Douglas Monroy is a retired professor who has earned honors; he is currently teaching a class at Colorado Mesa University (CMU).
Monroy spent his career at Colorado College teaching social sciences and researching migration. He started at the college in 1978 and now holds a department head position.
One of his books, The Borders Within, looks at how Mexico and The United States are intertwined throughout history and discusses the process and reasons for immigration.
He describes the book as creative nonfiction and uses it to recount his experiences seeing migrants around his own home in Colorado Spring as well as dive into the social science behind the topic. Monroy is a prominent Mexican American academic whose own grandparents immigrated to the United States.
Monroy is teaching a topics class about immigration and this was set into motion by a board to make sure that CMU is receiving outside education opportunities. He was also in attendance at the Aspinall Foundation scholarship ceremony to give his own presentation.
The Aspinall Lecture was given by Monroy on April 20 in the University Center Ballroom. He focused on migration from Latin and Spanish countries and how factors such as corrupt government and climate change have forced people from their homes.
“People may come to this country for work and the employers welcome them, but the locals tell them they do not belong,” Monroy said.
Further in his presentation, Monroy talked about the consequences of the war in Ukraine from a global perspective. He stated that Ukrainian immigrants were welcomed in some countries, but shunned in others due to not being considered a Christian nation. Monroy noted that global wheat exports have decreased because of the conflict and that is hurting people in Africa at an exponential rate.
Along with the drying of Lake Chad, this has caused mass immigration from Africa to Europe and other islands. Monroy stated that the causes are complicated and no immigration from a country could be pinned down to one reason.
At the end of the lecture, a crowd member asked Monroy how to solve the immigration crisis. He stated that there is no end-all solution, but we should take from the comfortable (a group he included himself in) and give to the afflicted.
“We have become a society based on consumers. Is it really worth it that we can get all this cheap stuff? Americans and Europeans decided that it was a good idea to get cheap goods and that came with consequences,” Monroy said.
