By Felipe Sanches

 

Since the founding of La Comunidad Intelectual, the vision of the Learning Community has been to “recognize and critically examine Caribbean and Latin American cultures, customs and traditions as they exist at UConn and beyond… [and to] nurture intellectual diversity, inclusivity, and social activism.” As the only Latinx Learning Community on campus, we pride ourselves on sticking to that vision and creating projects, events, and social media campaigns that revolve around this vision. We pride ourselves in being grounded in various Latinx cultures- Colombian, Puerto Rican, Brazilian, Uruguayan, Venezuelan, Mexican, and more—and making sure that our cultures are bound together by the common theme of fostering Latinx intellectuals on a collegiate level.  

 

This year is going to be a year of expansion and growth for the LCI because we are closely working on significant projects in order to get the attention of the University and the future Latinx Huskies that will be walking on this campus next year, the year after, and for many more years to come. La Comunidad Intelectual is at a point in time where the Learning Community is ready to take the next steps forward. But what are the next steps forward?

 

• Solidifying Relationships with the Latinx Institutions on UCONN Storrs Campus– It is important for LCI’s continued growth to have strong relationships with the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center (PRLACC) and El Instituto. These three institutions, or the Latinx trifecta, as I like to refer to them as, are vital to continue to deal with the social, academic, and intellectual needs of Latinx students. So, it is imperative for LCI to strengthen relationships with PRLACC and El Instituto. LCI already has El Instituto’s support and a close relationship with them through student liaisons, the proximity to each other. LCI has most recently joined the Latinx Student Leadership Council, which is the council that oversees all the student orgs out of PRLACC. It is a step forward for LCI because it opens up avenues of communication with other cultural and Latinx greek orgs for collaborations and gets people more aware of what our Learning Community does for our Latinx students. 

 

 

• Establishing an effective marketing campaign- In a world that revolves around social media and the Internet, it is imperative that La Comunidad Intelectual stays ahead of the curve in terms of online presence. We currently have an Instagram as our main form of social media, but we will establish updated Facebook and Twitter pages in order to increase our presence on social media platforms across the board. In addition to an increase on social media platforms, we will be hosting fundraisers, events, discussions, and other activities to put our name out to Latinx students and increase awareness.

 

 

• Establishing El Concilio as a decision-maker and liaison between the Latinx Trifecta- El Concilio is LCI’s student-led leadership team established to support student leadership experiences, research experiences through an annual LCI case study, and to plan relevant events. El Concilio is an E-Board, with co-presidents, a treasurer, a secretary, and a social media coordinator. El Concilio is more active than ever before. It is planning and creating fundraisers and serves as liaison between others of the Latinx Trifecta–PRLACC and El Instituto. Since El Concilio is part of LxSLC, one member of the E-Board attends biweekly council meetings in PRLACC in order to network with other e-boards and represent the interests of La Comunidad Intelectual.

 

 

Our students are very excited for our upward mobility, relative to the expansion and growth of our program. Through our expansion and growth initiatives, LCI students look forward to strong ascension to the forefront of all Learning Communities. We are gaining more visibility and recognition throughout campus, not just the Latinx Trifecta and the Learning Communities office. We want UCONN Nation to see us and recognize that our Latinx students are here to stay and we are staying true to our cultures that we are all very proud of. Stay tuned to our projects and endeavors by following our Instagram account at @uconn.lci. Participate in our events and get to know our Learning Community.

Victoria Almodovar

Contributed by Victoria Almodovar

Coming into this program, my biggest interests were Latinx identity development and Latinx educational experiences in the United States. After some exploration of a variety of topics, I have chosen a research project that incorporates both of these interests. My project aims to explore the experiences of Latinas in University-recognized  fraternal “Greek-letter” organizations.

While extensive research has been done surrounding the origins of fraternal organizations, reasons for membership and other such topics, little research has been done illuminating the experiences of Latinx student involvement in them. Much of the small amount of research that has been done about Latinx sorority membership has focused on Latinx-based (but not Latinx-exclusive) organizations, ignoring the fact that Latinas also join organizations that are not Latinx-based. My project will work to create a space in which Latinas who are affiliated with any Greek-letter organization can come together and share their experiences, explore their identities, and support each other throughout their undergraduate careers.

