Contributed by affiliate faculty Scott Wallace

Associate Professor of Journalism Scott Wallace’s memoir of images and text, Central America in the Crosshairs of War, has won the Foreword INDIES Best Book in Political & Social Sciences and a Gold IPPY Winner for Independent Publisher Book Awards for best History Book. Scott’s book is also an International Latino Book Awards finalist in two categories, Political/Current Events and History.

In July, Scott returned to Brazil’s Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, the setting for his bestselling book, The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes. His story about his return to the Javari for the first time in 23 years and the old friends he met there will appear in the October issue of Americas Quarterly.

Contributed by Graduate Student Lorraine Pérez

My research evaluates the interactions between birds and the parasites that affect them. Specifically, I get to study Darwin’s finch birds in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador, and examine how urban vs. non-urban finch populations are affected by an invasive parasite that can cause up to 100% chick mortalities. For my thesis, I am interested in examining whether the behavior of finch parents influences the parasitism risk and survival of urban vs. non-urban chicks.

Between February-May 2025, I conducted field work in San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands along with my PI Sarah Knutie, Isabela Vargas (MS student at the University of Brussels), and Elizabeth Tituaña (field technician) (Fig. 1). During this time, we monitored the nests of small ground finches in the town of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno and the rural site of Jardin de las Opuntias (Fig. 2). Most of the field work consisted of placing in-nest cameras to collect video footage on the behavior of finch parents (Fig. 3).

We successfully obtained footage from 11 non-urban nests and 9 urban nests, and currently, a group of undergraduate students (Hailey Wildman, Chuanmai Husu, and Gabriel Lee) and I are extracting behavioral data from these videos using BORIS software. I do not have preliminary results for my study yet (since I am still collecting data from the videos), but I plan to start statistical analysis in the late Fall.

Contributed by affiliate faculty Michele Back 

On September 5^th The Modern Language Journal released a special issue entitled “Critical Reflections on Colonial Pedagogies: Lessons Learned for Language Teacher Education.” The issue was co-edited by Michele Back (Associate Professor, World Language Education, Neag School of Education), Romina Peña-Pincheira (Gustavus Adolphus College), and Daniela Silva (University of Texas at San Antonio). The issue focuses on how language teacher education (LTE) can move away from harmful colonial traditions by examining language teaching practices shaped by colonial history and clarifying differences and overlaps between anti-racist, critical, and decolonial approaches in LTE. The issue also highlights the importance of valuing Indigenous knowledge and multiple ways of learning. Contributing authors used the framework of critical reflection (Liu 2015, Liu et al. 2024) to interrogate teaching methods, curriculum, and assessment.

Contributions came from established and emerging scholars in Norway, Canada, Peru, and the United States and examined LTE practices in several Latin American contexts, including Chile, Guatemala, Peru, and Mexico. Authors also looked at how indigenous languages and ways of knowing can be incorporated into Canadian LTE; incorporating critical reflection into courses for bilingual teacher candidates in the U.S.; and how world language teachers in the U.S. can leverage student home languages (translanguaging) in their classes. In all of the articles, contributors demonstrated how to expose colonial logics and imagine relational, justice-affirming approaches to LTE. Two invited commentaries offer next steps for the important work of decolonizing LTE through critical reflection.

A virtual launch event of the special issue on September 4^th attracted nearly 100 registrants from around the world, and a recording of the event is available for anyone interested in learning more. The special issue itself is available now at the Wiley Online Library website; four of the articles are open access.

Contributed by Graduate Student Santiago Mayochi

I spent this summer in Buenos Aires, Argentina, doing research for my Ph.D project, which focuses on the Argentine response to the U.S. expansion over the Caribbean, especially Cuba. The Pan American conferences and the interventions in the Caribbean raised the alarms for many people in Argentina who gave speeches and wrote in newspapers and magazines of that time against the United States and its increasing influence in Latin America. While some viewed the United States as an existential threat to Latin American independence, others saw it as a threat to Argentina’s economic growth and geopolitical ambitions. For many of them, this opposition to U.S. dominance became a defense of Latin Americanism or Hispanism because of the cultural differences between the United States and Latin America. For others, the opposition came in the form of what can be considered as anti-Americanism.

