Upcoming Events

Throughout the year, WRIN sponsors events that provide a forum for scholars to talk about their research with university colleagues, students, and community members.

Tues, October 7    11:30-12:30

Christie D. Batson, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

UNLV Student Union, Room 209

Immigrant Occupational and Economic Incorporation in the Hotel and Resort Industry of Las Vegas

The hotel and resort industry of Las Vegas, which is home to 17 of the 20 largest hotels in the United States, provides a unique opportunity to examine low-wage service-industry workers in a city where economic restructuring has coincided with metropolitan population growth and immigrant growth. Using census data from 1980 and 2000, I describe the economic and occupational trends over time of Hispanic maids and housekeepers in the Las Vegas metropolitan area.  Results indicate that the hotel and resort industry in Las Vegas appear to contribute to the occupational and economic mobility and assimilation of Hispanic women over time.  However, my findings indicate that foreign-born women experience less mobility than their native-born counterparts.  Consistent with the growth patterns of metropolitan Las Vegas over the last thirty years, the relationship between the hotel and resort industry and immigrant growth is pronounced.  Implications for immigrant incorporation, immigrant economies, and migration networks are discussed.

Tuesday, October 28      6pm                 

Marjorie Barrick Auditorium

A Conversation with Ruby Duncan

Ruby Duncan has dedicated her life to improving opportunities for the poor of Las Vegas, especially women and children. She came to Las Vegas in 1952, but she grew up working on the Ivory Plantation in Louisiana chopping cotton. In Las Vegas, she worked as a housekeeper and a cook until an injury left her unable to work. Divorced and the sole support of six children, she turned to welfare.

When Nevada cut 75 percent of welfare assistance in 1971, Duncan turned to activism. She organized welfare rights demonstrations, eat-ins, and eventually two large marches on the Las Vegas Strip. She became a recognized leader of the African American community. In 1972, she founded Operation Life, a community-run organization, which brought much needed services to West Las Vegas including a medical clinic, library, economic development, housing, day care, education, and job training. Ms. Duncan and her co-workers were the subject of Dartmouth College professor Annelise Orleck’s book Storming Caesars Palace: How black mothers fought their own war on poverty.  Ruby Duncan has received many local and national awards for her continued dedication to women's and children's rights, including the 2008 Margaret Chase Smith Award from the National Association of Secretaries of State. The award is presented to candidates who show “political courage and selfless action in the realm of public service.”

Co-sponsored by the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada and the Women’s Studies Department.

Wednesday, November 5      12:00-1:00       

S. Charusheela, Interim Chair, Women’s Studies Department

Crystal Jackson & Suzanne Becker, Doctoral students in Sociology

Rm 117 Wm. S. Boyd School of Law

Bargaining and State Policy: The Implications of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and for Women Sex Workers

Feminist economists have developed a 'bargaining' framework for exploring women's social, political, and economic bargaining power. This framework addresses questions of bargaining beyond the narrow focus on the household and raises issues of women's bargaining power with regard to the market, community, and state. We add to this literature by extending the bargaining approach to another contested area: sex in the market. Specifically, we use the bargaining approach to examine the relationship between prostitution, labor conditions and state policies under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

Tuesday, November 18        12:00-1:00      

Location TBA

Marcia M. Gallo, Assistant Professor, Department of History

When is a sex crime more than a sex crime? Catherine “Kitty” Genovese and the Construction of the Perfect Female Victim

The name “Kitty Genovese” is well known to people all over the world despite the nearly 45 years that have passed since her death. From recent participants in Psychology 101 classes who learn about her through studying the “bystander syndrome,” to aging Baby Boomers who recall her pale face and piercing dark eyes peering from the pages of their local newspaper, her name is synonymous with social indifference in the face of danger.  However, very little is known about Kitty Genovese other than that she was brutally assaulted – stabbed repeatedly after an attempted rape – on a New York street in March 1964 while 38 neighbors who reportedly heard her cries or witnessed the attacks did nothing to intervene.

What often is missing from the story is the woman herself.  Much like the chalk outline of the victim left on the street where a crime has been committed, the substance of Kitty Genovese’s life often is absent when her name is invoked. Instead, she has been made into an iconic figure of urban apathy and social decay, a stark reminder – especially for women – of the limits of personal freedom. It is time to fill in the blanks.

The discussion will focus on Gallo’s research into the complicated person that Catherine “Kitty” Genovese had become in her 28 years of life: her background and interests, the passions and pleasures she experienced as a young, independent woman living in New York in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The presentation will explore the reasons why the details of her life have been either minimized or eliminated in the many stories told about her death, then and now.