An immersive journey through the Sonoran Desert on the U.S.-Mexico border, this documentary channels the vibe of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab and weaves together harrowing oral histories from the area with hand-processed 16mm images of what travelers encounter and leave behind. Subjects speak of intense, mythic experiences in the desert: A man tells of a fifteen-foot-tall monster said to haunt the region, while a border patrolman spins a similarly bizarre tale of man versus beast. A sonically rich soundtrack adds to the eerie atmosphere as the call of birds and other nocturnal noises invisibly populate the austere landscape that has become the stage for a timely and pressing national human rights discussion echoing international discussions of how we give care to the restless, to those who migrate, to the travelers of our world. Director J.P. Sniadecki will present the film and lead discussion following the film. Tickets are available at the Debartolo Performing Arts Center (DPAC) box office. Cosponsored by the Institute for Latino Studies and the Center for Social Concerns.…
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Let's Celebrate the beginning of the 2018-2019 academic year! Join Karen Richman, Director, Undergraduate Studies, Institute for Latino Studies, fellow Latino Studies Majors and Minors, and Latino Studies Faculty members for a Welcome Back Night. Refreshments will be provided.…
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The Institute for Latino Studies will be screening the film Selena as part of their Latino Film Series. The true story of Selena Quintanilla-Perez, a Texas-born Tejano singer who rose from cult status to performing at the Astrodome, as well as having chart topping albums on the Latin music charts. This event is part of the Institute's Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration.…
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ACHY OBEJAS is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Ruins, Days of Awe, and three other books of fiction. She edited and translated (into English) the anthology Havana Noir, and has since translated Junot Díaz, Rita Indiana, Wendy Guerra, and many others. In 2014, she was awarded a USA Ford Fellowship for her writing and translation. She currently serves as the Director of the MFA in Translation…
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Book Release: Sounds of Crossing: Music, Migration, and the Aural Poetics of Huapango Arribeño & Panel Discussion with Alex E. Chávez, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame; Charles Briggs, Alan Dundes Distinguished Professor of Folklore and Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley; and George Lipsitz, Professor in the Department of Black Studies and Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara.…
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Letras Latinas, the literary initiative of the Institute for Latino Studies and the Creative Writing Program presents a poetry event with Farid Matuk, Associate Professor, Department of English, The University of Arizona.
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Luis Alberto Urrea is a prolific and award-winning writer, a master storyteller who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph.
Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an American mother, Luis grew up in San Diego. Like so many great writers, Luis got his start in literature writing poems to impress girls in junior high. His early heroes were all rock stars, but not being especially musically gifted Luis chose to follow in the steps of his literary role models. “What I really wanted to be was Jim Morrison,” he has said “however, if I weren’t a writer, I’d be dead.”…
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Clínica de Migrantes paints a compassionate portrait of patients at Puentes de Salud, many of whom left their families behind to perform physically exhausting labor in America for meager wages, and follows the tireless staffers who treat around 10,000 patients each year with limited space and little funding. As Puentes plans a larger facility to accommodate rapidly increasing demand, executive director Dr. Steve Larson and his team must find a way to keep their practice running despite obstacles at every turn.…
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Inspired by the book Flatland, by Edwin Abbott and set in the year 2073 in Tierra Plana, a new nation of squares, walls, and all sorts of boxes, Bi– will break open the boxes of selective classification and raise the question: “What is your ‘bi-dentity?”
Bi– is a story of “What if” of an unknown place and time, in which geometric beings created their own societal classism. New York based playwright and director Georgina Escobar says; “This piece uses mathematical and geometrical metaphor as well as inspiration from interviews from people in the community to tug at the heartstring that often makes us feel a little too much like ‘the other’ we don’t belong.” In the tale of Bi–…
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