Volar No 2

Latin American & Latino Studies To Celebrate 40 Years
Welcome from our Director Amalia Pallares
This is a momentous time for us as we prepare to
celebrate the 40th anniversary of our program this
Fall. In 1973 UIC Latino students occupied the
University Hall building, demanding the creation of
an academic unit that would offer a curriculum on
Latinos and Latin America. After the program was
created in 1974, the student struggle continued,
leading to the creation of a unit that would be in
charge of recruiting and retaining students (LARES)
and a cultural center that would engage in
programming and be a hub for Latino student
activities (the Rafaél Ortíz Cintrón Cultural Center).
This history, which we will celebrate with two weeks
of events this Fall, reminds us of the crucial
relationship between student activism and social
change. It also reminds us of the great responsibility
we face in maintaining and strengthening our
commitment to serving the academic needs of our
students through our engagement in research and
teaching. In this spirit, and with the assistance of
alumni and our newly created LALS Circle of Friends,
we plan to create a LALS scholarship fund that will
provide needed resources to our students for tuition,
travel and research expenses.
We will both celebrate our 40th anniversary and
launch our fundraising effort this October, starting
with a LALS 40th celebration/fundraiser at the
National Museum of Mexican Art on Wednesday
October 29th. All are welcome to join us as we
celebrate
our
origins,
reflect
on
our
accomplishments over the last four decades and
announce our future endeavors. In the following two
weeks we will hold more commemorative events,
including reflections on past and present activism, a
film and discussion on education and social justice, and
our first “Agents of Change” event honoring
distinguished alumni and supporters.
In addition to hosting these events, we welcome new
faculty to LALS: Associate Professor Andreas Feldman
and Visiting Lecturer Helena Olea in the Fall semester,
and Assistant Professor Patrisia Macías in the Spring.
Additionally, Associate Professor Lorena Garcia, from
Sociology, has joined our faculty.
Finally, we are looking forward to our new cohort of
graduate and undergraduate students this Fall and to
our new faculty‐led study abroad program in Chiapas,
Mexico. We are both making history and celebrating
new beginnings. We hope you will join us!
Visit http://lals.uic.edu/40years for more information.
r
Page 2
LALS Newsletter·Fall 2014
Revisiting the Past with a
Gaze Fixed on the Future
By Nawojka Lesinski
As the Latin American and Latino Studies program
marches into fall semester, marking four decades
since its fantastic birth onto the academic scene in
1974, it does so with renewed vigor and commitment.
Stemming from the activism of the 1973 student up‐
risings when UIC students stormed the President’s
office, LALS has gone through some dramatic shifts.
What has not changed is its attention to its student
body, its embeddedness in the Latino community, and
recognition of the relationship between academic
pursuits and social justice.
Born from a modest area studies concession from
within the Spanish department—with introductory
courses developed largely by the active student body
of the time—LALS has grown into the independent,
degree‐granting program we know today. In order to
fully appreciate the approaching anniversary and its
significance, I asked two alumni/pioneers—Carlos
Heredia and Carlos Flores—to reflect on the pro‐
gram’s genesis, and to offer their perspectives on the
role of youth activism, community, and education.
Their accounts paint a rich picture that connects the
past to the present, and beyond.
THE TIMELESSNESS OF ACTIVISM
While much of our discussions focused on the past, a
thread of timelessness permeated both men’s com‐
mentary. Like many of their colleagues from UIC and
surrounding institutions, their political involvement and
community engagement didn’t end in youth, and their
message for current students is clear: students must
hold institutions accountable! Simultaneously, students
must take it upon themselves to work beyond the exist‐
ing structures of political offices and academia to build
bridges with other groups in order to encourage con‐
versation, not just in moments of crises, but by creat‐
ing networks in moments of tranquility.
As a program created through the agency of students,
we remember that they serve as the link between
community and academia, and recognizing that the two
spheres cannot be compartmentalized is paramount to
sustaining the mission of LALS. So far, we’ve managed
to stay true to the original goals of the ’73 cohort of
students. While our faculty’s work has been scholastic‐
ally sound, our program has remained community‐ori‐
ented and firmly embedded in the concerns affecting
our neighbors, students, and university. We’ve had the
honor of matriculating and graduating incredibly en‐
gaged students, and main‐
taining strong ties with
Latino communities and is‐
sues. As we celebrate our
40th anniversary, let us con‐
tinue to look to our past as a
reminder of where and who
we want to be in the future.
