Pauline Batista at the UNESCO Luanda Biennale

February 1, 2022

Contributed by Pauline Batista

Between November 27and December 2, 2021, I participated in the Biennale of Luanda as a UNESCO Youth Representative. The Government of Angola hosted the event organized by UNESCO and supported by the African Union. In partnership with the Pan African Youth Network for Culture of Peace (PAYNCOP), UNESCO initially selected 118 youth from African countries and the Diaspora. I was in complete shock PaulineYouthConf when I learned that I was one among six youth chosen to fly to Luanda by presidential invitation of the Government of Angola to be in direct discussion with Heads of state from various countries, including Portugal (Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa/ present on remarks link) and Costa Rica (Epsy Campbell Barr/ photo attached). I was the only representative of the Diaspora. The joy of being the sole representative across so many stellar candidates truly humbled me. There were students from all over the world and selected participants from US ivy league universities. And most importantly, the research work that caught their attention was my work that is somewhat critical of UNESCO and how countries from the Global South engage with UNESCO conventions and its standards. You can check out my opening remarks at the Biennale of Luanda’s Intergenerational Dialogue session with Heads of state here: https://youtu.be/P9HgCx3px5g

I am fortunate to have had El Instituto on my side from the very beginning of my journey as a graduate student. The faculty and staff of El Instituto encouraged me to learn what I needed to become a doctoral student. And thanks to that unconditional support, I am a passionate researcher who collaborates with youth in UNESCO Heritage sites to get the attention of policymakers through Participatory Video and other Participatory Action initiatives. The work started in LLAS 5000, a mandatory course for MA students at El Instituto. While in Luanda, I asked the President of Portugal, “How is it that we turn conflict into dialogue at a transnational level?”- a complex question. After my question, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa stepped down from the podium and gave me the warmest hug.

I am an Afro-Brazilian raised in a UNESCO Heritage site. I grew up with many questions that the academy has been helping me address in Pauline Batista_UNESCO collaboration with youth (and their new questions). The more I work with youth, the more I realize that academic work in its nature may feel isolating, but it is collective. I am content that I was in dialogue with presidents. Still, the most meaningful part of my journey was to work directly with Angolan youth who do work about heritage, education, and human rights through art. I saw myself a lot in working with them. More than ever, it is time we think of the academy as a place of collective knowledge creation and attribution because if research is not for the benefit of people, why bother? I learned during lessons during my short time in Angola; the first one is that there are many Africas even within Angola. But the biggest one was how we must be careful in the work we do because folks are listening, and most importantly, we owe youth better. To me, being a UNESCO Youth representative became the responsibility to listen to learn how to do better. I am happy to keep the conversation going. You can find me at pauline.batista@uconn.edu or on Instagram: @paulinefrombrazil

Latinos working for inclusion at School of Engineering

January 31, 2022

Santos and Paricio Advance Inclusion at the School of Engineering

In the summer of 2021, Dr. Stephany Santos was appointed the inaugural Executive Associate Director of the Vergnano Institute for Inclusion in UCONN’s School of Engineering. Santos holds Bachelor’s, master’s, and Doctoral degrees in Biomedical Engineering from UCONN as well as an M.S. Mechanical Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano in Italy. During her ti-me as a Ph.D. student, Stephany was an EAGLES Fellow, an NSF GK-12 Fellow, an NSF ACADEME Fellow, a CU Boulder ACTIVE Faculty Development and Leadership Fellow, an Outstanding Multicultural Scholar/Crandall- Cordero Fellow, and won a prestigious Ford Foundation Fellowship from the National Academies. Additionally, she was the inaugural recipient of the Inspiring STEM Equitability Award and a Woman of Innovation by the Connecticut Technology Council. Stephany has presented on her work in diversity and outreach in numerous national forums and has contributed as a team member or collaborator on numerous NSF-funded research studies on diversity and outreach topics.

