“Minister Krishna’s leadership and contributions have played a significant role in the development of India,” said John B. Attanasio, Judge James Noel Dean and Professor of Law and Judge William Hawley Atwell Chair of Constitutional Law in the SMU Dedman School of Law. “This is a wonderful opportunity for the community, our alumni and our students to have him back at the law school and hear him speak.”

Krishna oversees India’s government agency responsible for relationships with other countries, and his position is similar to that of U.S. secretary of state. Top members of the Ministry of External Affairs represent India at the United Nations.

Before he began his lecture, Minister Krishna received the law school’s Distinguished Global Alumni Award, presented by Attanasio.

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Luís Alberto Urrea spoke in SMU's 2012 "Migration Matters" series Jan. 26. Photo by Clayton T. Smith, SMU

Luís Alberto Urrea – author of The Hummingbird’s Daughter, Queen of America and the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Devil’s Highway – returned to the Hilltop Jan. 26, 2012, to speak in “Migration Matters: An Interdisciplinary Program on Immigration at the U.S.-Mexico Border.”  The series features artists, educators, faith leaders and law enforcement insiders – all sharing the latest information on border-related migration trends, crime, politics, humanitarian efforts, art and literature.

Urrea led off the series with a discussion of his border-related writing and reportage. “The border ran right through my living room” as a child, he told the crowd in SMU’s McCord Auditorium, speaking of his American mother and Mexican father (“who was the blond, blue-eyed one in the family,” he added).

The author came to campus in 2008 to discuss The Devil’s Highway – the true story of the Yuma 14 tragedy, and that year’s Common Reading for new SMU students. Most of the University students who read The Devil’s Highway for Common Reading are seniors this year.

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Related links:

> More information on “Migration Matters” from SMU News
> More about The Devil’s Highway as the 2008 SMU Common Reading
> SMU Forum: Author Luís Urrea talks about life and death on the border
> Urrea on KERA Public Radio’s “Think” Jan. 23, 2012