By Patricia Pasquale, Assistant Vice President for Marketing and Communications, Sarah Lawrence College

Feb. 28, 2018:  Sarah Lawrence College, home to the nation’s first graduate program in women’s history, will host its 20th Annual Women’s History Conference on March 2 and 3 featuring a DACA recipient as its keynote speaker.

This year’s conference, “Democracy on the Margins: Gender, Citizenship, and the Global Challenge to Democratic Freedoms,” will expand upon the college’s yearlong discussion of the theme “Democracy and Education” by examining the challenges faced by those who live, work, and struggle on the margins of democracy.

“During Women’s History Month it is not enough to reflect on the history of the women’s movement,’’ said Mary Dillard, director of the college’s graduate program in women’s history. “We need to examine the current political, cultural, and social changes that jeopardize the progress of women around the globe. Sarah Lawrence’s conference will examine the history of democracy and the interplay between citizenship, race, gender, sexuality, and inequality.”

In addition to keynote speaker Greisa Martínez Rosas, DACA recipient and advocacy and policy director for United We Dream, the conference will include breakout sessions led by noted authors and academics from national and international educational institutions including Berkeley, Yale, and New York University. The program will be opened by Mary Dillard and Sarah Lawrence College president Cristle Collins Judd.

Established in 1972 by Gerda Lerner, Sarah Lawrence College’s master of arts program in women’s history was the country’s first graduate degree program in women’s history.

The program will open on Friday evening with keynote speaker Greisa Martínez Rosas. Ms. Martínez Rosas immigrated to Dallas from Hidalgo, Mexico, with her family when she was only a few months old. Like many immigrant families in the United States, Ms. Martínez Rosas grew up in a mixed-status home. While a student at Texas A&M, Ms. Martínez Rosas co-founded the Council for Minority Student Affairs to advocate for the rights of undocumented students.

Six years ago, Ms. Martínez Rosas became a victim of this country’s enforcement and deportation machine after her father was pulled over, detained, and deported. She has not seen her father since and has shared her story on top media outlets like MSNBC, NPR, Univision, CBS News, Telemundo, and Fox News Latino, among others.

Ms. Martínez Rosas is one of the millions of young immigrants who are living with anxiety today and who are demanding that Congress pass the Dream Act now.

The conference will also feature:

• Breakout sessions on citizenship, social movements, the personal is political, civil rights, democracy and arts, democracy and body politics, and suffrage

• A two-hour creative writing workshop, Having Your Say, that combines writing, improvisation, and movement exercises

• A performance and discussion of In Their Footsteps, a one-act play based on the oral histories of women who served in Vietnam

• A roundtable discussion with activists from the Yonkers Sanctuary Movement

Pictured here:  Greisa Martínez Rosas.

Photo courtesy Sarah Lawrence College