A second recent hire working to improve inclusion in the School of Engineering is the Krenicki Arts and Engineering Institute’s Co-Director, Dr. Jorge Paricio Garcia. The Krenicki Institute was established with a major gift to UCONN by John and Donna Krenicki, with the aim of establishing an innovative interdisciplinary curriculum in areas like entertainment engineering and industrial design. Paricio received his bachelor’s degree from the Complutense University of Madrid, followed by a master’s in industrial design from the Pratt Institute and a PhD from the Complutense University, with a dissertation on Freehand Drawing in Industrial Design. He taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, Ohio University, The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, The Art Institute of Colorado, Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design. He has practiced product design and exhibit design in New York City, Denver and Madrid, Spain, and has helped write patents and developed concepts for Colgate Palmolive among other companies. He has written two books, Perspective Sketching and Hybrid Drawing Techniques for Interior Design.

“Words like ‘inclusion’,” says Paricio, “which in past times might have escaped the post-secondary educational system, now are key elements that guide new curricula.” That concern with inclusion is reflected in the new coming multidisciplinary degrees in engineering (MDE) at UConn, which will offer courses such as Asian Theater and Performance, African American Theater and Latinx Theater, among others. The Vergnano Institute has pledged its support in one of the new classes, Multicultural Design and Diversity, in the industrial design specialization in MDE. The emphasis throughout the new curriculum is on complementing technical mastery with the soft skills that engineering students need to master, to design gender-inclusive products, or offer services or experiences that cater to a wider cast of users and including minority groups.

In the summer of 2021, Paricio consulted with El Instituto’s Director, Samuel Martínez, in preparing a report that set forward a need for a more inclusive environment, aiming especially at bringing in more first-generation, and lower-income (FiGLI) Latinx students and helping them succeed in its sponsored programs, and many other STEM programs at UConn. While undergraduate Engineering students are approximately 11% Latina/o/x, that enrolment figure drops to a slim 4% in Graduate Engineering programs. The Vergnano and Krenicki initiatives seek to raise that student of color percentage in Graduate studies, with the help of internal and external funding opportunities for scholarships, possibly including bridge and exchange programs with Hispanic Serving Institutions, and with other programs created in conjunction with El Instituto. With a more solid platform of support, more graduate students of color will flourish in UCONN Engineering and ultimately make meaningful contributions at their places of work, in their communities and in society at large.

Contributed by Prof. Jorge Paricio, PhD

The Elizabeth Mahan Fund to Be Highlighted in UConn Gives 2022

Contributed by Samuel Martínez

The Elizabeth Mahan Fund for Graduate Studies in Latin American and Latino Studies is a UConn Foundation account dedicated to providing the added support that our Master’s students need to do original research for theses across a variety of humanities and social science fields. Whether their research involves on-site fieldwork, archival study, or interviews with cultural leaders, the Mahan Fund is there for our students to apply to. While the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences provides our students stipends and a tuition waiver, the Mahan Fund and other supplemental funding sources provide students who could not otherwise afford it the chance to make a mark through research. Our students’ theses can result in publications, serve as a credential for applying to doctoral programs, or be shared with interested community partners. The Mahan Fund thus forms an essential part of the package of assistantships, coursework and faculty mentoring through which the MA in Latina/o and Latin American Studies enables first-generation and international college graduates to acquire advanced academic skill levels. Our graduates go on to start careers in academia, philanthropy, development aid, and community organizing, or enter doctoral programs at leading universities.

You can make a big difference to a young scholar’s career with your gift today. Donations to the Elizabeth Mahan Fund for Graduate Studies in Latin American and Latino Studies help pay for our MA students’ living stipends and support their research telling the stories of Latinos in Connecticut, across the Americas and around the world. The Mahan Fund will be El Instituto’s featured fund for giving in UConn Gives 2022, from 7 a.m. March 30 through 7 p.m. March 31. Donations are also accepted year-round at the UConn Foundation Website.

