Congratulations to the 2012 Justice Carlos R. Moreno Prize Winners
La Casa would like to congratulate Erica Blonde ES ’12 and Victoria Gilcrease-Garcia BK ’12 on being named the 2012 winners of the Justice Carlos R. Moreno Prize.
Established in the fall of 2009, the Justice Carlos R. Moreno Prize is awarded annually to the best senior essay focusing on the field of Latina/o Studies, or on the Latina/o experiencein the United States. A faculty committee selected the winners.
These citations provided by Professor Steve Pitti give a glimpse of each of our winners essays:
Erica Blonde’s “Dominicans in Washington Heights, NY: A Gentrification Narrative”, written to fulfill the requirements of both the American Studies and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration majors, investigates competing visions of upper Manhattan, focusing particular attention on how Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and others responded to gentrification efforts that began in the late-20th century. Grounded in the history of immigration, ethnographic literature on “Dominicanyork” communities, urban studies methodologies, and deep engagement with cultural representations of Washington Heights, it represents an important, interdisciplinary project in Latina/o and urban studies.
Victoria Gilcrease-García’s “Narcotics Smuggling between El Paso and Juarez from 1890-1950”, written for the History major, uncovers the life and times of Ignacia Jasso, a Mexicana from Ciudad Juárez who became a leading drug smuggler in the US-Mexico border region during the 1930s and 1940s. Based on research in the Spanish- and English-language press, State Department and Drug Enforcement Administration Records, and Congressional hearings, it makes a critically important contribution to the study of regional criminal networks, to women’s history, to the history of narcotics, and to Latina/o Studies.
Congratulations ladies!
Juniors: We hope you consider writing your senior essay on a topic related to Latino/a studies! The field is wide open and ready for your contributions.
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Latin@ Sexuality Dinner Discussion
The Latin@ Sexuality Dinner Discussion at La Casa Cultural was held on April 10th and was greatly attended. The event was hosted by the newest student ran La Casa group, De Colores, the queer straight alliance organization that focuses on LGBTQ issues concerning the Latina/o community and was sponsored by La Casa Cultural and the Yale LGBTQ Co-Op. Students and other members of the Yale community came and were greeted to dinner before the discussion started. The discussion was lead by guest speaker Yale Professor Julio Capó. During the Spring Semester, he taught a class on Latina/o Sexualities and his presentation focused on several issues that touched on ethnicity, race, and migration and the importance of unity and activism in a community that still faces strong issues of machismo, marianismo, familismo, religion, and acceptance. Students were very intrigued by his speech and Capó was able to answer student’s questions on the most recent controversial issues. After Capo’s speech, De Colores was introduced to the attendants and a video on the “It Gets Better Campaign” was presented to show what kind of activities De Colores would like to hold. The group’s mission is to provide a safe and comfortable space where allies of the LGBTQ community and Latinas/os who identify as LGBTQ can feel free to come and discuss topics concerning their backgrounds, childhood experiences, or simply for fun social gatherings. De Colores plans to accomplish this by meeting once or twice a month for movie screenings, formal and informal discussions, and dinners with parents from our local community, and other events of that sort. The event ended with an invitation to eat tres leches cake and a sign up sheet for students who were interested in joining the organization or gaining more information about De Colores. As a founding member, I am really excited to get the organization running fall semester of 2012 and to see this organization grow, flourish, and support.
- Alfonso Toro TC’15
Here are more pictures from DB’s fantastic conference!
Despierta Boricua hosts Puerto Rican Student Conference
On Friday, March 30th till Sunday, April 1st, DB held a fantastic Puerto Rican Student Conference. There were three missions for the conference 1) To establish a cohesive network of Puerto Rican students and students interested in Puerto Rican issues in the United States of America and abroad 2) To foster a constructive academic debate about the most efficient ways in which our island can achieve its full potential. 3) To discuss social, political and economic issues of importance in Puerto Rico as well as to formulate a comprehensive development plan for the island.
These goals were definitely accomplished, as everyone thoroughly enjoyed the conference: 100 students came from all over the country!
Background: Throughout the course of history, Puerto Rico has faced tremendous challenges. Increasing crime rates, economic and employment instability as well as political struggles have, at times, come to define certain aspects of our island. It is our hope that this conference will bring together students and scholars from the United States and abroad to discuss ways in which we can tackle some of the island’s social, political and economic issues.
In an effort to foster an atmosphere of constructive academic debate among scholars, we think it necessary to establish a network of Puerto Rican and Latin American student organizations across the country. A database of Latin American scholars across the United States will undoubtedly serve to bring us together in order to further a sense of responsibility with our respective countries. In addition, we hope that this network will help Puerto Rican and Latin American students to promote future events that focus on our Ibero-American cultural heritage.