To access the documents regarding this, I traveled to Buenos Aires and visited the newspaper archive of the Library of Congress. The repository holds magazines from the time where many intellectuals of the time wrote and microfilms of newspapers back then, where many intellectuals and politicians expressed their opinions about the events in the Caribbean.  I also visited the Foreign Relations Archive, which contains the records of the Pan American Conferences and related articles.

Over my weeks there, I found the letters that José Martí wrote for the newspaper La Nación about the First Pan American Conference (1899-1890). During those years, the revolutionary, poet, and father of Cuban nationalism, José Martí, was living in New York and was a correspondent for La Nación, the most important newspaper of Argentina back then. In his letters, Martí denounced the Conference as an attempt of the United States to formalize his dominance in the Caribbean and to create an economic scheme that would benefit them over the Latin American countries. Martí also praised the action of the Argentinean delegation, led by Roque Sáenz Peña, who stood against the customs union proposed by the United States. I also found these speeches from Saenz Peña and comments on them. This allowed me to compare the ideas of José Martí and Roque Sáenz Peña, who, despite being from very different countries, shared very similar ideas.

Furthermore, I found news related to later events, like the Spanish-American War, the occupation of Cuba, the blockade of Venezuela, the Drago Doctrine, the second, third, and fourth Pan American Conferences, and the protest and repression of the PIC (Partido Independiente de Color) in Cuba in 1912. For this, I did not just search La Nación, but another important newspapers of the moment, like El País, La Tribuna, and Sudamericano. This will help me get a better understanding of the opinions of these events, not only from the press but some intellectuals, like Manuel Ugarte, who signed some of the articles. All these articles were scanned from the microfilm and sent to me by email.

Regarding the Foreign Relations Archive, I consulted memorandums, ratifications, and related newspaper articles from other countries. As expected, the conference I found more information about was the fourth one, carried out in Buenos Aires in 1910. These documents, I hope, will provide more precise information about the events of those conferences and Argentina’s stand in them.

All of this was possible thanks to the sponsor of El Instituto to whom I send my infinite gratitude.

Contributed by Graduate Student Olin Green

Earlier this year, I was fortunate to have been awarded the 2024-2025 El Instituto Predoctoral Fellowship, supported by the Elizabeth Mahan Fund. These awards allowed me to continue my research during the summer on a project titled The Hidden Dimensions of Road Safety: Exploring Socioeconomic and Built Environment Factors in Latin American and Underserved Communities, which examines how characteristics of the built environment and driver behavior contribute to the inequitable distribution of crashes and near-crashes in underserved areas. This analysis uses real-world driving data collected from individuals through the SHRP2 Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS), which includes numerous variables that describe the behavior, characteristics, and performance of drivers. Even though this data is available for several cities in the United States, it was only obtained for Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties in Florida due to this area’s diversity in socioeconomic and transportation-related characteristics, which may disproportionately impact residents of underserved communities due to their intersectional nature. To determine the characteristics of areas where disparities in safety occur, I clustered (i.e., grouped) each census tract in the study area based on socioeconomic and transportation-related characteristics. Three of these clusters had high population of Hispanic or Latino or Black or African Americans, and a brief description of these clusters can be found below:

• Cluster 2: more Hispanic/Latino residents, younger population
• Cluster 4: more Black/African American residents, less economically secure, more public transit commuters
• Cluster 5: more Black/African American residents, more public transit commuters, higher walkability

Each case in the NDS data is referred to as an “event” and each event is categorized based on its severity. Safety-critical events include crashes and near-crashes (i.e., a circumstance that required the driver of the vehicle to perform some sort of evasive maneuver to avoid a crash). Since each event was tagged with the cluster in which it occurred, I aggregated the events within each cluster and calculated a series of percentages and ratios to identify areas where disparities may occur. These values can be found in Table 1. Here, Column 1 indicates the cluster in which the events occurred, and the other columns contain either percentages or relative ratios. Columns 2 and 3, which visualize the relationship between the percentage of events or the percentage of crashes and near-crashes in each cluster to the percentage of participants, contain several ratios greater than 1.0. This indicates that these clusters have a higher percentage of events or crashes and near-crashes compared to the percentage of participants who live in that cluster. For example, the percentage of crashes and near-crashes in clusters 2 and 4 are 1.352 and 2.181 times higher than the percentage of participants. When comparing the percentage of crashes and near-crashes (Column 3), we can see that a higher percentage of events result in crashes or near-crashes in clusters 2 and 5, while clusters 1, 6, 7, 8, and 9 have lower crash or near-crash probability.

