Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) condemns Arizona’s SB 1070, “Immigration; law enforcement; safe neighborhoods,†signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer on April 23, 2010. We join with the many academic, research, and activist organizations that have called for a targeted boycott of Arizona as a protest to this repressive and unconstitutional piece of legislation.
For the first time in its 24-year history, the MALCS Summer Institute was to be held in Arizona. It was scheduled for July 21-24 and organized by Arizona State University. After deliberating about the implications of the law with our members and receiving an appropriate response from them, we have decided the following.
MALCS joins the targeted boycott of Arizona and will not hold the 2010 MALCS Summer Institute as planned.
Instead, conference planners at ASU will proceed with a statewide conference to address the significant issues of human, women’s, LGBT rights violations, repression, and harassment facing Chicana, Latina, and Native people in Arizona.
The national organization will seek an alternative date and site for its next institute.
The national organization encourages all to take concrete action in support of the activists, academics, and artists in Arizona resisting SB 1070 and work to prevent similar legislation in other states.