It is our goal that, at the conclusion of the meeting, a report be made to bring together the students’ ideas as presented through the conference. This report shall then be forwarded to members of the academia, policy makers and experts in each field discussed. We are confident that this is the first of many fruitful Puerto Rican student conferences to come throughout the years. This particular conference is but the beginning; the first stepping stone in what we hope will come to be a regular and vital discussion.
Speakers
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Economic:
- Financial Health & Poverty Alleviation – Dr. Miguel Soto-Class, Founder, Center for the New Economy
- Science in Puerto Rico, The Academia, Industry & Beyond – Dr. Daniel Colón-Ramos, Principal Investigator, Yale School of Medicine, Founder, Cienciapr
- Urban and National Development in Puerto Rico – Dr. Diane Davis, Head of the International Development Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Political:
- The Political Status of Puerto Rico, A Modern Day Issue? – Dr. Efrén Rivera Ramos, Professor, University of Puerto Rico Law School
- Cultural Heritage, Literature & The Arts – Dr. Aníbal Gonzalez, Professor, Yale University Department of Spanish and Portuguese
- Racial Issues and Equality – Mr. Pedro Julio Serrano, Communications Manager, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Social:
- Boricua en la Luna, The Puerto Rican Diaspora
- Education, Constancy & Change – Dr. Antonio García Padilla, Professor, The University of Puerto Rico
By Diego Salvatierra
Last month LASO, the Latin American Student Organization, hosted its first ever Latin America Week. This weeklong series of events was a great way to bring Latin American culture and issues to campus. The week began on Monday, March 26th with a relaxed lunch conversation with former Argentine Minister of the Economy, Domingo Cavallo. Over sandwiches and coffee at the Union League Café, a group of about 15 students discussed Latin American and Argentine economic issues with Mr. Cavallo, a renowned public servant and Yale economist.
The week continued with a visit by Arturo Valenzuela, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs under Obama and adviser to the Clinton White House, on Tuesday and Wednesday, from Georgetown, where he currently teaches. In his State Department post, Mr. Valenzuela was in charge of US policy towards Latin America, responding directly to Secretary Clinton, from 2009 to 2011. Co-organized by the Yale Law School, Mr. Valenzuela’s visit included an event on Tuesday aimed at Law School students but open to everybody, and a more intimate event with undergraduates on Wednesday. During the second event, Mr. Valenzuela was introduced by our very own Dean García, and gave us a first-hand account of how US diplomacy is carried out, narrating anecdotes from both the Clinton and Obama administrations, as well as discussing US-Brazil diplomacy, inter-Latin-American relations, and other topics.
On Thursday LASO hosted Patricio Navia, a renowned Chilean political columnist and academic at NYU. Mr. Navia, whose columns feature regularly in Latin America’s major newspapers, discussed the region’s changing politics in the context of economic growth. He argued that as Latin America becomes increasingly middle-class, movements like Chile’s 2011 student protests might spread to other countries. He noted that the recent Chilean protests sparked not from hardship, but out of a desire for the country’s increasing prosperity to be shared more widely.
We finished the week with a Latin American food night on Friday in the SY Branford Room. With a great turnout of both Latin Americans and non-Latin Americans, we enjoyed Peruvian specialties such as Ají de Gallina and Lomo Saltado, accompanied by Inca Kola, a popular Peruvian soft drink. We also had Mexican tamales, Colombian empanadas, and flan with Leche Condensada for dessert.
All in all, a great success, a lot of fun, and we hope to do it again next year!
Here was the schedule for the week:
Monday, March 26, 1:00 PM, Union League Cafe
- “Institutions and Economic Growth in Latin America” Economic Discussion over Lunch with Domingo Cavallo, former Argentine Economy Minister and Senior Fellow of the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.
Tuesday, March 27, 4:30 PM, Sterling Law Building, Room 120
- “Challenges and Opportunities for US Foreign Policy in Latin America” The Yale Law School welcomes Arturo Valenzuela, President Obama’s Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs in the US Department of State from 2009 to 2011
Wednesday, March 28, 3:30 PM, LC 211
- “Latin America and the Western Hemisphere” A more intimate conversation with Arturo Valenzuela, moderated by Rosalinda Garcia, Assistant Dean of Yale College.
Thursday, March 29, 5 PM, WLH 116
- “South America: Middle-Class Politics?” Political Discussion with Patricio Navia, Master Teacher of Liberal Studies Program at NYU and renowned Chilean political commentator: Patricio Navia, at 5pm in WLH116. He will be discussing South America’s changing politics. With student protests in Chile, a rising middle class, and new presidents inPeru and Brazil, the times-are-a-changing! Mr. Navia is a renowned South American political commentator and scholar, writing regular columns for major newspapers in Chile, Mexico, Argentina, and other countries, as well as OpenDemocracy and America’s Quarterly. He currently teaches at NYU’s Liberal Studies program and at Chile’s Diego Portales University. He holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Chicago, and a PhD from NYU.
