MacArthur fellow to lecture on Latino immigration

Posted 10/30/00

Cecilia Muñoz will lecture on Latino immigrants at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 1, at 2 Rockefeller Hall, on the Dartmouth College campus.

Muñoz is Vice President of research and advocacy at the National Council of La Raza, the most influential Latino civil rights organization in the United States. She is a policy analyst, political strategist and champion of rights, welfare and opportunities for legal immigrants. She has said that anti-immigrant and anti-Latino sentiments are nearly synonymous, and are active in our culture every day.

She was chosen earlier this year to be a MacArthur Fellow, and will receive $500,000 over five years to use in whatever ways she sees fit. She has said she plans to use the money to further her work in La Raza. The fellowship is sometimes nicknamed the genius grant. The MacArthur Fellows Program Web site describes her work thus: "She has successfully built and led issue-based coalitions and is a major force in such issues as the legalization of undocumented aliens, family-based immigration rights, workplace and farm workers' rights, and access to welfare benefits and education."

Her lecture, titled "Latino Immigrants in the 21st Century," is free and open to the public. For information, call Lisa DiIorio at 646-2779.