Tuesday, March 26, 2019
6:30 PM
Integrative Learning Center N151
As Venezuela confronts a grave economic crisis, the Trump administration
has responded by imposing harsh sanctions, threatening war, and
supporting a right-wing coup attempt. Venezuelan American activist
Héctor Figarella and economist Mark Weisbrot will discuss the roots of
the Venezuelan crisis, the impacts of U.S. sanctions, and how we can
influence U.S. government policy.
HÉCTOR FIGARELLA is a Venezuelan American activist and EMT. He started
organizing around food justice issues while working at the Food Bank of
Western Massachusetts and continued his work in Holyoke, MA through
efforts to connect community gardens to schools. He has taught bilingual
Worker Rights Trainings at the Pioneer Valley Workers Center and has
done environmental justice work with Neighbor to Neighbor around the now
closed coal plant in Holyoke. Héctor is on the Board of Directors for
the Markham-Nathan Fund for Social Justice and is a member of the
Venezuela Solidarity Coalition.
MARK WEISBROT is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the
University of Michigan. He is author of the book _Failed: What the
“Experts” Got Wrong About the Global Economy_ [1] (Oxford University
Press, 2015), co-author, with Dean Baker, of _Social Security: The Phony
Crisis_ (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and has written numerous
research papers on economic policy. His opinion pieces have appeared in
the_ New York Times_, _Washington Post_, the _Los Angeles Times_, _The
Guardian_, and almost every major U.S. newspaper, as well as in Brazil’s
largest newspaper, _Folha de São Paulo_ [2]. He appears regularly on
national and local television and radio programs. He is also president
of Just Foreign Policy [3].
This event is sponsored by the Association of Latin American and
Caribbean Students, the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino
Studies, the Political Economy Research Institute, Social Thought and
Political Economy, and the departments of Afro-American Studies,
Communications, History, Philosophy, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Studies.
Light refreshments will be provided.