History prof to speak April 5 in Carbondale

March 14, 2018

Join us in Carbondale, Colorado as Fredy González, assistant professor of Latin American history at the University of Colorado Boulder, talks about the history of the Chinese community in Mexico from the turn of the 20th century until the Cold War.

This lecture will be held on April 5 at 6 p.m. at the Carbondale Branch Library, 320 Sopris Ave., in Carbondale and is free and open to the public.

Drawing upon Chinese-language sources, he presents previously uncovered histories of the Chinese community and illustrates how the images that the Chinese presented of themselves helped counter destructive stereotypes that existed. At the same time, he argues for understanding Mexico as a country of immigrants as well as emigrants.

González also will be talking to high school students who are part of the Roaring Fork Precollegiate program, which started in 2004 as a partnership between CU Boulder’s Office for Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement, Colorado Mountain College, the Roaring Fork School District and the Aspen Community Foundation. González will talk about historical research and his personal story as a scholar.

González is the author of Paisanos Chinos: Transpacific Politics among Chinese Immigrants in Mexico, published by the University of California Press. His work has received the Oscar O. Winther and Bert Fireman Awards from the Western History Association. He is currently working on a transnational history of the Chinese sworn brotherhood, the Hong Men Chee Kung Tong. In 2016–17, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Taipei, Taiwan.

This talk is offered as part of the CU Carbondale series, sponsored by the CU Boulder Office for Outreach and Engagement, Garfield County LibrariesCarbondale Arts, and Carbondale Creative District. Upcoming lectures are currently being scheduled for the summer and fall.

In addition, the Glenwood Springs Branch Library, 815 Cooper Avenue in Glenwood Springs, is also sponsoring a spring lecture series featuring CU Boulder faculty:

  • Environmental History of the High Rockies, April 25, 6:30 p.m. History Professor Thomas Andrews will explore the history of human-environment interactions in the Colorado River headwaters region of Rocky Mountain National Park from the end of the last ice age through the present day.
  • Driven Wild: Automobiles & the Modern Wilderness Movement, May 23, 6:30 p.m. History Professor Paul Sutter will discuss the ways that the automobile, and the modern roads that they relied on, threatened many of the nation’s remaining wild spaces. He’ll also cover the 1935 founding of the Wilderness Society, the first national organization devoted to federal wilderness preservation.

For more information, contact Lisa H. Schwartz, community outreach program manager.