Visiting Scholar, Professor Sophie Maríñez

Contributed by Samuel Martínez

From October 11 to October 22, 2021, El Instituto and the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages hosted Sophie Maríñez, a 2021 Mellon/ACLS Fellow and a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award at Borough of Manhattan Community College, where she is a professor of Modern Languages and Literatures. Maríñez’ public presentation gave members of the UConn community and visitors who livestreamed the talk a preview of the book manuscript on which she is currently working, titled Spirals in the Caribbean: Representing Violence in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In an additional paper workshop, she discussed a chapter-in-progress, “The Comegente (1791-1989).” During her visit to UConn, Maríñez also met with recently-hired probationary faculty of color to talk about the challenges of winning tenure and surviving emotionally in a White-dominated university environment, and visited a number of classes. Faculty and students in LCL, Philosophy, Political Science, and Anthropology, as well as El Instituto, gained nuanced insights into the Haitian-Dominican relationship through their intellectual exchange with Maríñez.

In addition to teaching at BMCC, Professor Maríñez has taught graduate courses on the literatures of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and their respective diasporas at City College and The Graduate Center. Prior to her appointment at CUNY, she held a two-year visiting faculty position in French at Vassar College (2010-2012). From 1997 to 2000, she was a diplomat, working as a Cultural Counselor at the embassy of the Dominican Republic in Mexico.

Whereas Maríñez’ earlier work focused on French aristocratic women who used their writings and chateaux to establish authority, legitimacy, social status, and political identities, she has of late been drawn into an intensive engagement with the fraught relationship of the Dominican Republic with Haiti, its island neighbor. Specifically, she is seeking responses as a literature teacher and researcher to the human rights crisis into which Dominicans of Haitian ancestry have been thrown since a 2013 Dominican high court ruling stripped these people of their Dominican citizenship. International repudiation of the Dominican state’s racist policy of nationality-stripping has drawn her, as a politically-engaged feminist, decolonial and anti-racist scholar, to take on a close reading of musical, theatrical, literary and political projects of protest against Dominican nationalism’s toxic turn toward hostility with Haiti. In her book in progress, more specifically, she takes the highly original approach, as a fully French and Spanish bilingual cultural studies expert, of theorizing the Haitian/Dominican relationship through the lens of the Haitian literary movement of Spiralism. Many in the fields of Dominican, Haitian, and Antillean studies look forward with great anticipation to the paradigm-setting potential of Maríñez’ Spirals in the Caribbean project.

Activist-in-Residence MaryJoan Picone

October 11, 2021

Contributed by Anne Gebelein

Thanks to the generosity of the CLAS Dean’s office, El Instituto was able to welcome its first Activist-in-residence, MaryJoan Picone, LCSW, in 2021. MaryJoan has been organizing Mexican farmworkers in the Glastonbury area for over a decade, and volunteers at the U.S./Mexico border as well, assisting migrants in need of food, medicine and shelter.

MaryJoan brought her generous spirit and deep knowledge of Mexican migration to multiple classrooms during the spring semester, including LLAS/HIST 3635 History of Modern Mexico; LLAS 3998/HRTS 3298Human Rights on the US/Mexican Border, and LLAS/ANTH 3150 Migration. She also arranged for 2 guest speakers in LLAS 3998: Alvaro Enciso, a border artist in Tucson who creates and paints crosses for those fallen in the desert, and Betsy Flynn, a CT nun who regularly dedicates her time to migrant and refugee needs in McAllen, TX.

Through her connections at Rose’s Berry Farm, MaryJoan collaborated with El Instituto, the Honors Program and UConn’s student-led Spring Valley Farm to create a day of learning and service at Rose’s Berry Farm on September 11^th. There, farm manager Winny Contreras led the group of a tour of his newly created corn maze, as well strawberry fields, pumpkin patches, and the tomato vineyard. Winny, MaryJoan and farm owner Sandy Rose spoke to students about the challenges of small-scale farming in CT, the realities of migrant workers, and the shrinking labor pool leading to farms relying more on events and rentals. Students spent 2 hours cutting pumpkin stems and righting them and picking 19 baskets of tomatoes. Their labor was rewarded by having lunch on Rose’s large wooden deck, of food grown right on the farm.

