Re/Writing West: Dispatches from a borderless nation

Exclusionary and violent — from the hard-handed policing tactics in Arizona to protestors screaming at asylum-seeking children, the popular image of the U.S. West is rooted in an age-old vision of confrontation. Meanwhile, ongoing national conversations about race have largely operated on a north/south black/white axis.

The current moment calls for a redrawing of frontiers.

Panelists will discuss their work in the reframing of the narrative of the U.S. West by scrutinizing evolving concepts of citizenship, white supremacy, the meaning of “minority” in “minority-majority” and who occupies the central definition of American.

In this discussion, borders refer to the well-entrenched and often inaccurate narratives about the West, the U.S. and the definition of “us.”

Panelists:

Michelle García is a New York and Texas-based journalist and essayist and a current Soros Equality Fellow and Hearst Visiting Fellow at USC's Annenberg School.  She is the 2019 recipient of the Dobie Paisano Fellowship through The University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Bill Lane Center for the American West media fellowship at Stanford University. She is the curator and editor of Re/Writing West: Dispatches from a Borderless Nation, to be published in Jan. 2019.  Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Oxford American, Guernica, The Texas Observer, Columbia Journalism Review, The Atlantic’s Quartz, Insight Crime, NACLA, the Baffler, Salon, The Nation, AlJazeera America, among other publications. García is working on a non-fiction book about borders and their powerful influence on U.S. identity, politics and culture of violence.  www.michellegarciainc.com/ @pistoleraprod

Carolina A. Miranda is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, where she covers art, architecture, design and film for the Culture High & Low blog. Prior to this, she served as staff reporter at TIME magazine, as well as an independent journalist, contributing stories to ARTnews, Fast Company, Architect, Art in America and National Public Radio. She is a regular contributor for KCRW’s “Press Play.” Find her on Twitter at @cmonstah.

Daniel Hernandez is editor of LA Taco and a contributor to KCRW and KPCC. He is former Mexico bureau chief for VICE News, and former staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly. Daniel is author of the book "Down & Delirious in Mexico City.”

Sandy Tolan is a professor of journalism at the Annenberg School at USC.  He is the author of the international bestseller, The Lemon Tree, two other books, and hundreds of articles and public radio reports for more than forty outlets.  A three-time winner of the Robert F. Kennedy ward, Tolan has reported from more than 35 countries on the intersection of international migration, indigenous identity, natural resources and the global economy.

William Deverell, Director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West and of USC Libraries Collections Convergence Initiative will moderate the panel discussion.

Co-sponsored by the Annenberg School at USC and the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. A partnership with Guernica magazine on the nexus of race, national identity and the U.S. West.

Lunch will be served. 

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