Early in the spring semester, W&M welcomed a most special delegation coming from the Comisión Provincial por la Memoria, in La Plata, Argentina. As is well known, the Comisión is our partner institution in La Plata and coordinates W&M’s study abroad program in Argentina.
Sandra Raggio (director of the CPM), Bruno Carpinetti (CPM & Universidad Nacional Arturo Jauretche), and five young interns & volunteers at the CPM (Ángeles Lucía Fernández, Ignacio Abel Gil, Gabriel Illescas Álvarez, Victoria Collado Ferrari, and Camila Marchione) were invited to explore issues of immigration near Tucson, AZ, at the US-Mexico border. After a week of intense physical and psychological fieldwork, the delegation arrived in Williamsburg in order to share their experience and their perspective with different student groups and the community at large. As part of their visit to the College, the delegation offered a comparative analysis of the challenges and issues of immigration and human rights both at the US-Mexico border, and in Argentina. The event, “Crossing Borders in the Americas: A Roundtable on Immigration and Human Rights,” was moderated by Prof. Silvia Tandeciarz (Hispanic Studies & Latin American Studies).
[the full video of the roundtable, without English subtitles, can be found here]
During their time at the College, the delegation met with W&M students who had also visited the US-Mexico border earlier in January studying global complexity with Prof. Jonathan Arries (Hispanic Studies & Latin American Studies) and Bill Fisher (Anthropology & Latin American Studies). They also shared their insights with Prof. Jennifer Bickham Méndez (Sociology & Latin American Studies) and students in her advanced seminar, SOCL 409 – ‘Immigration and Human Rights.’
The visit of the Argentine delegation was sponsored by the Reves Center, the Latin American Studies Program, the Charles Center, and the Hispanic Studies Program. Technological assistance for the production of the videos was generously offered by Pablo Yáñez and Mike Blum; subtitles were generated by Prof. Jorge Terukina.