Against the Deportation Terror: Tracing Routes and Roots of Immigrant Rights Activism in the 20th Century

Speaker:
  • Professor of History, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

This talk explores some of the exploits of the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born (ACPFB), an immigrant rights organization operative between 1933 and 1982. Headquartered in New York City, the ACPFB networked with advocates around the country to organize against what they called “the deportation terror.” Specifically, this talk looks at the deportation defense of Humberto Silex, a Nicaraguan American labor organizer in El Paso in the 1940s. The ACPFB helped raise the profile of the Silex deportation case to a national level; in turn, working with primarily Latinx organizers in Texas transformed the organization’s understanding of the immigrant rights struggles.

Supporters

Sponsored by the Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS), Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies (MALS), Department of American Studies, Native American and Indigenous Studies, and the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice (School of Law)

Event series: Other Speakers