One Year After Immigrant Rights Marches Rocked the Nation, USC Experts Look Back

March 28, 2007

Media Influence
Felix Gutierrez, professor of journalism, says last year's marches demonstrated that the media's influence isn't just commercial but can also motivate people to activism. Latino radio stations rallied their listeners to exercise their First Amendment rights, shocking the world with their numbers. An expert on social diversity in the media and Latinos in the United States, Gutierrez has been quoted widely regarding the mainstream media's failure to anticipate the scale of pro-immigration protests. Speaks Spanish. Contact at (213) 821-6260 or ffgutier@usc.edu

Political Mobilization
Dowell Myers, professor of urban planning and demography, says it's about time Latinos become politically active, as their population is double their voting share. He believes such demonstrations will influence young people to obtain citizenship and register to vote. Myers' new book, Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the History of America, tracks the interaction between the large influx of immigrants and the aging of the baby boomers. Contact at (213) 740-7095 or dowell@usc.edu

Cultural Identity
Macarena Gomez-Barris, assistant professor of sociology and American studies, says the marches galvanized a pan-Latin American social movement that had often been divided by national origins. "You had all kinds of people marching together under all their flags," she said. "They came together with the commonality of being able to invoke two nations, a sense of belonging to two places." Gomez-Barris is an expert on Latin American political violence, the politics of memory and the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Speaks Spanish. Contact at (213) 740-3600 or gomezbar@usc.edu

Role of Religion
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, associate professor of sociology, believes that different religions played a key role in bringing Latinos together for last year's marches. She can talk about illegal immigration and the illegal immigrant rights movement in the United States. She just edited and contributed to the book Religion and Social Justice for Immigrants. Available after April 3. Contact at (213) 740-3606, (213) 740-3533 or sotelo@usc.edu

Access to Health Care
Helen Land, associate professor of social work, says many of the Latinos in California do not have access to health care, which can impede them from being productive members of society. Land just co-edited the book Outreach and Care: Approaches to HIV/AIDS Along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Contact at (323) 462-4890 or land@usc.edu