The last event of MaryJoan’s residency will be in late April of 2022, when the Mexican workers from Glastonbury will be invited to tour the student-led projects at Spring Valley Farm and to share a meal with farm residents and other interested students from UConn.

MaryJoan’s residency was a big success in spite of the challenges that covid posed for virtual learning. Her dedication to workers’ rights and to ensuring the dignity of all inspired UConn students to learn more about migrant activism. El Instituto looks forward to continuing to collaborate with her in its future border studies program, which will hopefully launch in May of 2022. Stay tuned!

A few of the photos taken by Amelinda Rossitto, Center for Career Development Associate Director of Programming and Internal Relations:

MaryJoanPicone_Rose Berry Farm — MaryJoan Picone

Rose Berry Farm 1 — Wenceslas Contreras (Winnie), Farm Stand Operations Manager

Eyzaguirre Lecture Series and roundtable: Dr. Marilyn Miller and Eduardo Halfon

Contributed by Damián Deamici

After a hiatus due the COVID-19 pandemic, the Eyzaguirre Lecture returned to the University of Connecticut this fall. The lecture honors the memory of Professor Luis Eyzaguirre, who taught Spanish and Latin American literature at the institution for over 30 years. This was the first time that the lecture was held entirely online, which allowed for attendance across three continents and numerous different geographies. The virtual event was co-sponsored by the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, El Instituto, and the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life.

This year’s lecturer, Dr. Marilyn Miller, is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Studies and Sizeler Family Professor of Judaic Studies at Tulane University. Her work on the discourses of slavery and race, the thorny notion of mestizaje, and her study of Jewish immigration to and between the Americas has had a defining influence on the fields of postcolonial, Latin American and Jewish studies. She is the author of Rise and Fall of the Cosmic Race: The Cult of Mestizaje in Latin America (University of Texas Press, 2004) and Port of no Return: Enemy Alien Internment in World War II New Orleans (LSU Press, 2021), as well as the editor of Tango Lessons: Movement, Sound, Image, and Text in Contemporary Practice (Duke University Press, 2014).

Dr. Miller’s lecture, titled “Eduardo Halfon and the Itinerary of Memory,” explored the work of author Eduardo Halfon, who was present in the audience and held a roundtable discussion with Professor Miller the following day. Halfon’s work eludes classification. He was born in Guatemala, to which his Polish grandfather migrated after surviving Auschwitz, an event fictionalized by Halfon in The Polish Boxer. His family relocated to the United States when Halfon was 10 years old to escape the Guatemalan civil war. Another ten years later he returned to Guatemala, where he began writing fiction in Spanish, the language of his childhood that was now almost foreign to him. Since then, his creative writing, which eludes generic classification, has received numerous awards, including the Premio Nacional de Literatura de Guatemala in 2018, and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for his novel Mourning.

Dr. Miller’s lecture focused on aspects of Halfon’s work that make the construction of identity irreducible to stable categories, such as Guatemalan, Latino or Jewish. As such, her analysis focused on three elements of his narrative that challenge the stability of these classifications: masks, thresholds and itineraries. Her analysis presented the metaphor of masks as a search for belonging, of trying on different camouflages. The narrator of most of Halfon’s stories is a character bearing his own name, and whom Dr. Miller resourced to call Eduardo to differentiate him from the author. Eduardo’s own selfhood is presented as a mask or disguise, he assumes his identity depending on external circumstances, which allows him to inhabit many selves. This slipping back and forth among Jewish, Latino and Guatemalan identities allows Halfon’s work to avoid the single narrative that attempts to straightjacket Latin American literature within tropes of drug and border violence, magical realism, folklore and indigenous oppression. In its place, his identity is presented at a series of thresholds that the narrator navigates through the adaptation of several masks, including language. These negotiations of identity can be seen through the itineraries that force the characters to “pass as the other” in their geographical shifts. Dr. Miller’s ideas, much more expansive than what can be summarized here, challenge the constriction of selfhood to fixed identities. Through the analysis of Halfon’s work, she puts to rest the single-story narrative that attempts to encapsulate the diversity of a people into a single type. She presents another avenue for the construction of memory; multiple, elusive and free.

