Jorge Castaeda will deliver a free talk on U.S.-Mexican relations Tuesday that will help students better understand the problems that the United States and Mexico are facing, SIUC instructors say.

Castaeda, who received his bachelor’s in political science from Princeton University in 1973, is the author of ten books including Limits to Friendship:The United States and Mexico.

Castaeda is a professor of economics and international affairs at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and writes columns for The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek International and the Mexican weekly Proceso. He also has written a book, Companero:The Life and Death of Che Guevara.

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He has served as a senior associate of the Carnegie Institute for International Peace in Washington, D.C. and visiting professor at Princeton University, the University of California at Berkeley and Dartmouth College.

Frederick Williams, director of the Honors Program, said the Morton-Kenney Lecture Series traditionally has not featured someone with the diversity of thought possessed by Castaeda.

We never had a speaker in the series whose experience would take us beyond the United States, Williams said. We chose him because the series is intended to focus on American national politics. He’s fluent in the American political system.

The Morton-Kenney Public Affairs Lecture series was set up in 1995, when Jerome Mileur, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts and an alumnus of SIUC, donated $270,000 to the University in honor of two of his professors David Kenney and Ward Morton. The two are retired SIUC professors who were very important to Mileur during his years at SIUC.

The series has sponsored such guests as Democratic National Convention Chairman Donald Fowler, U.S. News and World Report senior writer Michael Barone and Jean Bethke Elshtain, author of Democracy on Trial.

History Department Chairman David Werlich said Castaeda’s talk will display two aspects that truly represent what the Morton-Kenney series stands for.

The home of the Morton-Kenney series is political science, Werlich said. Morton is a Latin American scientist specialist.

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This is a very important topic. We not only have NAFTA problems, we have immigration problems, and we have drug problems.

Werlich said that Castaeda will explain his unique stance on NAFTA, which eliminated trade barriers between the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Castaeda is a leading Mexican opponent of NAFTA, Werlich said.

Williams said attending the lecture will broaden students’ understanding of our neighboring countries.

The lecturers that come to SIU all have something interesting to say, but Castaeda is of particular interest because we are not an isolated nation, Williams said. We need to have the perspective of our neighbor.

The only way that we can learn how to better our relations with our neighbors, is through someone like Castaeda.

FACT BOX:Castaeda’s lecture begins at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Student Center Auditorium. A breakfast open to all students to talk to Castaeda will be from 7:30 to 9 a.m. Wednesday in the Student Center Ohio River Room. Coffee and donuts will be served.