The Department of Chicano/Latino Studies Colloquium Series presents

"Listening to La Migra and Immigration Politics on U.S. Spanish-Language Radio"
with Dolores Inés Casillas, Assistant Professor, Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, UC Santa Barbara and currently Faculty Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Comparative Studies on Race and Ethnicity
 
Thursday, May 5, 2011
4:00-5:30 p.m.
Cross Cultural Center, Ring Room

Both the number of U.S. Spanish-Language radio stations and the budget for U.S.-Mexico border enforcement have undergone unprecedented growth since the 1980’s.  While trade magazines credit blooming Latino population numbers for radio’s growth, Casillas argues that the immigration climate has transformed the character of Spanish-language programming.  U.S. Spanish-language radio serves as an acoustic ally for Latino listeners – particularly for its most legally vulnerable immigrant listeners – as they “navigate” the U.S. during moments of political discrimination. 

Dolores Inés Casillas is an assistant professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received her doctorate in American culture from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2006 and has published articles on the significance of Spanish-language media for immigrant Latino audiences. Her current book project, Sounds of Belonging: A Cultural History of U.S. Spanish-language Radio, examines the intimate listening relationship between Latinos and radio during heightened moments of immigration politics. Currently, she teaches language politics, barrio popular culture, listening to race, and Chicana cultural studies.

For further information, please contact Debbie Michel, dmichel@uci.edu.