Neil Gotanda Lecture

Professor Rose Cuison Villazor, the 2011 Neil Gotanda Lecturer.

A pivotal figure in legal academia, Professor Neil Gotanda (Berkeley Law class of '72) is a constitutional law expert and is widely considered the founder of Asian American jurisprudence.

In 2008, AALJ created a lecture series in honor of Professor Gotanda, to be delivered annually by an established or up-and-coming scholar in the field of Asian American jurisprudence with the goal of fostering development of the field at Boalt Hall and across the country.

2011 Neil Gotanda Lecture

"Law and Memory: What (Marginalized) Asian American Cases Remind Us
About Citizenship, Race and Identity"

Rose Cuison Villazor, Associate Professor of Law, Hofstra Law School

Thursday, February 24, 2011
3:30-5:00pm
Room 105, Boalt Hall
U.C. Berkeley School of Law

Professor Villazor’s lecture revisits cases involving Asian Americans
and Pacific Islanders that have been marginalized in mainstream legal
discourse and considers their significance and implications for
contemporary immigration and citizenship legal issues. Through a
discussion of groundbreaking cases such as Wong Kim Ark v. United
States, and Oyama v. California, as well as lesser-known lower-court
appellate cases such as Bouiss v. Bonham and Rabang v. Immigration and
Naturalization Services, Professor Villazor underscores how these
cases shed nuanced light on contemporary issues about birthright
citizenship, anti-immigrant ordinances and marriages between citizens
and noncitizens.

Rose Cuison Villazor is an Associate Professor of Law at Hofstra
University School of Law. Professor Villazor’s research, writing and
teaching interests concentrate on immigration, citizenship, property
and critical race theory. She organizes the Colloquium on Law and
Citizenship at Hofstra Law School.

Past Lectures:

2008: Inaugural Lecture by Professor Neil Gotanda (Western State University College of Law)
"New Directions in Asian American Jurisprudence"
Full article available in Volume 16

2009: Professor Leti Volpp (Berkeley Law)
"The Excesses of Culture: On Asian American Citizenship and Identity"
Full article available in Volume 17 (forthcoming Summer 2010)

2010: Professor Muneer Ahmad (Yale Law)
"Resisting Guantanamo: Rights at the Brink of Dehumanization"