MIDLAND, Texas — The country is still in the midst of Hispanic Heritage Month and Midland College hosted a special lecture featuring Dr. José Angel Hernández, a distinguished scholar and award-winning author.
He also serves as an associate professor with University of Houston's history department.
He has all the qualifications of a public speaker and the accomplishments to back it up.
“Here you have somebody who's an immigrant who's born in Coahuila, Mexico and he was a student at University of Houston, then he had his doctorate at Chicago, then he was a professor at the University of Amherst. Here you have somebody from the border and from South Texas," Midland College Director of Communications/Family Engagement Jaime Aguila said. "Immigrated here, became a student, enjoyed reading, which is really important, and then was able to pursue his love of learning, love of Mexican history and of Mexican United States History.”
That experience in the classroom makes it easy to approach him as well, especially since he was speaking in front of a group consisting of mostly students.
"He's a very dynamic speaker. He's very easy to talk to, and maybe even more importantly, he understands that he has a responsibility as a role model," Aguila said. "Also to take every opportunity to preach public education and preach that the unlimited opportunities that really is at the foundation of what it is to live in the United States.”
Alongside the topic of pursuing a public education, Dr. Hernández included his thoughts on the Mexican government, housing in Tijuana and immigration in the modern day.
One of his main concerns that he also addressed was how the Mexican government could better help out potentially thousands of people who could be coming back to Mexico due to mass expulsions.
“At the time, I was doing this research from the 19th century, and was quite taken aback," Dr. Hernández said. "I [was] surprised that the government 100 years earlier was actually much more wily, much more astute and much more intelligent than the modern governments."
It’s not a coincidence that he is speaking during Hispanic Heritage Month in the Permian Basin with a larger than normal Hispanic population. Dr. Hernández hoped that his topics of discussion would hit a little closer to home.
“I was trained, as they call it, a 'Mexicanist,' basically a specialist in Mexican history. But this sort of topic, you know, broaches Mexican American, global and Mexican history," Dr. Hernández said. "Given that the population here is you have a large Hispanic population, I thought they would be interested in something like this.”
His hope with the lecture was for the students who attended to get the most out of his lesson and life story while applying it to real life situations.