The UCLA School of Law will host the Seventh Annual Latina/o Law
Student Conference this Friday, an event that will culminate in the
adoption of a constitution for the National Latina/o Law Students
Association.
The three-day conference, hosted by the School of Law’s La
Raza Law Student Association and the Chicano-Latino Law Review,
will feature panelists addressing topics ranging from labor and
tenant rights to the environment’s impact on immigrant
communities.
Anthony Solana, a UCLA law student and one of the
conference’s co-chairmen, said a new addition to this
year’s conference will be a focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender issues.
Solana said by addressing topics in law affecting the LGBT
community, the conference will foster increased understanding
between Latinos and other minority groups facing similar obstacles
in their efforts to gain equal rights in the United States.
“We thought it was also important to create a space for
(LGBT) students … We strongly feel that the way to deal with a
lot of the issues that affect our community is to ally ourselves
with communities that are similarly situated,” he said.
The idea of “coalition-building””“ creating
discussion between minority groups ““ is “what the
conference is about,” Solana said. A strong coalition between
minority groups is necessary to promote societal changes that
benefit those groups, he said.
Kevin Johnson, associate dean for academic affairs at UC Davis,
will speak about the movement to allow illegal immigrants to obtain
driver’s licenses. Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill in September
granting illegal immigrants this right.
Johnson said the conference gives law students the opportunity
to network with students and professionals who care about
significant issues for many minority groups.
“It’s important for students to see there are other
students like them … and there are scholars and activists that
are interested in the same kind of things they are interested in
““ issues like civil rights, the treatment of Latinos in the
United States,” he said.
The first annual Latina/o Law Student Conference was held in
1997 in New Mexico.
Antonio Maestas, a cofounder of the conference and an assistant
district attorney in New Mexico, said he and other students
participating in an exchange program in Mexico began planning the
conference the summer of 1996.
The students in the exchange program wanted to create a way for
Latino law student organizations across the United States to
communicate.
This year’s conference will realize the founders’
original goals in an important way, as the first boardmembers of
the National Latina/o Law Students Association will be chosen on
the conference’s final day.
More information about the conference is available at
www.nllsa.org.