A roundtable discussion with Dr. Miller and Eduardo Halfon the next day, was moderated by Dr. Avinoam Patt, Chair of Judaic Studies and Director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut, and expanded on the themes presented in the lecture. Halfon discussed the topics of language, belonging, memory, translation and the generic categorization of his work. He reinforced Dr. Miller’s conclusions of the elusive construction of identity and the apt metaphor of masks to describe it. The event was attended by dozens of students and faculty from UCONN and other institutions from around the globe.

On the whole, the lecture and the subsequent roundtable was a prodigious homage to the memory of Professor Eyzaguirre. Dr. Marilyn Miller’s extraordinary lecture, along with Eduardo Halfon’s willingness and candor answering questions of an eager and grateful audience, paid a memorable tribute to Professor Eyzaguirre’s legacy.

Learn About La Comunidad Intelectual

Contributed by H. Kenny Nienhusser

La Comunidad Intelectual (LCI) is a living/learning community with a mission to nurture a sense of community for and support students who identify as Latina/o/x and/or Cari VerticalBanner_LaComunidadIntelectual-156x300 bbean or have an affinity to learn more about the Latino and/or Caribbean diasporas. LCI was born from the efforts of many current and former UConn staff and faculty, including Dr. Diana Rios, an associate professor in ELIN.

LCI supports students’ learning while empowering their engagement on the UConn campus and in our communities. First- and second-year students, this year totaling over 40, live together on the same floor in a residence hall on campus (Peter J. Werth Residence Tower), learn together in seminar courses, and are empowered to succeed at UConn and beyond.

The LCI Leadership is composed of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate student leaders. The current leadership team is Dr. H. Kenny Nienhusser, Faculty Director (Associate Professor and Program Coordinator, Higher Education and Student Affairs; Vanessa Esquivel, Graduate Assistant (PhD student, Human Development and Family Sciences), Catherina Villafuerte, Graduate Assistant (PhD student, Educational Leadership); Danielle (Dani) Jorge, Floor Mentor; Jason Valverde, Floor Mentor; and Emily Diaz, FYE Mentor.

An integral element of LCI is our four-part seminar course sequence offered each semester a student is enrolled in our living/learning community.

“Transitioning to UConn and LCI” (first-semester course; fall term). The course is designed to support students with their transition to and success at UConn. It also introduces students to LCI and issues that impact the Latina/o/x community at UConn and beyond.
“Surviving and Thriving” (second-semester course; spring term). This course focuses on empowering our Latina/o/x identities at a Historically/Predominantly White Institution (H/PWI). Students engage in weekly conversations surrounding the experiences of Latina/o/x students in colleges and universities. Students work on a semester-long group project designed to pave the way for the success of future LCI students.
“Contributing to our Comunidades” (third-semester course; fall term). Students engage in service-learning activities that contribute to our Latina/o/x communities near the Storrs UConn campus. In small groups, students work on a group project associated with their service-learning site.
“Thinking Ahead” (fourth-semester course; spring term) This course assists students in thinking about their goals post-LCI and post-UConn. Students participate in career and graduate school exploration, resume building, networking, and learn other skills to prepare them for their futures.

LCI works collaboratively with campus partners, including El Instituto (ELIN) and the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center (PRLACC). For example, in the “Transitioning to UConn & LCI” course, students are required to interview a faculty or affiliate faculty member of ELIN and to prepare a rich summary of that conversation.

Beyond academics, LCI students engage in programs and events to further develop their understandings of the Latino diaspora and have fun. A signature monthly event (#ThirdThursday) is an opportunity for all LCI members to connect, learn, and have fun. For example, during our September #ThirdThursday event we visited the exhibit “Immigrant Eyes: Photographs by Joe Standart” at The William Benton Museum of Art on campus.

To learn more about the beautiful LCI living/learning community see this video.

