2008 Year in Review

The Whiteside Forum - "Immigration: A World on the Move"

The Whiteside Forum, Morrison, will present its 25th world affairs conference April 11 and 12, on the subject of “Immigration: A World on the Move.”

In two sessions, at Odell Library Community Room in Morrison, speakers will share their views about immigration. Questions and answers opportunities will follow. The Whiteside Forum events are always free and open to the public.

Opening the conference at 7:30 p.m. Friday will be keynote speaker Sylvia Puente. She is director of the Center for Metropolitan Chicago Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame.

She directs community research, promotes community capacity-building, and speaks on issues that affect Latinos. She encourages regional dialogue about the impact of Latino growth in Chicago and surroundings.

Ms. Puente’s degrees are from the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2003 she was one of 25 Chicago area women named a “Pioneer for Social Justice.”

Saturday morning, starting at 8:30, four panelists will present their views and experiences relating to immigration.

Dirk Willem Schiff, Chicago, is Consul General of the Netherlands. He was born in Bethesda, MD when his father was serving at the Netherlands Embassy in Washington, DC.

Consul Schiff joined the Dutch Foreign Service in 1974. He has been posted in Spain, Peru, Viet Nam, the Hague, the Holy See, Jamaica, Singapore, the Soviet Union/Russia and Luxembourg.

Just before coming to Chicago in 2005, he was Consul General in Antwerp, Belgium.

Karla C. Steele, Moline, is an attorney in the general practice of law. Immigration law is one of her responsibilities, in a firm dealing with mot aspects of personal and employee-employer relations. Ms. Steele is fluent in Spanish and conversational in German, and she is learning Chinese.

Fred Tsao is the policy director at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. He provides information and procedures for organizations and others working with immigrants, and assists with legislative proposals. Tsao is a native Chicagoan, son of immigrants from China.

Dave Gorak, also a Chicago native, has been executive director of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration since 2001. Earlier he worked as a reporter and editor for the Chicago Daily News and Crain’s Chicago Business.

Immigration restriction has been his message through columns, letters to the editor and on national radio and television. “O’Reilly Factor” and “Chicago Tonight” on Channel 11 have carried his messages. Gorak and his wife moved to Wisconsin in late 2005.

Moderator for the Saturday morning panel discussions will be Herb Trix, news director for WVIK FM radio, at Augustana College, Rock Island.

He has been with WVIK since 1987. He also hosts the weekly public affairs program, “Midwest Week in Review,” interviewing regional reporters about the stories they cover.

The Whiteside Forum has been offering annual world affairs conferences in Morrison since 1985, beginning with “Nuclear Weapons: Issues, Alternatives.” Last year’s subject was “The End of Oil: What’s Next?”

Nonpartisan, not-for-profit and independent, The Whiteside Forum provides “an ongoing forum for education and discussion of timely international issues.

Inquiries about The Whiteside Forum may be addressed to PO Box 51, Morrison, IL 61270.

by  Editor, theCity1.com
March 27, 2008