Little Rock-area residents have the opportunity to hear from one of the founders of an organization working to stop migrant suffering and death on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Chelsea Halstead, who heads the Colibrí Center for Human Rights’ family advocacy program, will lead two community discussions as part of “Latino Americans: 500 Years of History,” a special project of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture.

Halstead has worked with families searching for missing loved ones and forensic scientists to identify migrant remains. In 2012, she participated in a Department of Justice research study on the practices, protocols, and procedures for investigating the deaths of migrants.

She will lead two community discussion sessions themed: “The human rights crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border”:

• 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 22, at the UALR Stella Boyle-Smith Auditorium
• Noon Wednesday, Sept. 23, at Sturgis Hall, Clinton School of Public Service

Members of the public can register for the community discussions or other Latino Americans: 500 Years of History programming by clicking here.

Other Latino Americans: 500 Years of History programming available at no charge to the public includes community discussions and screenings of “Latino Americans” — a six-episode award-winning documentary that chronicles Latinos in the U.S. from the 16th century to the present day.

• 6 p.m. Oct. 1 at UALR Student Services Center Auditorium: Film screening of  “Who is Dayani Cristal?”
• 2 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Arkansas Arts Center: Community discussion and screening of “Foreigners in their Own Land (1565-1880),” the first episode from the documentary “Latino Americans”; Dr. Kristin Dutcher Mann, UALR associate professor of history and social studies education coordinator will lead the discussion
• 2 p.m. Oct. 25 at the Arkansas Arts Center: Screening of “Empire of Dreams (1880-1942),” the second episode from the “Latino Americans” documentary
• 2 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Arkansas Arts Center: Screening of “War and Peace (1942-1954),” the third installment in the six-part “Latino Americans” documentary
• 2 p.m. Nov. 8 at the Arkansas Arts Center: Screening of “The New Latinos (1946-1965),” the fourth episode of “Latino Americans”
• 2 p.m. Nov. 15 at the Arkansas Arts Center: Screening and community conversation, including the presentation of the fifth episode of “Latino Americans,” “Prejudice and Pride (1965-1980)”; community discussion will be led by doctoral candidate and visiting assistant professor Edma Delgado-Solórzano of the UALR Department of International and Second Language Studies
• 2 p.m. Nov. 22 at the Arkansas Arts Center: Screening of “Peril and Promise (1980-2000),” the sixth and final installment of “Latino Americans”

Latino Americans: 500 Years of History, a public programming initiative produced by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA), is part of an NEH initiative, “The Common Good: The Humanities in the Public Square.”

UALR’s Department of International and Second Language Studies and its Office of Campus Life, as well as the Clinton School of Public Service and the Arkansas Arts Center, also partnered with the Center for Arkansas History and Culture.