm commitment to this project. They are Drs. Madhulika Khandelwar and Dr. Evelyn Julmisse, director of Asian/American Center and Africana Studies, respectively. You will see more of them later. They will chair the second panel and the Q.A. I would also like to thank the participants drawn from Queens College and BMCC world-class faculty; from community NGOs, and from the very best elected political representatives from the Borough of Queens. As you may have noticed in your program, special thanks also go to all the clubs and college entities that co-sponsored this event and to many individuals who went beyond the call of duty to make it happen.

In August of this year we decided to organize this symposium on immigrants and immigration to provide the proper framework for understanding the current immigration issues and challenges that confront the multi-ethnic community of Queens; to bring you representative voices from these communities in the hope that they would build sturdy bridges, not only between one ethnic group and another, but between the so-called immigrant and non-immigrant groups; between documented and non-documented, and between blacks and all those of lighter shades, united by the vision of building a more socially just and economically democratic country. Undoubtedly, the building of bridges has already begun in Queens County as evidenced by the findings and experiences documented by our very own Professor Roger Sanjek's The Future of us all: Race and Neighborhood Politics in New York City.

Now it is my deepest pleasure to introduce to you Dr. James Muyskens, President of the college, who will bring us warm greetings. Ladies and Gentlemen, President James Muyskens.