To view more photographs
by Carlos Flores visit
puertoricanchicago.com
http://on.fb.me/1nPwo3Z
or scan the QR Code
“I was already a ‘veteran community activist’” Carlos
Flores answered succinctly to one of my inquiries
about his politicization as a student. In the 1960s,
Flores was a member of the Young Lords Organization
and addressing gentrification and Latino displacement
in Lincoln Park was a central concern for him. Carlos
Heredia echoed this sentiment, and explained that
the political consciousness that was prevalent among
Latino youth had already been in effect since the
What was happening at UIC was but one instance of
the sort of engagement and activism taking place on
college campuses across the country at the time.
African American, Asian‐American, Latino, female
students, and allies were voicing their demands from
coast to coast, changing the face of American aca‐
demia to be more reflective of the multicultural and
diverse crowds found in their halls and quads, and
simultaneously changing the expectations people had
of their educational institutions to include responsib‐
ilities to the communities in which they reside. The
Ivory Tower had been, in essence, shaken and rocked,
and leveled to the grassroots.
Page 3
When Congress passed the Higher Education Act of
1965, it set the stage for dramatic changes in institu‐
tions of higher learning that would follow less than a
decade later. This legislation allowed for the estab‐
lishment of the Teacher Corps program, the purpose
of which was to improve elementary and secondary
teaching in predominantly low‐income areas. Indi‐
vidual projects were developed by colleges or uni‐
versities with a teacher‐training program in
partnership with local school districts. UIC served as a
program site for Chicago. A major objective was to
increase the numbers of urban and bilingual educat‐
ors and to train these future teachers with the inten‐
tion of making them more effective in the inner city
schools. Ironically, the impact of this program exten‐
ded far beyond the confines of grade schools. It
helped mobilize college students at UIC (and other
institutions) to recognize the limits of their own uni‐
versity education, to fight for the recognition of UIC’s
diverse student population, and for the implementa‐
tion of curriculum and faculty reflective of their own
histories and communities.
LALS Newsletter·Fall 2014
HISTORY AS OUR LEGACY
1960s. While Heredia helped cre‐
ate the Organization of Latin
American Students (OLAS) at Har‐
old Washington College in 1968,
he cited the 1969 National Chica‐
go Youth Liberation Conference in
Denver, CO, as one of the defining
moments wherein he was not only
introduced to new ideas, writers,
and thinkers, but also when he
became exposed to larger con‐
nections between seemingly isol‐
ated struggles. Reflective of the
socio‐political climate at the
time, many students, like Flores
and Heredia, were already politi‐
cized and active in other projects
affecting their communities well
before the momentous student takeover of University
Hall in 1973. Students connected the struggles of
their communities with the issues they were encoun‐
tering at UIC, and began to strategize and make de‐
mands, including, but not limited to pressuring the
university to: set up recruitment programs to attract
more Latino and other minority students; revise pro‐
gram offerings so that they would reflect Latino real‐
ities; hire more Latino faculty; and replace the first
Director of LAS, Héctor Hernandez Nieto, with
someone more sympathetic to students’ needs, ulti‐
mately forming a selection committee comprised of
faculty and students. The students’ top candidate,
Otto Pikaza, was selected to serve as Director. Stu‐
dents also raised concerns regarding the expansion of
the university and its impact on the predominantly
Latino residents in Pilsen, reiterating the need for the
university to be more embedded and responsive to
community realities.
Page 4
LALS Newsletter·Fall 2014
Faculty News
Xóchitl Bada presented alongside Cook County Com‐
missioner, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia on November 26, 2013
at the the Foro ciudadano de consulta pública para la
elaboración del Programa Especial de Migración del
gobierno mexicano where she sat on the first panel
which was discussing the topic of “Fundamental ele‐
ments for a state migration policy in Mexico.”
Professor Bada also presented at the Feria Inter‐
nacional del Libro de Guadalajara (FIL 2013) in the III
Foro Internacional Migración y Desarrollo on December
1st, 2013. She presented at the Duke’s annual confer‐
ence on migration to and from Mexico on May 2‐3,
2014. She also presented at the Seminario Inter‐
nacional: Asociaciones de inmigrantes y fronteras in‐
ternacionales: perspectivas comparadas on May 12‐14,
2014 at the COLEF in Tijuana.
