Lauren Markham will speak about her book that gives insight into migration.
By Orlando Torres
sac-ranger@alamo.edu
This college’s Honors Academy will sponsor a lecture by journalist and author Lauren Markham, who wrote “The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Immigrants and the Making of an American Life,” 7-8:30 p.m. Nov. 13 in the auditorium of McAllister Fine Arts Center.
“She’s going to talk about the migration stories, the migrations myths and kind of these media narratives,” English Professor Lennie Irvin said Nov. 7.
Markham spent two years traveling throughout the United States, Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador to get a glimpse of the migration trail north, according to her book.
Markham teaches writing at Ashland University in Oakland and at the University of San Francisco.
The Flores brothers, twins she follows in her book, attended the school, Oakland International High School, where she works as a part-time administrator for immigrant youth, Irvin said.
“What’s interesting in her narrative is that she not only dramatizes what’s going on with the twins when they’re here as illegal immigrants trying to get green cards, she also goes back to their hometown and gives an interesting picture of what these people are going through when they cross over into the United States.”
This lecture will tell the story of the Flores brothers who are forced to leave life in El Salvador amid war, drugs and violence.
Markham will talk about media narratives and cultural mythologies of immigrants and immigration and will be available for a questions.
She might talk about ways supporters can get involved in immigration issues to improve the situation, he said.
“Many of the kind of depictions of immigrants and migrants sort of dehumanizes them. They could become these kind of objects that we might for whatever reason reject or scorn,” Irvin said.
For more information, call Irvin at 210-486-0672.