The forum will be held at the LéaLA Education Pavilion on May 18 and 19
The third annual LéaLA book fair will be the site of a special Mexico-USA Bi-National Education Forum on May 18 and 19.The forum, entitled “Towards the Construction of a Bi-national Education Agenda,” will be held at the fair’sEducation Pavilion, an exhibition area dedicated to improving educational prospects for Hispanics in the United States. LéaLA, the largest Spanish-language book fair in the United States, will run at the Los Angeles Convention Center from May 17 to 19.
The two-day forum is dedicated to outreach, dialogue and collaboration among specialists, researchers, educational officials, civic organizations and citizens about educational issues at the post-secondary level faced by Hispanic migrants and residents in the United States, particularly Mexicans. It seeks to establish a permanent platform for a bi-national dialogue to build an agenda which will address educational policy matters in a way that promotes the integral development of Latin Americans living in the US and that fosters the development of public policy proposals in the field of education.
The Education Pavilion, coordinated by the University of Guadalajara Foundation in Los Angeles, will feature the participation of government officials, public and private universities, businesses and civil society organizations fromthe United States and Mexico, all dedicated to the promotion and development of the Hispanic community in Los Angeles, California.
The Pavilion will focus on improving access to post-secondary educational opportunities for Hispanic students by establishing links between educational and government sectors and between the business community and civil society in Mexico and the US that will open channels of communication and lead to the establishment of collaborative programs.
“Towards the Construction of a Bi-national Education Agenda,” which forms part of LéaLA’s academic program, will be held on under the coordination of the University of Guadalajara Foundation in Los Angeles and the University of Guadalajara’s University Center of Economic and Managerial Sciences (CUCEA).
The first day of the forum (May 18, Alfonso Reyes Hall, 1:00 pm – 3:50 pm) will include three sessions. The first session, entitled “Bi-national dialogue between researchers in the field of higher education,” will feature the participation of academic figures such as UCLA’s James Wilkie and Carlos Ornelas Navarro of the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico, with Adrián Acosta Silva of the University of Guadalajara moderating.
The second session will be a colloquium entitled “Bi-national Cooperation on Education: Benefits and challenges to the educational development of Hispanics in the United States.” It will include the participation of Francisco Marmolejo, coordinator of Higher Education for the World Bank, as well as UCLA Professor Patricia Gándara. Moderating this session will be Gustavo Padilla Montes, Directorate General for Higher and Graduate Education of Jalisco.
The third session, “Bi-national dialogue between legislators and community leaders: Creation of a bi-national agenda for educational development,” will feature the participation of: Ricardo Lara, state senator from California’s 33rd district; José Huizar, Los Angeles City Councilmember representing District 14; Pina Hernández, President of Federación de Clubes Jaliscienses del Sur de California; José Trinidad Padilla López, Jalisco State Congress Deputy from District 13; and José Ángel Pescador Osuna, researcher at Colegio de Sinaloa. The session will be moderated by Luis F. Aguilar of the University of Guadalajara’s Institute of Public Policy and Government.
The second day of the forum (May 19, Alfonso Reyes Hall, 2:00 pm – 2:50 pm) will offer the panel “Challenges and perspectives on education for Mexicans abroad.” The panelists will be Dr. Arnulfo Valdivia Machuca, director of the Institute for Mexicans Abroad, and Diego Gutiérrez Morales, director of the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Extension School in Los Angeles. Gustavo Padilla Montes willonce again serve as moderator.
Feria del Libro en Español de Los Ángeles (LéaLA) was launched in 2011 with the support of the University of Guadalajara, the University of Guadalajara Foundation in Los Angeles and the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL), the second largest book fair in the world and the most important for books in Spanish. Over three days, LéaLA will promote reading and books in Spanish and offer a venue for reflection on the distribution of books in Spanish and the cultural and educational development of millions of Spanish speakers in the US. For more information on the Education Pavilion at LéaLA 2013, visit the fair’s website (www.lea-la.com).