When looking at the values in Table 1, specifically columns 3, 5, and 8, crashes and near-crashes disproportionately occurred in areas with high Hispanic or Latino or Black or African American population (i.e., clusters 2, 4, and 5). Relative to both the population and number of participants, these areas have a significantly higher percentage of crashes and near-crashes, and most of these safety-critical events involve non-resident (e.g., more than 86% of crashes in Cluster 4 involve non-resident drivers). These findings indicate that people living in clusters 2, 4, and 5 are overexposed to roadway safety inequities involving drivers who live in different clusters as a result of increased driving activity and, subsequently, an increased number of crashes and near-crashes. I am planning to build off this by determining whether non-resident drivers are more likely to be at-fault and whether non-resident drivers are more likely to engage in unsafe behaviors, such as distracted driving.

I am currently in the process of conducting approximate permutation tests to quantitatively confirm the validity of these findings, and I will write a journal article that further describes the transportation-related inequities faced by people living in underserved areas. I look forward to presenting my findings at El Instituto once my research is complete, and I am truly appreciative for receiving these awards.

 

Contributed by Charles R. Venator-Santiago (Director, UConnPRSI)

            The UConn Puerto Rican Studies Initiative for Civic Engagement and Public Policy is a research initiative housed in El Instituto. This initiative is funded by the Connecticut General Assembly and is tasked with providing research support to community-based organizations, community leaders, academics, and elected officials. Central to UConnPRSI mission is to use research resources to help social and political actors to re-think and propose new public policies that will address the inequalities impacting Puerto Ricans in the state of Connecticut.

            This spring, our research on energy received significant attention. A copy of our report, Connecticut Electrical Markets Policy Reports outlines our key recommendations.

Back in November 2024, prior to the elections, we met with Representative Hilda Santiago (D-Meriden).  She expressed the need to better understand why electricity rates are so high in Connecticut, which has the third-highest rates in the nation, following California and Hawai’i. Central to the concerns of Puerto Rican and Latino legislators is the belief that Puerto Rican and Latino residents in Connecticut are subsidizing wealthier residents. It is important to note that more than 64% of Puerto Ricans and Latinos in Connecticut are renters. As such, they do not benefit from the energy subsidies that homeowners receive in the state.

Our most recent recommendations focus on two dimensions of energy supply. While most proposed reforms focus on the tail end of debates (i.e. lowering costs and benefits of a final bill), we suggest shifting the focus to energy wholesale marketers. These marketers often purchase and sell energy at rates up to 150% above market prices to distributors such as Eversource and United Illuminating. Among our recommendations is the establishment of a non-profit, state-run wholesale marketer that can offer energy at more competitive prices. We also advocate for taxing excessive profits in the industry. Additionally, we propose amendments to the Renewable Portfolio Standards to eliminate accounting gimmicks that artificially inflate the costs of imported renewable energy. Our call is for increased transparency and accountability in the supply of green or renewable energy.

                Ironically, while we are not proposing any measures that would oppose Connecticut’s green or renewable energy initiatives, we are facing significant pushback from environmentalist political actors. Furthermore, although our recommendations could greatly stabilize Connecticut’s wholesale energy markets, we often encounter resistance from progressive voices who claim to represent Puerto Rican, Latino, and working-class communities in Connecticut. More importantly, this project showcases the exceptional talent of students at the University of Connecticut. This research was conducted by Ph.D. student, Volodymyr Gupan, working with UConnPRSI.