As a lifetime member of a sorority myself, I know the great value that my membership has had in my life, even beyond my undergraduate years. As a Latina, and a student in this Master’s program, I know how important it is for Latinx students to have spaces in which they can learn more about their identities. It is my hope that my project will not only create a space for students to explore their Latina and “Greek” identities, but will also create more conversation around Latinx involvement in fraternal organizations and their value in the world of higher education.

Rocio Orozco

Contributed by Rocio Orozco

This summer I conducted research in El Paso, Texas on immigration and asylum between the US-Mexico border.  I had the opportunity to work with the HOPE Border Institute. HOPE is an advocacy, research, grassroots organization that help the communities of El Paso, Las Cruces and Cuidad Juárez. HOPE produces annual reports from data they gather from court observations and policy analysis. I had the opportunity to observe immigration proceedings that dealt with detained court and ‘Remain in Mexico’ program. Also, I conducted interviews with metered asylum seekers who are waiting in Mexican shelters.  

I went into this research project with a question, “Who was providing asylum seekers with mental health treatments? Was it the federal government or NGO’s? Unfortunately, thinking of the mental health of asylum seekers is a luxury. The ‘Remain in Mexico’ program created a humanitarian crisis that forced the limited resources to focus on challenging this policy and rescuing the most vulnerable from the program. ‘Remain in Mexico’ stopped the traditional intake of asylum seekers in the US. There are over twenty thousand waiting in the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program and thousands more waiting to have their number called to enter the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program.

This summer taught me about the grey area of administrative law, the way the media reports their findings, how history repeats itself if it is forgotten, and even though we have rights we still must fight for them. What I hope to accomplish with this research is to educate the public on this inhumane policy, to influence policy makers to protect the right to seek asylum, to push for immigration reform, and to address the jurisdiction and accountability of immigration law.

Julia Marchese

Contributed by Julia Marchese

Julia Marchese is a second-year graduate student pursuing a Master of Arts in Latina/o and Latin American Studies. She received her B.A. in Spanish Literature and Translation with a minor in Philosophy from Kent State University in Ohio. Her undergraduate research project analyzed various mediums of Spanish-American discourse to understand how eurocentrism played a role in their “invention of America.” Since coming to El Instituto, Julia has begun to develop her various interests in literature, Spanish, language, linguistics, race, Latinx indigeneity, and education. In particular, she is interested in how race and language intersect in multilingual school settings. Her thesis research uses a theoretical framework of raciolinguistics to investigate the schooling experiences of linguistically diverse students at a predominantly Latino/a/x high school.

After recruiting a small group of linguistically diverse Latinx students, Julia will collect data through various methods of qualitative research to get a more nuanced understanding of how Latinx students with varying linguistic practices racially, linguistically, and generally experience the same school. Julia hopes that her research will provide the high school with the necessary data to ensure that they are providing their enthnoracially and linguistically diverse Latinx students with adequate resources, curriculum, and support.

In addition to serving as a Research Assistant for Sociology and El Instituto professor, Dr. Marysol Asencio, Julia also works as a Bilingual Research Assistant for HDFS and WGSS professor, Dr. Laura Mauldin. As part of this position, Julia will be traveling out of state to interview Spanish-speaking parents/guardians with children who have cochlear implants.

After graduation and her thesis defense in May, Julia plans to either fulfill her lifelong dream of moving somewhere in Latin America, or (more practically) look for a non-profit/community role in the U.S. that works to dismantle barriers to equal education.

By Genesis Carela

 

In 2018 Daisy Verduzco Reyes, Ph.D, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and El Instituto published Learning to be Latino: How Colleges Shape Identity Politics. In this book, she chronicles the identity formation process of Latinx students at three distinct higher education institutes in California (a liberal arts college, a research university, and a regional public university). Reyes identifies how institutional arrangements affect the Latinx students’ social relationships. She examines the ways that total student enrollment, residential arrangements, student demographic, the relationship between students and administrators, and the integration of students through cultural centers and retention centers. Reyes simultaneously conducted fieldwork at all three campuses and all six organizations (two from each institution) from the fall of 2008 through the spring of 2010 and considered how the characteristics of each institution create an environment that influences how Latinx students interact with one another, identify themselves, and come to understand how they fit in. Her research demonstrated how various interactive processes at the Latinx organizations produced three different patterns of pan-ethnic identification: inclusive Latino identification, qualified Latino identification, and national origins identification/the rejection of a pan-ethnic identity.

