John Bowe, award-winning journalist and author of Pulitzer Prize nominee Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy, examines how outsourcing, subcontracting, immigration fraud, and the relentless pursuit of “everyday low prices” have created a frightening new market for modern slavery.

Program Description

Bowe’s eye-opening presentation describes a journey from shock and concern for abused immigrants to deeper worries about the health of American democracy. Given the prevalence of slavery throughout human history, Bowe explains, slavery and labor abuse simply aren’t ‘weird’ or unusual at all. What’s ‘weird,’ is that freedom and democracy have come as far as they have.

Using thorough and often dangerous research, exclusive interviews, eyewitness accounts, and rigorous economic analysis, Bowe examines three illegal workplaces, where employees are literally or virtually enslaved. From rural Florida to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to the US Commonwealth of Saipan in the Western Pacific, he documents coercive and forced labor situations that benefit us all, as consumers and stockholders, fattening the profits of dozens of American food and clothing chains, including Wal-Mart, Kroger’s, Macdonald’s, Burger King, PepsiCo, Del Monte, the Gap, Target, JC Penney, J. Crew, Ralph Lauren/Polo, and others.

In this revealing lecture, set against the everyday American landscape of shopping malls, outlet stores, and Happy Meals — Bowe reveals how humankind’s darker urges remain alive and well, lingering in the background of every transaction — and what we can do to overcome them.

USA Today describes Nobodies as “…a masterwork and mixing pot of ideas…investigative, immersion reporting at its best.” Dennis Miller calls it “a great book…heartbreaking and important.” The Village Voice has named it “One of the Twenty Best Books of 2007.”

Bio

Bowe has appeared on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” and has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, GQ, NPR and other outlets. He is the co-editor of Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs, named one of Harvard Business School’s Ten Best Books of the Year, and co-screenwriter of the film “Basquiat”. In 2004, Bowe received the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, and the Sydney Hillman Award for journalists, writers, and public figures who pursue social justice and public policy for the common good.

Program Description

In his interactive lecture, Gustavo presents an engaging and informative discussion of ethnic stereotypes and immigration, addressing the role stereotypes play in American society, and how satire can be used to deflate them. Gustavo examines immigration (legal and illegal) and the impact of Latinos, and other ethnic groups, on this country at every level: economically, socially, culturally, politically and beyond.

Gustavo truthfully answers audiences’ questions about Mexicans and Latinos/Hispanics, and uses those answers as a jumping-off point for a broader conversation about issues affecting all immigrant groups, their role in the economy, and the political power of these groups once they are organized properly. Gustavo also works with companies, schools and associations to help them better connect with Latinos — focusing on the value that diversity brings to the workplace, to the classroom, and to society.

As he does in his “¡Ask a Mexican!” column, and in his most recent book, Orange County: A Personal History, Gustavo looks at America through the lens of his own multi-generational family’s experience emigrating to Southern California, and that of his own childhood as he struggled with the hyphenated identity that he was handed. Finally, Gustavo also examines the unique happenstance that created the Orange County that we know today; a community that, against all odds, is truly a microcosm of our society as a whole – for better and worse.

Bio

Author of the bestselling book ¡Ask a Mexican! and the column of the same name, with a circulation of two million, and Orange County: A Personal History, Gustavo is a contributing editor to the op-ed page of the Los Angeles Times, and has appeared on “Today,” “Nightline,” NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” and “The Colbert Report” and elsewhere.

Gustavo received the President’s Award from the Los Angeles Press Club, an Impact Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and a 2008 Latino Spirit Award from the California State legislature for his “exceptional vision, creativity, and work ethic.” A frequent guest on liberal and conservative talk shows, where he discusses local and national issues, Gustavo was also a finalist for the 2005 PEN USA Literary Awards for Journalism for his profile on a disabled Latino veteran of the Iraq War.  He’s currently working on a socio-cultural history of Mexican food in the US,  tentatively titled, Taco USA.