Christopher Boyer gave the keynote address titled,
“The Archival Forest” at the conference “Global His‐
tories from Below” at the University of Illinois at Urb‐
ana‐Champaign on March 3‐8 2014. Shortly after, he
was the featured speaker on a roundtable called,
“Bridging Venerable Narratives and Recent Work in
Latin American Environmental History” at the Americ‐
an Society for Environmental History in San Francisco,
March 13‐15, 2014. He also published, “Community,
Crony Capitalism, and Fortress Conservation in Mexican
Forests” in Dictablanda: Politics, Work and Culture in
Mexico and co‐wrote “Mexico’s Environmental Revolu‐
tions” with Micheline Cariño for the journal New En‐
vironmental Histories of Latin American and the
Caribbean (which can be found in Spanish and online.
http://www.environmentandsociety.org/perspectives)
Professor Boyer was also elected chair of the Depart‐
ment of History starting Fall 2014.
Simone Buechler published Labor in a Globalizing
City: Economic Restructuring in São Paulo, Brazil and
“The Global Financial Crisis and the Retrenchment of
Multiculturalism and Economic Opportunities for
Brazilian Immigrants in Newark, N.J.” which was ac‐
cepted for publication in the Journal of Latino Studies
in the final volume in 2014. Her paper “Employment
Trajectories of Mothers and their Daughters in Three
Low‐income Communities in São Paulo, Brazil" was
part of a LASA panel entitled O Eterno Retorno ao “In‐
formal”? Categorias resilientes, realidades desafiador‐
as, abordagens heterodoxas chaired by Nadya Araujo
Guimaraes at the Latin American Studies Association
2014 Congress, May 21‐24, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois.
She also presented with Amanda Pinheiro “Immigrants
and the Precarization of Urban Labor: The History of
Bolivian Garment Sweatshop Workers in São Paulo,
Brazil.” The invitation was a part of an accepted
BRASA panel entitled Experiência migratória e exper‐
iência urbana: imigrantes no Brasil e Brasileiros no ex‐
terior at the Brazilian Studies Association 2014
Congress, August 20–23, 2014 in London, England.
Ralph Cintrón published "Witnessing United Nations
Failure in Kosovo," in Writing in the Field: Festschrift
for Stephen Tyler, Ivo Strecker and Shauna La Tosky,
Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2013, 135‐143 published in October
2013. Ralph presented with Phil Ashton the paper
"Christian Marazzi's Capital and Language," Connecting
through/as Value: Money, Debt, and Risk in the Age of
Speculative Capital, Washington D.C. on November 20,
2013. He presented "Addressing McCloskey's Bourgeois
Virtues," De Paul University, Chicago on October 19,
2013. Ralph is working toward completion of his
current project on Democracy as Fetish, which was a
central part of his work as a Fellow of the UIC Institute
for the Humanities this past academic year. He also
continues work on the joint project with Hariman, R.,
(Northwestern University) Power, Rhetoric, and
Political Culture: The Texture of Political Action. This
is a co‐edited volume being prepared for publication
by Berghan Books.
Joel Palka published Maya Pilgrimage to Ritual
Landscapes: Insights from Archaeology, History, and
Ethnography with the University of New Mexico Press.
He was also named interim head of the Department of
Anthropology.
Joel Huerta gave a lecture last November at the St.
Xavier University entited, “Gridiron Ballads: The Curi‐
ous Case of the Football Corridos of South Texas.”
humanıtıes wıthout walls
We are delighted to announce that several LALS faculty were
awarded funding through UIC's participation in the Mellon
Foundation initiative "Humanities Without Walls: The Global
Midwest."
Christopher Boyer (History and Latin American and Latino
Studies) "Cultivating Landscapes: Midwestern Farming and
Mexican Cornfields"
Jennifer Brier (Gender and Women's Studies and History) and
Elena Gutierrez (Gender and Women's Studies and Latin
American and Latino Studies): "Collaborative Collection of
Chicago's Community Histories"
Amalia Pallares Ralph Cintrón & Nena Torres (Latin American and Latino Studies and Political Science):"Trans-displacements: Migration, Gentrification and Citizenship"
http://huminst.uic.edu/ifth/research-support/humanities-without-walls
María de los Ángeles (Nena) Torres will publish
"Teatro Buendía: Performing Dissent Within the Re‐
volution" in the journal Cuban Studies. As director of
IUPLR, Nena will be overseeing a $10,000 grant awar‐
ded by the Boeing Company to support the upcoming
series “Chicago: Encuentros Culturales” which will
bring together scholars, artists and activists from
around the nation to exchange ideas.