            More recently, Doctor Reyes has conducted follow-up fieldwork with the students from the liberal arts college, research university, and regional public university to acquire information about their various transitions into adulthood and how these alumni from different institutions fared after graduation. With funding provided by the Spencer Foundation, a research foundation focused exclusively on supporting educational research, Doctor Reyes was able to conduct interviews with approximately 60 students who are now between the ages of 27 and 38. As part of my Graduate Research Assistantship, I am aiding Doctor Reyes with the process of data analysis. We will shortly begin using qualitative data software to analyze the interviews from the Latinx Alumni. Doctor Reyes and I look forward to reporting the findings of this follow-up research.

Contributed by Samuel Martínez

A new initiative in support of emerging student leaders involved with PRLAAC and La Comunidad Intelectual (LCI) First-Year Learning Community was announced at the Hispanic Heritage Month Alumni Meet & Greet reception, held at the Jorgensen Gallery Saturday, 21 September 2019. The event took place before that evening’s Gilberto Santa Rosa Hispanic Heritage Month special concert event at Jorgensen Auditorium. 

In her brief opening remarks, María Martínez, Assistant Vice Provost, Institute for Student Success, spoke to the students, staff and visitors in attendance. Martínez announced that her office, which oversees First-Year Programs, was developing a new collaboration with the UConn Foundation, PRLAAC and El Instituto. This initiative will aim to nurture mentorship opportunities and expand career development funding for LCI and PRLAAC students in the years to come. Both expanded mentoring opportunities for UConn Latinx alumni and a Foundation-supported fund raising drive are anticipated to focus on expanding opportunities for LCI and PRLAAC students.

PRLAAC Director Fany Hannon expressed appreciation for the dynamism and imaginativeness of Latinx student leaders. El Instituto Director Samuel Martínez spoke of a “triangle of student support” — uniting El Instituto, LCI and PRLAAC — bringing the struggle for inclusion at UConn into a third phase, in which Latinx students are not only admitted and retained but provided conditions under which they can all feel they belong at UConn and that UConn belongs to them. LCI Director Diana Rios (Instituto joint appointee with the Department of Communication) recounted the process through which she realized her dream of founding a student living community at UConn focused on intellectual diversity, inclusivity, and social activism. LCI undergraduate student Felipe Sanches spoke eloquently of his peers’ tenacious drive to succeed not just personally and career-wise but in service to their communities.

Keep an eye out for emerging details of this initiative at the Websites and Twitter feeds of El Instituto, PRLAAC, and the UConn Learning Community Program.

 

Contributed by Samuel Martínez

Arthur (Leigh) Binford, UConn Anthropology PhD, and former professor at UConn-Hartford, University of Puebla (Mexico) and CUNY Staten Island, made the first “tertulia” luncheon seminar presentation of the 2019-20 academic year on Wednesday, 25 September 12:00-1:30PM, at El Instituto’s Ryan Building conference room. Dr Binford’s talk compared temporary migrant worker programs in Canada and the United States. This comparison, for him, illustrates the fundamentally “unfree” character of temporary migrant labor programs. H2A temporary work permits in the United States provide minimal legal and wage protections but also place migrants in situations of complete dependence on labor contractors and employers. The Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) recruits migrants, by contrast, through government agencies in the migrants’ home countries, but consular officials are discouraged to take actions to protect their country’s migrants when employers freely switch labor sources from one country to another in a “race to the bottom” search for the most compliant workers. Above all, migrant rights are harmed when their legal authorization to work depends upon their satisfying the demands of one employer and lapses after the completion of the job. The surest sign of their un-freedom, Binford reports, are the debilitating and dangerous levels of worker productivity — which far exceed the productivity levels of native workers — imposed on a captive migrant labor force by farmers, tree planters, wholesale nursery operators and other employers. Pointing out that both the H2A and SAWP have expanded in recent years, Binford lastly pointed out to the students and faculty in attendance the need for more workplace-situated and commodity-specific research on temporary migrant worker programs.