Friday, March 30, 5:30 PM, Saybrook-Branford Room
- Latin American Food Night: Delicious food from amazing Latin American restaurants
Sponsored by: La Casa, Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies, Undergraduate Organizations Funding Committee
Jesus G. Bernal ‘86 nominated for US District Court by President Obama
On April 28th, President Obama nominated Jesus G. Bernal ‘86, along with three others to serve on the United States District Court. ”I am honored to put forward these highly qualified candidates for the federal bench,” President Obama said. “They will be distinguished public servants and valuable additions to the United States District Court.”
Jesus G. Bernal received his Yale B.A. cum laude in 1986 and received his J.D. in 1989 from Stanford Law School. He has been a Deputy Federal Public Defender in the Central District of California since 1996. From 1996 to 2006, he worked in the Los Angeles office and, since 2006, he has served as the Directing Attorney of the Riverside office. Previously, Bernal worked for almost five years as a litigation associate at the law firm of Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe LLP in Los Angeles, focusing primarily on complex civil litigation.
YMSO Elections
Congratulations to the 2012-2013 Yale Mexican Students Organization board:
President (Graduate Students): Gina Moreno-Valle ART ‘14
President (Undergraduate): Daniel Del Bosque YC ‘14
Treasurer (Graduate): Guillermo Valdes GRD ‘15
Treasurer (Undergraduate): Murat Dagli YC’14
And finally, congratulations to all of the seniors on graduating. Here is the YMSO Class of 2012 (Graduate & Undergraduate): Ana Cristina, Alonso Soria, Valentin Bohorov, Iris Eva Cano Ochoa, Eduardo Creel, Elizabeth Cui Zhou, Agustin Gerardo Del Río Cabrero, Diego Emilio Cuesy Edgar, Valeria Verónica Faggioni Suárez, Brian Joseph Fried, Lissy María Giacomán Colyer, Patricia Gochicoa Sánchez, Ricardo Arturo González Herrera, Drew Konove, Paul Felipe Lagunes Vessels, Aranzazú Martinez Galeana, José Antonio Mendoza García, Christian Alejandro Moran Escobosa, Laura Daniela Stevens León, Amauri Antonio Torres Camarena, Norma Alicia Alejandra Padrón Treviño, Juan Rebolledo, Luis Eduardo Zavala de Alba
An exhibit documenting the historical growth of Latinos at Yale since the 1960s opened Monday, April 9th at Sterling Memorial Library.
Conceived as a collaborative effort between Yale’s Latino Cultural Center and the Yale University Library, the exhibit features documents such as newspaper articles, letters and posters displayed in five glass cases that aim to convey a chronology of Latinos’ struggle to establish a niche on campus. Rosalinda Garcia, La Casa’s cultural director and assistant dean of Yale College, said the display of these “fascinating documents” allows the Latino community to share their story with others — a story that is “unfinished, but worth telling.”
“I think it’s crucial that our students know how hard their predecessors worked to secure all of the resources we have today,” Garcia said.
Garcia said students and librarians have been compiling materials for the exhibit since November 2010. Those students, along with Kerri Sancomb, exhibits preparator in the library’s preservation department, “spent countless hours going through bins and bins of historical documents, trying to identify items to include,” Garcia said.
“The exhibit was an opportunity for me to engage in cultural research, one that particularly inspired me due to its activist roots and provoked me to rethink my role as a student,” said Daniel Pizarro ART ’12, one of the students involved with putting up the exhibit. He said the exhibit highlights how Latino students engaged in active critical discussions in order to better understand how the University can serve their needs, adding that other students should follow their lead.
Garcia said while the aim of the exhibit is to provide visitors with a general sense of how Latinos evolved as a minority on campus, it does not convey a complete history. There are many documents that didn’t make the final cut due to space constraints, and many important documents are missing from La Casa’s archives, she said.
“We were unable to find many documents from the 80s or the 90s, so [the exhibit] does have somewhat of a 70s focus,” Garcia said.
Still, she added that she thought this should serve as an incentive for students to try to acquire this missing information, and for alumni to donate any documents they might have kept, especially in light of the upcoming Latino Alumni Reunion taking place later this month.
Garcia said the organizers were initially concerned that Latino alumni might think the exhibit overlooks their efforts that have yielded progress. The exhibit aims to balance portraying the difficulties the Latinos faced during their struggle for representation and showing the lasting, positive results of the Latino alumni’s efforts. Garcia said she hopes the final result is “not an overly heavy exhibit,” but one that gives a realistic overview of the historical events that led to the gradual growth of Latino presence on campus.
