On the Border: Immigration, security and other issues

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Contact: Joseph Taylor, 604.291.3521, taylorj@sfu.ca or
Susan Jamieson-McLarnon, 604.291.5151, jamieson@sfu.ca

Website: www.smu.edu/swcenter/simon_fraser.htm

In the United States, "borderlands" is shorthand for the Southwest states and the Mexican north. Historically, little attention has been paid to the border dividing Canada and the US, despite a similar history. Bridging National Borders in North America, a public symposium at Simon Fraser University Vancouver, 515 West Hastings St., Friday and Saturday, Sept. 15-16, aims to correct this oversight.

Conference co-organizer, Joseph Taylor, holder of a Canada Research Chair in history and geography at SFU, says that "in an era when all of North America's borders are growing economically, demographically and politically more important, it is imperative to cast light on the collective history of these regions. There are lessons here for all North Americans and beyond." David Weber, director of the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the leading expert on the southern borderlands in the colonial era, gives the Friday, 6:30 pm, keynote address on multiple borderlands. The meeting is sponsored by SFU and Southern Methodist. It continues at the Texas university on March 24, 2007.

Presenters from the US, Mexico and Canada will look at the borderland concept, trade, immigration, racial conflicts, national border-making in the Pacific Northwest and the Southwest, natural resource and environmental policies, and culture and tourism. The SFU session is open to the public: $20 ($10 students/seniors).