Latina professor jeered, threatened for speaking against immigration laws

Last week, Arizona University's professor of Latina studies took the stage to address 2010 graduates of the school's Social and Behavioral Sciences program. Naturally, her words were timely and touched upon the state's recently passed immigration laws that allow police to question and detain anyone who they suspect of being an illegal immigrant.

Then, she called the measure "the strictest anti-immigrant legislation in the country" that is "explicitly intended to drive undocumented immigrants out of the state."

Her summary, while quite accurate, elicited a wave of boos and insults from the audience.

In a video of her speech published to YouTube, either the camera man or someone close by seems amused at her characterization.

"That's right!" he said. "This is 'merica," leaving out the 'A'. "Cut your hair!"

"...to a whole lot of people, myself included, it appears to not only invite but require the police to engage in racial profiling," she continued, eliciting another wave of boos."

"Bitch!" a man near the camera shouted.

"Before we had a chance to fully get our heads around the implications of either 1070 or of the subsequent boycott, our governor signed HB 2281, which is intended to eliminate any Ethnic Studies classes from public and charter schools in Arizona," Soto said.

"Most people said it was inappropriate for Professor Soto to use the event as a 'political soap box' further highlighting the success of the conservative right in advancing the idea that Universities and institutions of higher education should be depoliticized places where one goes to learn objective truths," commented GLBT Latina blogger Marisol Lebron. "Meanwhile, if you ask me, it's pretty inappropriate for an audience for presumably educated adults to boo a woman of letters."

Inside Higher Ed, an education journal, spoke to Soto after her speech to get her reactions and follow up on the public's response.

"Since the talk, Soto said she has received a barrage of e-mail messages, many of them hateful and some of them potentially threatening," they reported. "Many such messages have also been posted on YouTube and on local Web sites that covered the speech.

"Soto said that she had no regrets about speaking out 'My work is in Chicana cultural studies, so it's my obligation, if I am going to be up on a stage, I feel it is my absolute responsibility to address these issues.'"

The full text of Professor Soto's speech follows.
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0524/arizona-professor-jeered-threatened-speaking-im...