Dr. Jason G. Irizarry’s (Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Faculty Associate of El Instituto) undergraduate course, Education in the Latinx Diaspora (LLAS 3998), critically explores the educational experiences and outcomes of Latinos, the largest and fastest growing “minoritized” group in U.S. schools. The curriculum and course assignments range from readings on LatCrit Theory, Latinx epistemologies, and Latinx student identities, to projects in which students draft testimonios, conduct phenomenological interviews with one another, and complete an investigation of an issue related to Latinx students in U.S. schools using Photo Voice. The “latino-centric” approach interwoven through this course has been to use theories generated by Latinos to examine Latinx education, approach the coursework critically using Participatory Action Research, and allow for a space that both promotes self-reflection and stimulates a desire for action and advocacy.

Unexpectedly, even though Irizarry’s class is open to all UConn students and does not require pre-requisites, only five students signed up for the course, all of which happened to self-identify as Latinx. None of the five students are Education students; they are instead comprised of majors spanning from Sociology to Neurobiology. Both Irizarry and the students concur that having this specific set of students has added, in the words of Irizarry, a “wrinkle” to the course. Simultaneously learning about Latinx students and being a group of Latinx students in an otherwise predominantly non-Latino institution has allowed for a more profound connection to the coursework and has fostered a more intense motivation for the students to learn.

A handful of the students described their experience in the course as not only a period of introspection, but also an opportunity to flip the deficit narrative for the entire U.S. Latinx community. The students alluded to the class being a journey; collectively agreeing that upon walking into this class at the beginning of the semester, they believed their previous educational experiences were unique to themselves as individuals. However, throughout the course of the semester, the knowledge they’ve gained from the course materials and assignments has made them aware of the commonalities among their schooling experiences and, more broadly, the systemic marginalization that Latinx youth face in U.S. schools.

Perhaps the greatest takeaway from this class for this diverse group of students has been the opportunity to have an academic space in which they not only can reflect on the issues that they and the Latino community face in terms of schooling, but also have a space in which they don’t feel pressured to justify why they are there. Moving forward, Irizarry hopes to have more students sign up for the class and have the PRLACC METAS course be a pre-requisite.

Contributed by  Julia Marchese

 

 

 

Each year, the Latinos in Education Foco invites a speaker for a plática with students, faculty and staff at the university. El Foco is a research community within El Instituto that provides opportunities for mentorship, networking and professional development for junior tenure-track faculty.  This year’s guest of honor was Professor Gilda Ochoa.

Ochoa is a distinguished professor of  Chicana/o – Latina/o Studies at Pomona College in Claremont California. She has been teaching at the college since 1997, when she earned he Ph.D. in sociology from UCLA two decades ago. In the past two decades she has become a prominent figure in the study of Latinos in U.S. education. Her most recent book, Academic Profiling : Latinos, Asian Americans, and the Achievement Gap  was named one of the Huffington Post’s “35 books that all educators of African American and Latino students must read”.

On April 18th, Professor Ochoa sat with members of the UConn community to discuss the importance of establishing classroom environments that best foster student involvement and learning. Rather than lecture about her work on reclaiming the voices of students whose voices are often silenced in a classroom context, she turned the community space of The Puerto Rican Latin American Cultural Center into a classroom in which she aimed to both teach and learn from those in the room.

Professor Ochoa placed great emphasis on the importance of students and teachers truly getting to know each other in order to create a welcoming and supportive class environment. In order to show the strength of establishing relationships in classrooms, she had everyone in the room turn to neighbor and introduce themselves. She then urged everyone to talk about which of the terms: power, privilege or silence characterized their own educational experiences.

She believes that truly getting to  know each other involves facing issues of power, privilege, and silence head on. Though this may be challenging in some contexts, she recommends doing s

o in order to ensure that all members of the classroom community have equal opportunity to speak and create an environment in which no one is silenced.

In addition to encouraging everyone in the room to work toward making classroom environments safe supportive spaces for everyone, Ochoa urged teaching and other university staff in the room to not be silent about causes they believe in. All of her work, and this event are testaments to the need for people and universities to speak out against the many injustices minoritized populations face in this country and the world.

Contributed by Victoria Almodovar