Salomé Aguilera Skvirsky presented “Subject Matters:
Talk and Documentary” at the Society for Cinema and
Media Studies annual conference in Seattle in late
March. She was a participant on a panel discussion of
Amour (Michael Haneke, France, 2012) which was part
of a film series “Death by Cinema” at the University of
Chicago. This year she is on leave as a Fellow at the
Institute for the Humanities.
Javier Villa‐Flores published a new book entitled
“Emotions and Daily Life in Colonial Mexico”; edited
by Javier Villa‐Flores and Sonya Lipsett‐Rivera (Uni‐
versity of New Mexico Press).
PLEASE VISIT OUR
NEW WEBSITE!
lals.uic.edu
Page 5
Amalia Pallares presented “Our youth and our
families: Undocumented Youth Activism and Immigrant
Rights Politics”, as the invited keynote speaker for
Hispanic Heritage Month at CUNY‐Lehman College,
October 11th, 2013. She also presented “Destabilizing
Categories, Creating New Worlds: the ‘Crossings’ of
Undocumented Youth Activism," on October 26th,
2013 at the "Illegality, Youth and Belonging"
conference at Harvard University’s Graduate School
of Education. On April 24th, 2013 she presented “The
Immigrant Rights Movement: Past, Present Future” at
the Casa Cultural Latina at the University of Illinois at
Urbana‐ Champaign. This past July at the Latino
Studies Conference in Chicago she presented with
Alyshia Galvez “Mothering in the Struggle:
Undocumented Youth Activism in a Family Context” in
the Panel “Somos Familia: the Transnational Politics of
Representation about Latino Famiiles," and was an
invited speaker for the Conference Plenary:
"Perspective on the State of Latino/a Studies”.
LALS Newsletter·Fall 2014
Elena Gutierrez received the Justice Award from
ACCESS Women's Health Justice for "High Impact
Research" for the report: "Bringing California's Families
Out of CAP'tivity: Repealing the Maximum Family Grant
Rule," a research report utilized in the current effort
to eliminate child exclusion from the state's welfare
regulations. Locally, she developed community‐based
oral history project partnering with a national research
project "Chicana por mi Raza" that resulted in 8
student‐led oral histories of Latina leaders in Chicago.
Cristian Roa published “Human Sacrifice, Conquest
and the Law: Cultural Interpretation and Colonial
Sovereignty in New Spain.” Santa Arias and Raúl
Marrero Eds. Coloniality, Religion, and the Law in the
Early Iberian World. (Vanderbilt University Press). He
presented “La Conquista de Mexico. Compuesta Por
Dn Domgo de Sn Anton Muñon Quauhtlehuanitzin:
Chimalpahin's transcription of López de Gómara's
history of the conquest” at the 129th Modern Language
Association Annual Convention, Chicago, January 9‐12,
2014.
Page 6
LALS Newsletter·Fall 2014
Vamos a Volar:
LALS Degree Recognition Ceremony
Friday, April 25th, 2014
Casa Michoacán
LALS Newsletter·Fall 2014
Best Wishes From Our
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Page 7
On April 25, LALS celebrated our undergraduate and graduate students who
finished the requirements for a degree in Latin American and Latino Studies
in the spring semester. The ceremony took place at Casa Michoacán in the
Mexican neighborhood of Pilsen. Amalia Pallares, our director, offered a
warm welcome to the families and friends of the attending graduates.
Several of our faculty, staff, and instructors joined the event including Marta
Ayala, Xóchitl Bada, Chris Boyer, Theresa Christenson, Juanita del Toro, Joel
Huerta, Cristián Roa, Salomé Skivirsky, Bruce Tyler and Javier Villa-Flores.
The LALS graduating class of 2014 offered a faculty award to Professor Chris
Boyer in recognition of his excellent mentorship during their college years.
We are very proud of having offered our graduating class a world-class
education. All our students are now ready to succeed in any
endeavor they wish to pursue.
Congratulations to all our graduates!
XÓCHITL BADA
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DIRECTOR
OF
UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES
Congratulations to 2014 LALS Graduates!
