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Two weeks ago I participated in various panels at a history conference in Albuquerque, NM. It was an excellent conference that usually draws a diverse academic population from throughout the West.

The best part of this conference is the breadth of panel topics. For the purposes of today's post I will comment on my experience at two different panels. The first was my panel, which dealt with US/Latin American relations in the 21st century. My presentation assessed the place of Mexican immigration within the evolution of the contemporary Mexican and United States nation-states. But for today's purposes I am commenting on the paper given by one of my fellow panelists.

Now remember the topic is US/Latin American relations. To provide some context, a prevalent topic within the field of US Diplomatic relations is the need to become more specialized within the nations we are studying. For example spending more time in foreign archives and becoming bilingual are the two most common aspirations. A third panelist even discussed the essential nature of this objective for the purposes of constructing more well-rounded and accurate historical interpretations. However, such objectives and the panel topic were of no concern to the original panelist in question who used his time to assess the British and US policies that eventually led to the creation of the Panama Canal. He completely ignored the role of Latin America. My colleague's sermon was thirty years out of date and contradicted everything this panel set out to accomplish. Ultimately it was a lecture on US/British imperialism.

Exhibit B: The second panel assessed immigration and social justice in the United States from an Ethnic Studies perspective. One of the panelists called Arizona a "White Supremacist state" and argued that racism is such a prevalent force in contemporary U.S. society that people of color are essentially living in an internal colony not unlike an Apartheid state. His interpretation was right out of the 1960s and not at all consistent with the manifold contemporary Chicano Studies interpretations. I am not defending Sheriff Joe nor do I fail to comprehend the resurgence of Nativist movements, but this is a far cry from pre-1994 South Africa.

At the end of the day I assessed what I had learned from my colleagues. They are two intellectuals that will probably never meet and certainly have no idea of the other's field of study. Each eerily reminded me of Sinclair Lewis's George Babbitt for their failure to comprehend what was occurring around them as each made his presentation. I had further concern for their students who may leave their classrooms with misleading comprehension and over simplified explanation of very complex topics.

So what did we learn? The two examples illustrate that even within educated circles ("educated" does not always mean intelligent or even informed) there is tremendous diversity in the level of knowledge and often a lack of pragmatic comprehension of the meaning that such volatile and vital topics have for contemporary society. This is one of the North American Center for Transborder Studies' (NACTS) most important roles at Arizona State University" to bridge the gap between disciplines, to connect the private and public sectors, and to provide leadership to some very difficult topics.