Fox Valley briefs

ECC continues immigrant series:Author Irina Reyn will speak Thursday, March 4, at Elgin Community College as part of the college's lecture series "Immigrant Women: Voices of Identity and Assimilation. Reyn's talk begins at 11 a.m. in the Advanced Technology Center Auditorium, 1700 Spartan Drive, Elgin and the Russian immigrant will speak about trials and challenges faced by immigrant women. She won the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers for her novel "What Happened to Anna K.?" in 2008. The event is free. For more information, call (847) 214-7864.U.S. prison system discussed:The McHenry County College Student Peace Action Network is organizing a lecture scheduled for Thursday that will feature Vincent Gaddis speaking on "The United States: Leading Jailer of the World." Gaddis, an associate professor and department chair at Benedictine University in Lisle, will say that the prison system disproportionally targets black and Latino men. The lecture is free and open to the public. It will be held at 7 p.m. inside the school's conference center. For details, call (815) 455-8772.