LALS Majors
LALS Minors
LALS Master of Arts
Leslie Herrera‐León
Christian Goméz
Cecilia Cuevas
Claudia Lucero‐Mead
Veronica León
Marisol de la Cruz
Luis Alatorre
Sonia Serrano
Ramón Moran
Jacqueline Delgado
Alexis Contreras
Amanda Pinheiro
Christian Gómez
Rebecca Chávez
Rigoberto Robles
Adriana Gutiérrez
Magali Mercado
Araceli Moreno
Azucena López
Betty Plaza
Sonia Soto
Stephanie Rodríguez
Rocio Villaseñor
Mayra Sotomayor
Eliana Triche
AnnaMarie Valencia
Elizabeth Velázquez
Page 8
LALS Newsletter·Fall 2014
Pablo Medina LALS Class of 1979
In a conversation with Vanessa Guridy
I started my undergraduate degree at NEIU and trans‐
ferred to UIC in 1973 to study Architecture, but then
transferred to the Latin American and Latino Studies
Program. I later earned a Masters in Urban Planning
with a focus on Housing.
I originally came to UIC as part of a political struggle.
While at Northeastern, I was part of the Organización
de Estudiantes Puertorriqueños, which had strong ties
to FUPI, the Federación Universitaria Pro‐Independen‐
cia (Federation of Pro‐Independence University Stu‐
dents), a radical leftist group in Puerto Rico. One of
the biggest things we fought for was representation;
we wanted the university to hire Latino faculty and
staff to represent the growing Latino student popula‐
tion. After a few years at Northeastern, we had made
some advancements and it became clear that we
needed to move the struggle elsewhere. At that time,
UIC was suffering from a lack of representation, so I
transferred to UIC for political purposes‐‐to continue
the struggle. In the 1980s there was no Latino repres‐
entation in Chicago at any level causing the academic
aspects to become secondary to the broader political
struggles of the time. Though the Latin American and
Latino Studies program was already established when I
enrolled, there was still work to be done. The student
organizations present at the time were not as aggress‐
ive as the ones at Northeastern, but we were able to
successfully form a coalition of Mexican and Puerto
Rican students to push for the creation of the Latino
Cultural Center. The university kept saying they did
not have space to dedicate for a Latino Cultural Cen‐
ter, but we conducted surveys of the campus, analyz‐
ing how spaces were being used and were able to get
them to convert a space that was being used for stor‐
age into the LCC. It was named Rafael Cintrón, after a
Puerto Rican professor of LALS who had died in the
struggle. Though I initially was an architecture stu‐
dent, I had taken so many courses in LALS that I was
closer to finishing that degree than I was architecture,
so I decided to change majors and graduated from
LALS.
Students of LALS must remember where they came
from and remain connected to the needs of their com‐
munity. They must remain tuned into the needs of
their communities because they are responsible for
addressing the problems in their communities. They
can do this by serving on the board of directors for
those organizations that work in the area, for ex‐
ample. Above all, graduates need to serve as the cata‐
lysts of changes to improve their communities.
I work for the city as the Director for Intergroup Rela‐
tions at the Chicago Commission on Human Relations.
Our department is in charge of handling hate crimes
and community tensions, whether they arise out of
gang‐related tensions, gentrification, etc. My time at
UIC was instrumental to preparing for my job, not only
because of my involvement in the push for representa‐
tion. Through the program I learned more about the
history of Latin America‐‐the real politics not just the
traditional histories. The professors were very pro‐
gressive, and they taught us about the relationship
between the United States government and com‐
munities of color, and the history of US interventions
in Latin America. Their teaching sharpened my social
and political vision, which is directly tied to the work I
do today mediating between different communities
within the city.
One of the lessons I took away from the program was
the empowerment that comes from knowing your his‐
tory. History is complex, and we need to be able to
look at historical events through various perspectives.
Growing up in Puerto Rico, I heard all about the ac‐
complishments of white Americans, but nothing about
our own heroes and struggles. It was when I began
taking LALS classes that I began to learn about Puerto
Rican accomplishments and Latin American history. We
need to learn about our history with an open mind so
we can understand historical contradictions and to
have a clearer vision of the world. What is happening
in Venezuela is one example. It’s not just about de‐
manding that the current government respond to the
claims being made against it, but to take into account
the broader history of Latin America, which includes
various coup d’état, and popular resistance—both real
and created, etc. You need to have an understanding
of the bloody history of Latin America to develop a
healthy sense of skepticism and caution when hearing
about events like these. Otherwise, you run the risk of
becoming an accomplice too.
