A distinguished panel of guests—which includes a former secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; the first female director, president, and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist—will discuss “Still an Immigrant Nation? How Immigration is Shaping America’s Character in the 21st Century” on Monday, February 6 at 5 p.m. at the Newman Alumni Center.
The panel, which is part of the University of Miami Global Affairs Lecture Series, will be moderated by Thomas “Mack” McLarty, president of the international advisory firm McLarty Associates and CEO of the fourth-generation family transportation business, McLarty Companies. Panelists will include:
• Michael Chertoff, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009 and co-founder and managing principal of Chertoff Group, which provides strategic counsel to corporate and government leaders on various security issues. A former federal judge, he is senior of counsel at Covington & Burling LLP.
• Carlos M. Gutierrez, vice chair of the Institutional Clients Group for Citigroup. Gutierrez was 7 years old when he and his family came to the United States from Cuba in 1960. As secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce from 2005 to 2009, he played a key role in the landmark CAFTA-DR agreement and was actively involved in U.S.-Cuba Policy during the Bush Administration, co-chairing the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. Prior to that, he served as chairman and CEO of the Kellogg Company, which he first joined in 1975 as a sales representative.
• Antonia Hernández, president and CEO of the California Community Foundation, which provides financial, technical, and management support to nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles County. Previously she was president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
• Jane Harman, the first female director, president, and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Harman took the helm in 2001 after nine terms in Congress, serving on the Armed Services, Intelligence, and Homeland Security committees. She was a top aide in the U.S. Senate, deputy cabinet secretary to President Jimmy Carter, and special counsel to the Department of Defense. She is a board member at the Newsweek Daily Beast Company.
• Andrés Oppenheimer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and syndicated columnist for The Miami Herald and more than 50 other newspapers. He is the anchor of television’s Oppenheimer Presenta and the author of six best-selling books on Latin American affairs.