Contributed by Charles R. Venator Santiago

The University of Connecticut’s Puerto Rican Studies Initiative for Civic Engagement and Public Policy (UConnPRSI) was founded during the Summer of 2021. The UConnPRSI is a research initiative seeking to document and support Puerto Ricans’ vital economic, intellectual, and cultural contributions to Connecticut and provide research-based support for developing public policies addressing the needs of Puerto Ricans in the State of Connecticut. This initiative is currently housed in El Instituto. Anyone interested in more information can visit the UConnPRSI’s webpage at https://puertoricanstudies.clas.uconn.edu/

Since 2021, the UConn PRSI has focused on at least five areas of collaboration and research. The UConn PRSI has partnered with various community organizations to foster different civic and community engagement forms. Collaborations include working with the Hispanic Health Council, the City of Hartford, El Show de AnaLeh, Connecticut’s Puerto Rican and Latino Legislative Caucus, Women at the Table, the Center for Preparedness and Response, the National Puerto Rican Diaspora Museum (NPRDM), the State Education Resource Council (SERC) and host of other non-profits and community-based organizations.

The UConnPRSI has also worked closely with Puerto Rican and Latino elected officials in Connecticut to conduct research and policy briefs to address persistent inequalities affecting Puerto Ricans in Connecticut. We have produced research briefs and reports addressing a wide range of topics, including evaluating the impact of the Governor’s EV legislation, the Social Equity Council’s effect on Puerto Ricans and other Latinos, and the persistent inequalities of Latinas in Connecticut.

This initiative also began an oral histories project to document the impact of Puerto Rican leaders in various areas, including civic and community engagement, the history of the Puerto Rican Day Parades in Connecticut, Small Business owners, and many other areas. The goal is to collect the oral histories of key Puerto Rican leaders in Connecticut and create a public repository of stories that can help guide future generations of students, community leaders, public officials, and others.

Public archives are also central to UConn’s Puerto Rican Studies Initiative. We are currently building a series of web pages containing primary documents for studying Puerto Rico’s territorial status, citizenship, and political history. These web pages also contain valuable dashboards that allow users to navigate and calculate complex information. Unlike the traditional cultural center approach, we want to promote a historical understanding of the Puerto Rican political landscape.

Our data hub provides simple and accessible data on Puerto Ricans in Connecticut. We aim to create a public archive/repository of data to help users better understand the inequalities that Puerto Rican residents of Connecticut experience. In addition to creating various data tools, we are creating helpful data sheets summarizing our findings.

The UConnPRSI is also committed to organizing summits, workshops, and other public events designed to help Puerto Ricans in Connecticut organize and demand that the state redress some of the inequalities they experience. Our next summit, Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans|Connecticut: Creating a Collective Agenda, will be held in the Connecticut Legislative Office Building on Saturday, 11 January 2025. This event is free and open to the public. Anyone interested can register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/947260380297?aff=oddtdtcreator

For more information on UConn’s Puerto Rican Studies Initiative, please visit us at https://puertoricanstudies.clas.uconn.edu/.

Contributed by Charles R. Venator Santiago

El Instituto is also happy to welcome Professor Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, who has a senior joint appointment with the Department of Sociology. Professor Vidal-Ortiz will be joining us during the Fall of 2025. Dr. Vidal-Ortiz’s scholarship cuts across racialization, sexuality, gender, migration, and religion; his work is interdisciplinary. He co-edited two award-winning books: The Sexuality of Migration, and Queer Brown Voices, co-authored a book with two former students, Brandon Andrew Robinson and Cristina Khan, titled Race and Sexuality, and is completing a book manuscript about race, gender, and sexuality in Santería (an Afro-Cuban religious-cultural practice).

Within the American Sociological Association (ASA), he was elected Chair of the Latina/o Sociology section; in the past, he has served as convener (and first non-elected Chair) of the Sociology of the Body and Embodiment section, is Past Chair of the Sexualities Section, and served as inaugural editorial board member for Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, from the Race and Ethnic Minorities section (where he was a Council member as well). In 2018, he served as tri-chair for ASA’s Sexualities Section Pre-conference: Sexualities, Race, and Empire: Resistance in an Uncertain Time. Outside of the discipline, he was an inaugural editorial board member for TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly; he also coedited a special issue of GLQ: Gay and Lesbian Studies Quarterly, on CuirAméricas as part of the Feminist and Cuir/Queer Américas Working Group. In DC, he has supported community-based groups such as Different Avenues -see related essay on Public Sociology– and the Latino GLBT History Project.