PRLACC Logo

UCONN and UPR Debut Livestreaming Colloquium Series

Contributed by Samuel Martínez

UConn’s El Instituto and the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras’ Centro de Recursos de Investigación y Aprendizaje Subgraduados (CRiiAS) and the UPR’s Archivo de Ciencias Sociales are teaming up during the 2021-22 academic year for a new series of on-line livestreaming talks. According to the co-organizers, CRiiAS Director Carmen Maldonado-Vlaar and the Archivo’s Director Jorge Giovanetti-Torres, the aim of the series is to feature the work of some of the outstanding Puerto Rican studies faculty and students in both universities, and to familiarize students with the many opportunities on the island and in the mainland for professional development and research and study on Puerto Rican themes.

The emphasis of the series during Fall 2021 has been on familiarizing UPR undergraduates with Puerto Rican studies at UConn.

The first talk in the series, titled “Autodeterminación el el contexto de la situación de la isla,” was presented on 13 September 2021, by Angel Oquendo, George J. and Helen M. England Professor at the UConn School of Law. Oquendo gave emphasis to the need for new narratives to emerge about Puerto Rico’s political status if needed creative thinking is to occur about the present situation of crisis and how the island can replace the outmoded Estado Libre Asociado with a new model for its relationship with the United States and the world.

The second event was a presentation on 22 September 2021 of the book Colonial Migrants at the Heart of Empire: Puerto Rican Workers on US Farms, by UConn Anthropology PhD and Professor of Anthropology at CUNY Staten Island, Ismael García-Colón. García-Colón’s talk on the challenges involved in researching and theorizing this topic was preceded by a brilliant appreciation of the book by UPR Professor Emeritus Silvia Alvarez-Curbelo.

The third event of the series, 13 October 2021, was “Cómo lograr exitosamente la admisión a programas graduados en universidades de Estados Unidos.” In it, Master’s program graduates of El Instituto, who started out as undergraduates at la UPR and are now doing doctoral research at UConn and other universities, shared their experiences in grad school and gave tips for undergraduate students about how to find the right graduate program for them. The panelists were Katherine Pérez Quiñones, Stephanie Mercado Irizarry, Lauren Pérez Bonilla, and Ashley Ortiz-Chico, all graduates of both UConn-El Instituto and la UPR.

Further events in the series will be advertised through our events distribution list, on El Instituto’s events calendar, and on Facebook.

Two New Colleagues Join El Instituto’s Core Faculty; Marysol Asencio Retires

Contributed by Samuel Martínez

El Instituto’s core faculty has added two new jointly-appointed faculty in Fall 2021:

Linda Citlali Halgunseth is joining El Instituto through a transfer of one-half of her appointment from the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, where she is a tenured Associate Professor. Professor Halgunseth’s areas of research specialization include Mexican/American and African American parenting, cultural influences on parent-child relationships and parenting, children of immigrants, culturally-appropriate measurement development, and minority health and well-being. Halgunseth is also Director of Academic Affairs at UConn Hartford.

Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann is coming to UConn from Emerson College, as a tenured Associate Professor, jointly appointed with El Instituto and the Spanish section of the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages. Gonzalez Seligmann studies the ways in which authors, works, and influences travel between Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Martinique and other territories of the Antilles.

We welcome Linda and Katerina to our core faculty and wish them many productive and happy years with El Instituto and their primary appointment departments.

As we welcome two new colleagues, we also congratulate and offer warmest wishes to another on her retirement from UConn. After nearly 25 years on the faculty of the Puerto Rican and Latino Studies Institute and later El Instituto, Marysol Asencio has retired from her joint appointment with the Department of Sociology. Advisor and mentor to dozens of undergraduate and graduate students over the years, Professor Asencio leaves a legacy of igniting student interest in the topics of Latina/o/x reproduction, sexualities research, and health care. Her wisdom, knowledge, humor, and calor humano will be irreplaceable.

Marysol asked that we not organize a formal retirement celebration at El Instituto — a request consistent with her “it’s-not-about-me” outlook — but she would very much appreciate hearing individually from people whose support made a difference for her in her career at UConn. Our hope is that Marysol will continue to be a strong friend of El In.