News coverage and political discourse around the ongoing immigration debate and the situation on the US-Mexico border rarely includes the historical and geographic contexts of migration in Central America, where many current migrants begin their journeys. Throughout the fall semester, the LACS Central American Contexts Series will sponsor speakers and events at U-M in an effort to more deeply contextualize the lived experience of diverse Central Americans and the geographic, social, and political relationship between Central America and southern Mexico.

In the first event of this fall speaker series, Dr. Casey Lurtz, assistant professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, will speak about the history of Mexico's other border, the southern border with Guatemala. This lecture will expand on the research for her recent book, “From the Grounds Up: Building an Export Economy in Southern Mexico” (Stanford University Press, 2019), as well as her recent piece on the Stanford University Press blog (available at https://stanfordpress.typepad.com/blog/2019/07/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-borders.html).