COLUMBIA – Jon Inda, an associate professor from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, will visit MU on Thursday to speak about immigration issues.
The focus of his discussion will be on current issues surrounding immigrants who come to the country from Mexico, said Rebecca Martinez of the MU Department of Women's and Gender Studies, who helped bring Inda to campus.
"He's talking about policing the border and the social construction of criminality of illegal immigration," Martinez said.
Martinez said Americans are sometimes opportunistic in discussing the immigration issue.
"There's a long history of immigration discourse, and it's gone kind of up and down as it suits us as a nation," Martinez said. "We don't put the immigration problem in context of a long-standing relationship between the U.S. and Mexico."
Inda, a member of the Latina/Latino Studies Program at Illinois, has researched migrant cultures and the anthropology of globalization, among other subjects. He has also published a number of studies, including "Targeting Immigrants: Government, Technology, and Ethics" and "Race, Identity, and Citizenship."
Inda will speak at 5:30 p.m. Thursday in room 210 of MU's Strickland Hall.