 

Contributed by Apoliana da Conceição dos Santos

What happens when graduate students from different departments come together to share their research, questions, and passions? ELIN’s Graduate Research Forum, held on March 1st, 2025, created just such a space — one filled with insightful presentations, lively discussion, and meaningful connections.

The forum featured a wide range of presentations—from archival work reclaiming 19th-century Afro-Brazilian literature to explorations of queer identity, space, and time in Egypt. Topics included debt, inheritance, and ecological justice in Mara Pastor’s Deuda Natal, the maternal voice in Nuyorican poetry, and historiopoetics in Levente no. Yolayorkdominicanoyork. Other research addressed Egyptian surrealists reclaiming degeneracy through the Vive l’Art Dégénéré manifesto, contradictions in state-indigenous relations in the Andes, and cannabis, labor, and empire in the Panama Canal Zone. Presentations also explored themes such as migration, colonial legacies in Peru, and the role of constitutional recognition of Indigenous cosmovisions in Latin America. This rich variety of research not only showcased the interdisciplinarity of the forum but also sparked meaningful conversations across regions, methodologies, and fields.

Presenters included both first-year students and those preparing to graduate this May, all eager to share their research and support one another along the academic journey. Faculty members from El Instituto, History, Political Science, Geography, and Anthropology attended the panels and provided thoughtful feedback on the students’ work.

The event concluded with a mid-afternoon lunch where participants continued their conversations and exchanged experiences. This forum served as an important space for building confidence, fostering academic community, and encouraging graduate students to share their research and engage with the work of their peers.

Contributed by Olin Green

The Hidden Dimensions of Road Safety: Exploring Socioeconomic and Built Environment Factors in Latin American and Minority Communities

     Marginalized groups are overrepresented in fatal car crashes, an inequity likely exacerbated by the intersectionality of location-based and socioeconomic factors that affect vulnerable communities. For instance, low-income neighborhoods with limited access to cars or public transportation often also lack sidewalks and bike lanes. As a result, groups such as Alaskan Native/Native American, African American, and Latino or Hispanic men are more likely to die in car crashes than white men. Driver-related factors and behaviors – including speeding, distracted driving, and aggressive driving – contribute to nearly 90% of all automobile crashes in the U.S. and drastically impact the lives of thousands of people each year. Past research also shows that low-income areas and disadvantaged communities are more likely to be adversely impacted by these harmful events on roadways. While most crashes involve human or driver-related behavioral factors, the interplay between these key factors and the built environment remains underexplored, particularly as a contributor to the disproportionate rates of injuries and fatalities in Latino and other minority communities. This research attempts to bridge this literature gap and advance a comprehensive understanding of traffic safety.

       To investigate safety disparities, this study employs an area-based approach that incorporates socioeconomic and transportation-related variables at the census tract level for Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties in Florida, alongside data from the SHRP2 Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS). The NDS data provides detailed information on numerous factors that describe the behavior, condition, and performance of drivers, for the same geographic area. This region was selected due to its varied socioeconomic and transportation-related characteristics, which offer an opportunity to explore the disproportionate impact of unsafe conditions on Latino and African American communities from an intersectional perspective. A geographical clustering approach is used to group census tracts with similar socioeconomic and transportation attributes. These clusters are combined with NDS data and analyzed using regression models to determine whether a driver’s behavior changes in different areas or when traveling in census tracts with different characteristics than their home location. Along with this, regression models can be used to identify the types of areas that are adversely impacted by safety critical events. Both analyses can provide insight into the specific areas where the above communities are overexposed to an unsafe transportation landscape.

       This work will investigate the often difficult-to-observe characteristics of safety inequity by uncovering the behavioral factors that contribute to the unequal distribution of unsafe driver behaviors, crashes, and near-crash events in disadvantaged communities. It also identifies the types of areas that experience disproportionately more safety critical events, and the factors linked to them. By deepening our understanding of how driver behavior and place-based characteristics interact, this study aims to inform future research and policy proposals focused on improving transportation safety inequity in marginalized communities. Although this research focuses on inequities in Florida, the findings are likely transferable to other geographic contexts or cities, such as Hartford, Connecticut, where more than 40% of the city’s population is Latino.