LALS Graduate Students gave reports of their research at several venues outside the university.
On April 17, 2014 they presented their work at a public forum held in the LALS conference room in 1550 UH.
Cecilia Cuevas presented her project No Soy Regio
pero Soy de Aquí: The Role of Social Class in Urban
Mexican Migration. Few studies address the experi‐
ences of middle and upper class immigrants. This pa‐
per asks how understandings of social class by urban
Mexican migrants influence their experiences as
transnational migrants. In answering this question the
focus is on two relevant dimensions of class: the ma‐
terial and the symbolic.The first dimension deals with
access to certain goods, services, and resources based
on socioeconomic standing. The second dimension ad‐
dresses the social patterns urban Mexican immigrants
develop based on notions of how socioeconomic class
defines social interactions. By studying the social ex‐
periences of middle and upper class Mexican urban
immigrants, we can attempt to explain the role of so‐
cial class in migratory circuit experiences.
Above: Javier, Amanda and Marisol listen to Cecy.
Right: Ralph making a point from the audience.
Ramon Moran presented The Political, The Personal,
Implications for Mathematics Education: The Case of
Chicago and Tucson at the Seventh International Math‐
ematics Education and Society Conference in Cape
Town, South Africa, April 2‐7, 2014. He completed his
MA with a project entitled Empowerment of Latinos: A
Review of Programming for the Further Education and
Awareness of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Within
the Latino Community. Research shows large disparit‐
ies of resources including health care, within the
Latino community. There are specific programs to
support intervention and education of this underrep‐
resented population. This project focuses on one
called Padres en Acción and its support of empowerment
and self‐efficacy theories.
Marisol de la Cruz presented An Analysis of Incorpor‐
ation and Stabilization of Migrants with Different Im‐
migration Statuses. In it she utilizes a qualitative
mixed‐method approach and compiles personal narrat‐
ives of recent immigrant arrivals to construct a critical
analysis of the impact that structural and social pro‐
cesses have on immigrant incorporation. She presen‐
ted her work at The 5th Annual La Academia del
Pueblo: Latino/a and Latin American Studies Research
Conference at Wayne State University on Saturday
April 26, 2014.
Rigoberto Robles’s presented his project Visual Ex‐
pulsion: Mayor Daley’s Graffiti Blasters and the Re‐
moval of Unauthorized Graffiti where he investigated
the origins and motives behind the development of
Mayor Daley’s graffiti blasters program and to under‐
stand its signific‐
ance to Chicago.
The
program
worked to ensure
the appearance
of neighborhoods
and was an aid to
Mayor Richard M.
Daley’s economic
plans.
Page 9
Amanda Pinheiro de Oliveira's project Migration
without borders? The Case of the Mercosur Agreement
and Bolivian immigrants in Brazil examines the incon‐
gruence between Mercosur migrant policies, their im‐
plementation in Brazil and Argentina, and how this
affects Bolivian workers employed in Sao Paulo`s gar‐
ment industry. Amanda presented her work at two
conferences: The GSA/North America conference on
June 6‐8, 2014 at Loyola's Water Tower Campus in
downtown Chicago and XII Brasa, August 21‐23, 2014 at
King’s College, London.
LALS Newsletter·Fall 2014
Graduate Student Reports
Page 10
LALS Newsletter·Fall 2014
Welcome LALS Master of Arts Students
Class of 2016
Maxi Armas is an instructor of Spanish Language and Literatures. He earned his
BA from the University of California Irvine and his MA from the Illinois State
University. His every day's mission is to guide and mentor current and potential
Latino college students to enroll and complete their educational goals. Retention
and completion initiatives are his main interest. At the moment, Armas is
particularly drawn to College Readiness strategies and implementation with
emphasis in community outreach.
Gabriela Benítez was born in Chihuahua,
Mexico and immigrated with her family to
Memphis, TN at the age of 6. She obtained her BA in Sociology with Spanish and Non‐
Profit Management minors at the University of Memphis. Living most of her life as an
undocumented student and her family currently facing the deportation of her father,
she has a strong commitment to immigrant community organizing. In July 2013, she
moved to Chicago and is a member of Organized Communities Against Deportations
(OCAD) a project of Undocumented Illinois that works on stopping deportations of
individuals in the state.
