Join IRC’s final meeting for discussion on migrant workers and immigration
Join the Inclusive Reading Club (IRC) for its last meeting of the spring 2021 semester on Thursday, April 22 at 4:00 p.m. For this IRC, the book club will be a bilingual discussion with co-facilitators Fr. Scott Pontes, University chaplain, and MaryAnne Davey, director of the Mercy Center for Spiritual Life. To register, go to the library’s event page.
Attendees will be reading selections from Francisco Jiménez’ memoir “The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child” (“Cajas de cartón: relatos de la vida peregrina de un niño campesino”).
In this memoir are the stories of the author’s migrant family in the 1940s, campesinos (farm laborers) whose lives were defined by poverty and impermanence, but also faith and hope, as they worked picking crops in California, moving from one labor camp to another.
The book club will explore the life and treatment of migrant farm workers in the 1940s, and how they endured racism, indifference, lack of healthcare and food insecurity. Attendees will also examine how Catholic ministries using Catholic Social Teaching are responding to these same issues facing farm workers today, bringing in the complex issues around immigration and refugees.
The readings, available in English or Spanish, are posted on the library’s website under Course Reserves. Participants can post their thoughts as they read and find much more information about the Inclusive Reading Club on the IRC’s online bulletin board.
To register for this last IRC for the semester, go to the library’s event page.
Featured photo by Getty Images/topten22photo