He continues Fulbright-based research on displacement and LGBT people in Bogotá, Colombia. With Juliana Martínez, he edited Travar el Saber: Educación de Personas Trans y Travestis en la Argentina (loosely translated as Trans-ing knowledge: trans* people’s education in Argentina) – based on narratives from students and teachers that show the challenges and opportunities of trans-inclusion in three public education sites in the greater Buenos Aires province. He has taught sociology of race and ethnicity at the University of Colorado – Boulder; in Colombia, a qualitative research methods course for the graduate social sciences program at Universidad de Los Andes; one on migration, gender, and sexuality for the Masters in cultural studies at Universidad Javeriana, also in Colombia; and in Brazil, a course on race, gender and sexuality inclusion in education for the Masters in Education at Universidade Federal Do Amapá.

He has received a few important honors and fellowships recently: In the Fall of 2019, he held a Distinguished Scholar in Residence position in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program at the College of the Holy Cross; for the Spring of 2022, he was the Stephen O. Murray Inaugural Scholar in Residence at Michigan State University; and during AY 2023-24, he was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at University at Buffalo.

We would also like to welcome Professor Ana-Michelle McSorley, who teaches in the Department of Allied Health Sciences. Anna-Michelle completed her two-year postdoctoral position at New York University (NYU) School of Global Public Health in the Department of Public Health Policy and Management and the Center for Anti-racism, Social Justice, and Public Health. She received her PhD (2022) and MPH (2018) in Community Health Sciences from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Fielding School of Public Health. As part of her graduate training, she completed a minor in Race, Ethnicity, and Politics within the Department of Political Science at UCLA. As a funded Policy Fellow with the UCLA Public Health Training Program on Population Health Advocacy, she gained community-based policy advocacy expertise.  Her research focuses on health inequities among Latino/a/e groups and identifies opportunities for solidarity across populations that experience similar structures of exclusion and injustice that contribute to health and healthcare inequities. At UConn Waterbury, she seeks to build upon her Latino/a/e population health research agenda and work to meet the needs of the expanding Latina/o/e communities in Connecticut – now representing nearly 1/5 of the state’s population. For more information on Professor McSorley, please visit her sites: https://alliedhealth.uconn.edu/person/anna-michelle-mcsorley-phd/ and https://www.amcsorley.com/

 

Contributed by Luis Palomino

“COVID-19 and internal migration in Peru”

My research seeks to analyze the effects of lockdown policies on internal migration. This study also aims to determine if the effects of lockdown and remote work policies on the new patterns of the spatial distribution of the population are short-term, medium-term, or long-term, especially in developing countries. Therefore, I propose two research goals. First, show how the lockdown and remote work policies impacted internal migration. Second, study the spatial distribution patterns of the population due to lockdown policies in Peru: Which regions have new migration patterns in the short, medium, or long term? I will achieve the research goals by exploiting three databases: (1) Internal migration, (2) Lockdown policies, and (3) Socioeconomic indicators from censuses and surveys.

Contributed by Menglu Chen

My research project aims to delve deeper into transnational narratives by exploring the interconnections between Latin America and Asia. Through an analysis of works such as José Eustasio Rivera’s La Vorágine, where the protagonist encounters the dreadful conditions of those coerced or misled into tapping rubber trees, my study tracks the colonial trajectory of the rubber tree from the Amazon to Southeast Asia. This migration of the rubber tree, witnessed by generations of Southeast Asian writers whose forebears tapped these trees, has become a significant theme in Southeast Asian literature. It serves as a lens through which writers reflect on their postcolonial history and reinterpret the narrative of the Amazonian rubber boom. This aspect of collective memory and historical reflection emphasizes how transnational exchanges can influence and shape cultural and literary dialogues, offering a richer understanding of global interconnectivity. The project aims to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the Latin American literary tradition within global literature, fostering complex dialogues about ethnicity, identity, and memory across the Global South.

Contributed by Melissa Pérez Peña

 

La criatura de isla trasciende siempre al mar que la rodea y al que no la rodea

– Dulce María Loynaz, Cuban Poet

 

Although islands contribute minimally to the emission of CO₂ into the atmosphere, they are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, such as rising sea levels, water acidification, and scarcity of drinking water. Continued environmental degradation threatens human communities residing on land and endangers the survival of the diverse non-human life forms that depend on these ecosystems. This deterioration results from excessive and unsustainable production and a hierarchical relationship between humans and nature and deeply increased by over-construction in the coastal zone to meet the demands of tourism.

