Syndicated columnists Roberto Rodriguez and Patrisia Gonzales will be the keynote speakers for Conversations on Race IX at Indiana University South Bend. The husband- and-wife team, who write from the Latino and indigenous perspective, will speak at 7 p.m. Nov. 10, in Northside Hall, Room 158 (Recital Hall).

The topic will be: “On Becoming Humans: A Conversation of Who We Are.” Their documentary “San Ce Tojuan, We Are One” also will be shown. A book signing will follow the lecture. Books and the documentary will be sold during the signing.

In addition to the main speakers, Conversations on Race will continue on Friday, Nov. 11, with eight break-out sessions in various rooms in Wiekamp Hall. The topics will include the racial implications of Hurricane Katrina, pop culture and its effects on youth, violence in high schools, and the role adults play in developing young people.

All sessions are free and open to the public.

Friday’s session will begin with registration at 8 a.m. in Wiekamp Hall, a youth seminar at 9 a.m. in Wiekamp 1001, break-out session at 10:45 a.m. and a poetry jam at noon in the Administration Building cafeteria.

The keynote speakers have each had a distinguished career in journalism and they were recipients of a 1998 human rights award in Albuquerque, N.M. They are former residents of El Paso, Texas, and Albuquerque, N.M.

In 1998, they served as University of California Regents lecturers at the University of California, San Diego. That same year, they uncovered a series of maps that have located the “Ancient Homeland of the Aztecs” in what appears to be present-day Utah.

Gonzales is the first Latina syndicated columnist in the country and was a founding member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She is also a member of the Native American Journalists Association. She has been a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Tucson Citizen and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Her 2002 book "The Mud People: Anonymous Heroes of Mexico's Emerging Human Rights Movement" won critical acclaim. As a survivor of sexual violence, she also conducts writing circles that incorporate meditation, journaling and natural medicine. She is descendent of Kickapoo, Comanche and Mexican Indian people.

Rodriguez began his career at La Gente newspaper at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1972. He was a senior writer with Black Issues in Higher Education from 1990 to 2000. He is the author of several books, including two recent electronic books: "The X in La Raza" and "Codex Tamanchuan: On Becoming Human."

Two earlier books were combined into a single volume called "Justice: A Question of Race," which recounts his successful legal fights in two police brutality trials stemming from an assault by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies in 1979 and the broader underworld of police brutality.

He wrote for several publications including La Opinion, the nation’s largest Spanish language daily. Before becoming syndicated he published columns in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and USA Today. Today, their column is self-syndicated in 20 newspapers.

They recently moved to Madison to pursue graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin. She is studying indigenous medicine and indigenous birth practices. He is conducting research on origins and migration focusing on the role of maize.

The two-day event is sponsored by the South Bend Tribune, Chase Bank and Indiana University South Bend.

For information call (574) 520-5524.