Still, Garcia said she hopes that the exhibit will engage Latinos and non-Latinos alike.
Russell Weiss-Irwin, a visitor from the City College of New York, said that even though he is not Latino, he thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit.
“I think it’s great that Yale is bringing attention to the Latino presence on campus, and I definitely learned a lot of things about the Latinos’ unique sense of community from the exhibit,” he said.
Jessica Tordoff ’15, also not a Latina, said that although the struggle of the Latinos certainly has its idiosyncrasies, she thinks the exhibit successfully universalizes their struggle and places it into a broader context. Paulo Costa ’14, who identifies as Latino, said he hopes the exhibit will give “a heads up to the Yale administration” to hire more Latino faculty.
According to information at the exhibit, there were less than 10 Latino students in 1968, and over 20 graduate and undergraduate Latino groups were created in the 2000s. The exhibit will be on display until June.
Abridged from the Yale Daily News.
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Spring Update from the Peer Liaisons
This semester the Peer Liaisons have hosted many great events and here is an update written by Ulises Ceja TD ‘13
Imagine if the government did not allow you to study your own people’s history. Imagine if classes in Ethnic Studies were punished with funding cuts. Imagine if your history was illegal. This is the reality for students in Arizona, where over 50 books about Chicano and minority histories (including “The House on Mango Street,” “The Tempest” by W. Shakespeare, “Ten Little Indians” by S. Alexie, and “Civil Disobedience” by H.D. Thoreau) have been confiscated.
“No Book Ban..No Book Ban” sounded the unifying chant of students protesting against Arizona Bill HB 2281. On Monday, February 20th, Yale undergraduate students including some Mechistas gathered together at Commons to take an active stance against the Arizona Bill HB 2281 banning books on ethnic studies from classroom curriculums in Arizona. The students performed a simulation of a typical confiscation of ethnic books. As the books were confiscated, students lined up in a file and joined the chant. The protest ended with a speech presented by Katie Aragon educating Yalies about the ban.
After the protest at Commons, Dean Garcia, coordinator of La Casa, and Dean Van Alst, the coordinator of the NACC, with the help of various undergraduate students including Mechistas organized a Teach-In and dinner to learn from experts and students about Arizona’s confiscation of ethnic studies books. On Wed. February 22. , Professors Birgit Rasmussen, Stephen Pitti, Alicia Camacho, special guest Dr. Debbie Reese and the students from Arizona themselves came up to the stand to speak about the importance of learning about ethnicity as a means to understand ones identity and place of belonging in America.
- Amaris Olguin DC ‘15
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LASO Elections for 2012-2013
Quiara Hudes ‘99 wins Pulitzer Prize
Ms. Hudes, who will be attending and speaking at the Yale Latino Alumni reunion this weekend just won the pulitzer prize! Read more about it:
A recent event MAS Familias hosted was a science symposium on Saturday, April 14th, from 12-2pm in St. Anthony Hall. The symposium allowed several students who are active with MAS and STARS to present for 15 minutes about work they have been doing in a lab. We heard from presenters on a variety of topics: rocks and geophysics to immunology to public health in Peru to The audience members were asked to anonymous feedback to our student presenters so that they could learn and improve from the experience. We enjoyed an afternoon of collective scientific learning while eating delicious thai food ordered for the occasion!
Here’s a few posts catching up with Math and Science Familias and what they have been doing this semester:
On March 30-31, five MAS Familias members joined other students interested in the biomedical sciences at the biennial Biomedical Students Career Program in Boston, MA. There, they heard keynote addresses from prominent members of the biomedical community, including health equity expert, Eve J. Higginbotham, SM, MD; Harvard Medical School’s chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Paul Farmer, MD, PhD; and Merck president and CEO, Kenneth C. Frazier.
Thomas A. Saenz coming to Yale Latino Reunion!
In previous posts, we introduced Quiara Alegría Hudes ‘99 and Dolores Huerta as some of the speakers coming to the Latino Alumni Reunion this month. Now we would like to present another one of our fantastic speakers for the reunion: Thomas A. Saenz ‘87 B.A., ’91 J.D.! Saenz is a nationally recognized civil rights attorney who is the President and General Counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). Previously, as Counsel to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Saenz led numerous civil rights cases in the areas of immigrants’ rights, education, employment, and voting rights. He was selected as one of Hispanic Business Magazine’s “100 Top Influentials” in 2009 and won the Latino Law Students Association of Yale Law School Public Service Award in 2007. He graduated from Yale college summa cum laude in 1987 and from the Yale Law school in 1991.
Saenz will be the keynote speaker at Saturday’s formal dinner: 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm, Saturday, April 21, 2012. To check out more about the upcoming reunion and register please visit:http://latinoreunion.alumni.yale.edu/
