Journalist Juan González Challenges SMC Students to Create Change

Addressing an intimate, enthusiastic audience at the Soda Center on April 6, Juan González, the renowned journalist and co-host of Democracy Now! (the award-winning news program airing on more than 1,400 public television and radio stations worldwide), called on the SMC community to think big and look back when considering immigration, economics, and the wide gamut of social issues filling our news feeds today.

González’s talk, “Tear Down That Wall: The Great Immigration Debate,” was presented by the Roy E. and Patricia Disney Forum and Saint Mary’s Communication Department as part of the lecture series Undocumented, Illegal, Refugee: The Rhetorics of Immigration.

As a self-described beneficiary of González’s immigration coverage and organizer of the lecture series, Aaron Sachowitz, a professor of media technologies and culture, said it was important to include González among the series’ featured speakers. “After seeing some of [González’s] documentary, Harvest of Empire, which looks at the role U.S. intervention in Latin America has played in driving people from their own countries to seek refuge in the U.S., he seemed like a perfect fit to address the issue from the perspective of a journalist with extensive experience covering immigration and related issues,” Sachowitz said.

In his remarks, González discussed multiple waves of immigration to the U.S. and how many details of history have not traditionally been included in the mainstream narrative. “When I attended public schools in New York City in the early Sixties, the history books were far different than they are today,” he recalled. Such texts, he said, disproportionately told the story of politics, art, literature, and industry through a European lens, with little mention of people of color.

This realization inspired González to take it upon himself as a journalist to reveal a more inclusive version of history and to provide a context for understanding our current social and political landscape. Today, he pursues this mission not only through his Democracy Now! newscasts with co-host Amy Goodman, but also as the author of several books focusing on social justice issues, including News For All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media (2012) and Reclaiming Gotham: Bill De Blasio and the Movement to End America’s Tale of Two Cities (2017).

While studying journalism at Columbia University, González said, he got involved with a student strike that began on April 23, 1968—two weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Subsequently, riots erupted in 100 U.S. cities and people across the country braced themselves for a civil war.

“If you were a young person attending college in 1968, the last thing on your mind was what kind of job you were going to get,” González said. “What everyone was worrying about was if the country would survive or if we’d go to war against each other.” Although we are not currently on the brink of a civil war, he said, Americans today are again experiencing deep levels of frustration and disempowerment, and it is more important than ever to get involved.

“Whether it’s the #BlackLivesMatter movement, the Dreamers...the movement to save the planet, [or] equal rights for the LGBT community, we have got to get involved and we’ve got to figure out what it is that we can do to get people to talk in a humane and intelligent matter about the problems,” González advised. “But at the same time, we can’t back down. You’ve got to stay strong, get involved, and do what you can to create change.”

Darynne Cross ‘20, a biochemistry major, attended the talk for her community engagement course. She said González’s remarks inspired her to try to change the conversations she has with her peers. “I’m going to try to come to more of a civil agreement than an argument,” Cross said. “I want to try to listen, but also remember not to back down.”