Faced with these imaginaries and as a response to the colonizing view that has predominated in the West towards the ocean and bodies of water, a demand emerges from the island regions to address these ecosystems from a more holistic perspective. This call for attention is linked with a field of studies called “Blue Humanities,” where the relationship between humanity and aquatic ecosystems is conceived as a fundamental collaboration instead of unilateral domination. This involves reconsidering the relationship between humanity and nature, overcoming the traditional hierarchy, and understanding ourselves as part of a tight symbiotic network where we are deeply connected to the environment.

This interdisciplinary approach presents literature as an opportunity to explore the symbolic and metaphorical representations of the climatic emergency created by different artists. The reflection is linked to the symbolic construction of the ocean and coastal environments as a pillar for Caribbean literature. This exploration delves not only into the complexities of the human condition with nature but also poses a sharp criticism towards the forms of consumption and self-destruction rooted in our contemporary societies.

 

Contributed by Maria Isabel Palacio-Cano

My research project examines the training of the Colombian Armed Forces during the period between 2002-2008. The overall objective is to conduct a critical analysis of the professionalization of the Colombian armed forces. This analysis will assess the extent to which increased capacity and an offensive posture created the conditions that allowed for an increase in extrajudicial executions. The analysis employs a critical approach to examine the interactions between increased training, new forces, doctrine, and human rights education with dehumanizing narratives and U.S. interventionism. Critical analysis of the discourse employed in this study reveals the power dynamics that facilitate systematic rights violations within the military, despite claims of professionalization. The research questions the normalization of violence against perceived “enemies within” through imposed security frameworks.

Contributed by Apoliana da Conceição

RACE IN BRAZIL REPRESENTED IN ALUÍSIO AZEVEDO’S MULATTO

How does literature represent society? Our lives? An era? To what extent is the depiction accurate? There is no better way to answer these questions than analyzing what we already have available as great written literature. In this case, we talk about the novel Mulatto by Aluísio Azevedo, written in 1881; it shows the complex dynamics of race in Brazil during the pre-abolition era. It serves as a window into the perceptions of race both then and now, raising questions about how Brazilian society has historically battle with racial identity. Set seven years prior to the abolition of slavery and the establishment of the first republic, Mulatto follows Raimundo’s journey—a young Brazilian wrestling with his mixed heritage and liberal ideals in the face of a provincial and bigoted society. Examining XIX century Brazil through the lens of Mulatto allows for an understanding of contemporary race relations in XXI century Brazil. What are the differences and similarities? Despite temporal and social shifts, parallels can be drawn between the racial dynamics depicted in the novel and those present in modern Brazil. By exploring the historical context of race in Brazil and its representation in literature, we gain insights into the continuity and evolution of racial perceptions and inequalities over time. A comparative analysis of past and present reveals the enduring complexities of race in Brazilian society, highlighting the importance of addressing historical legacies and contemporary challenges in understanding racial views in Brazil and how and why the assimilation of the predominant U.S. view of race impacts today’s Brazilian society.

 

Contributed by Apoliana da Conceição dos Santos

During the César J. Ayala Workshop on the Comparative Study of Race in the Americas, Professor Ayala illuminated the nuanced nature of racism, emphasizing its variation across different regions. He underscored the ineffectiveness of importing U.S. racism into other contexts, highlighting the unique manifestations of racism in each country. Through thought-provoking questions, he prompted attendees to reflect on the nature of racism and white supremacy in our respective homelands. Professor Ayala’s presentation went through popular concepts such as systemic racism, institutional racism, structural racism, and white supremacy, offering empirical insights and comparative analyses of scholarships. Drawing on studies of racial inequality in Puerto Rico, he provided us with a comprehensive understanding of the complex dynamics at play. Particularly interesting to me were his references to Brazilian perspectives on race, exemplified by the documentary Preto X Branco, which contrasts with American views. Additionally, his recommendation of Edward Telles’ book Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil further enriched the discourse, offering deeper insights into the complexities of race in the Americas.

In conclusion, it is evident that racism manifests differently across various regions. Importing U.S. racism does not alter the underlying realities of one’s own country. Questions such as ‘What is racism like in your country?’ and ‘What is white supremacy in your country?’ prompt us to consider the unique socio-cultural contexts shaping these phenomena. Furthermore, education correlates with increased awareness of one’s racial identity. Ultimately, acknowledging these complexities is essential for fostering meaningful dialogue and enacting positive change.