Working Borders" Conference on Immigration and Labor Policy, Feb. 10-11

WHAT: UT Law's Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice
Inaugural Conference
WHERE: UT School of Law, Eidman Courtroom
WHEN: Feb. 10 & 11, 2005
REGISTRATION: The conference is free and open to the public. To register, go
to: http://web.austin.utexas.edu/law/conferences/workingborders/.
SCHEDULE: http://www.utexas.edu/law/conferences/workingborders/agenda.html

AUSTIN, Texas The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and
Justice at The University of Texas School of Law will host its inaugural
conference, "Working Borders: Linking Debates about Insourcing and Outsourcing
of Labor and Capital," on Feb. 10-11 in the Law School's Eidman Courtroom. The
Center was recently founded to connect students, practitioners and academics
engaged in interdisciplinary study of human rights both locally and globally.

Maria Echaveste, deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and an
advocate for the rights of migrant workers, will open the conference with the
keynote address at 4:30 p.m. on Thurs., Feb. 10. The daughter of Mexican farm
workers, Eschaveste will share her thoughts on immigration and outsourcing in
light of her leading role in coordinating U.S. policy on immigration and labor

Karen Engle, director of the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human
Rights and Justice, said this conference is the first of its kind to relate
the growing public debate over outsourcing (the movement of American jobs
and capital overseas) to insourcing (the migration of workers into the United
States).

Practitioners, policymakers, activists, and academics from a variety of
disciplines will consider the underlying concerns that animate todays debates
over the global flow of labor and capital by critically examining contemporary
proposals for both relaxing and heightening immigration restrictions and for
encouraging and discouraging U.S. companies from moving part or all of their
operations abroad.

Speakers include professors of law, sociology, Latin American studies, and
economics from Berkeley, Fordham, Harvard, Northeastern, Rutgers, and UT.
Participants' biographies can be found at
http://www.utexas.edu/law/conferences/workingborders/biographies.html.

A group of students from the Department of Theatre and Dance at UT will put on
two 15-minute "Living Newspaper" performances during the conference. A living
newspaper is a documentary-style performance form made popular during the
1930s by the Federal Theatre Project, part of the Works Progress
Administration (WPA). The living newspaper will take inspiration from
newspaper articles, images, and films to create a collaborative performance
around the history and current issues of immigration and labor in the United
States.

By bringing together practitioners and academics from a variety of
disciplines to challenge the borders between the local and global and the
economic and political, this conference is an ideal way to launch the Center,
Engle said. She noted that the mission of the Bernard and Audre Rapoport
Center for Human Rights and Justice is to build a multidisciplinary community
engaged in the study and practice of human rights that promotes the economic
and political enfranchisement of marginalized individuals and groups both
locally and globally. The conference is also a fitting tribute to Bernard and
Audre Rapoport, who have spent much of their lives committed to both
immigrants and workers, Engle added.

The conference is co-sponsored by the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin
American Studies (LLILAS). It is free and open to the public. Participants are
encouraged to register online at
http://www.utexas.edu/law/conferences/workingborders/agenda.html.