Speaker to discuss environmental justice in Latino communities

Devon Pena, a scholar-activist who has studied social and environmental issues in Mexican-American communities of the West, will give a free public lecture Monday, Nov. 12, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

He will address the topic "More Stories from the Front Lines of the Struggle Against Environmental Equity" at 7:30 p.m. in Room 180 Science Hall, 550 N. Park St.

A professor of American ethnic studies, anthropology, environmental studies and women’s studies at the University of Washington in Seattle, Pe�a for decades has combined collaborative, action-oriented research with social campaigns in the environmental justice movement, whose conventional rationales he challenges.

In summer, he grows heirloom organic crops on a 200-acre family farm in south central Colorado, where he also operates a nonprofit organization that supports graduate research and community organizing in support of acequia farming communities along the upper Rio Grande River. An acequia is a community-operated irrigation canal.

Pe�a’s UW–Madison talk, part of the Gaylord Nelson Lecture Series, is sponsored by the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies with support from the Holstrom-Kineke Environmental Studies Fund and the Ho-Chunk Nation. Environmental justice is the theme of this year’s lectures.

For more information about the lecture, contact Molly Schwebach at (608) 265-2564 or mayoung3@wisc.edu.