Mexico.U.S. Migration: Rural Transformation and Development (program), April 9-10, 2008

The purpose of this conference is to bring together international scholars, policymakers, and civil society to explore emerging thought and ideas on the intersection between migration, rural development, and social policy. Participants will share recent trends and research on Mexico-U.S. migration, and related economic, social, cultural and political transformations occurring in rural communities of both nations. Rural places and their inhabitants have been subject to, as well as agents of, processes of globalization and economic liberalization. This has resulted in marked regional asymmetries, highly differentiated local responses, and reconfigurations of social, familial and economic relations. With the .new geography. of Mexican migration to the U.S., a growing number of migrants are settling in rural places in nontraditional destinations such as the American Southeast and Midwest. In Mexico, there has been notable growth in emigration from marginalized, and often indigenous, nontraditional origin southern states such as Veracruz, Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Yucatan, among others. Rural communities on both sides of the border are increasingly interconnected, and interdependent, through the flow of people, money, products, information, ideas, beliefs, and cultural practices. Current immigration policy fails to recognize the intertwined future of rural places on both sides of the border, tied through dependency on either labor or remittances. This represents lost opportunities in the U.S. and in Mexico. This conference will serve as a catalyst for meaningful dialogue on future policy, as well as research and development initiatives, in both Mexico and the U.S. that are aimed at minimizing the negative impacts and maximizing the potential benefits of migration in both rural sending and receiving communities. This forum is also a venue for exploring potential innovative approaches that would provide rural Mexican origin communities with locally based opportunities to improve quality of life, as an alternative to emigration. Indeed it is our hope that the meetings will serve as a point of departure for future collaborative binational research, development, and policy initiatives on migration and rural development in Mexico and the United States. As part of the conference program, and in partnership with Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin.s foremost Mexican art venue, we present Miracles on the Border, an exhibition of retablos created by migrants in which they portray their experiences living and working on both sides of the border. These small, colorful paintings on metal were collected by migration expert Jorge Durand over the years as he conducted research in the field. Professor Durand of the Universidad de Guadalajara will be the conference.s keynote speaker and will deliver his address on agricultural laborers and migration at Mexic-Arte Museum on Wednesday, April 9, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. A reception, free and open to the public, will follow. The exhibition will run through May 15, 2008. It is co-organized by Rebecca Torres, Harrington Fellow, Department of Geography, and Bryan Roberts, Director of LLILAS.