Jorge Mena is an undocumented and queer
organizer/poet who immigrated from Jalisco,
Mexico when he was 8 years old. In 2010, Mena
graduated from UIC with a BA in Anthropology and Latin American and Latino
Studies. He has been involved in the undocumented immigrant youth movement
since the 2009 formation of the Immigrant Youth Justice League. He currently
assists undocumented/Latino high school youth with their post‐secondary plans in
the southwest side of Chicago. He hopes to research how undocumented and queer
immigrants negotiate their identity while understanding the intersectionality in
their lives.
Dolores Ponce de León is the youngest of nine
children born to immigrant parents from Mexico who came to the U.S in the mid 1940’s.
She is a Chicago native who has worked as a community organizer with various immigrant
and Latino communities in the city and western suburbs. Dolores also worked with
philanthropic and academic institutions to help increase awareness of the various social,
political, and economic challenges facing Latinos. She is a recipient of M.A.L.D.E.F’s
‘Community Service Award’ and a Leadership Greater Chicago fellow. Dolores’ interest in
the Masters program is to further research gentrification and it’s impact on Latino
communities. Her interests also include youth, cultural identity, and the politics of the
Latino family living in the U.S.
i
La directora del Programa de Derechos Humanos de la
Universidad de Chicago, Susan Gzesh, comentó sobre la labor
importante realizada por Xóchitl Bada al escribir un libro que
narra en forma muy clara las experiencias de estos clubes en
sus esfuerzos de contribuir en forma social y política en los dos
lados de la frontera.
Este libro narra la historia de la
comunidad inmigrante que todavia no
figura ante los medios de comunición
ni en el area académica. Carlos Arango
también intervino, recalcando que este
libro documenta una larga lucha de la
comunidad
inmigrante
que
desafortunadamente aún no termina.
Para más información sobre este libro
visite:
http://bit.ly/1oFmYWu
o
escanea el Cógigo QR abajo.
On June 12, 2014 our program joined
the Presence of Michoacán celebration
at Casa Michoacán, with a talk by Professor Xóchitl Bada, who presented her new book Mexican Hometown
Associations in Chicagoacán: From Local to Transnational Civic Engagement (Rutgers 2014) to an audience of
students, hometown assocation clubs and other interested community members. The book tells of the story of an
immigrant community which remains largely beyond the sights of the mainstream media and even the academic
press.
There were also two commentators who added to the program. The director of the Human
Rights Program at the University of Chicago, Susan Gzesh, noted the importance work done
by Xóchitl in documenting the efforts of these clubs to contribute to social and political
development on both sides of the border. For his part, Carlos Arango, emphasized the fact
that this is a long term struggle with many succeses but still has a long way to go.
For more information about the book, please visit http://bit.ly/1oFmYWu or scan the QR
Code.
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El 12 de Junio de 2014 en Casa Michoacán, nuestro programa
se unió a la Celebración de la Presencia Michoacana 2014
donde Xóchitl Bada, profesora asociada de LALS con la
presentación de su libro Mexican Hometown Associations in
Chicagoacán From Local to Transnational Civic Engagement
(Rutgers 2014) ante una audiencia de jóvenes estudiantes,
ideres de clubes de oriúndos y otros miembros de la
comunidad interesados en este tema.
LALS Newsletter·Fall 2014
Presentación de Libro • Book Presentation
Xochitl Bada
LATIN AMERICAN AND LATINO STUDIES PROGRAM
40TH ANNIVERSARY 2014
Calendar of Events
For information and to donate to the scholarship fund, visit http://lals.uic.edu/40years
Study Abroad in Chiapas
Informational Open House
November 19, 2014
3:00 p.m.
1550 UH
A new Study Abroad Program in San Cristobal starts in Summer 2015! Students will travel with a LALS professor to San
Cristobal, where they will take two classes, go on several short field trips and engage in experiential learning for a four
week period. LALS and Anthropology Professor Joel Palka will lead the 2015 experience, and his teaching will focus on
indigenous cultures and society. In 2015, LALS and History Professor Christopher Boyer will be teaching on agrarian
sustainability and food issues. In 2016, Professor Xóchitl Bada will focus on migration issues. This is a unique opportunity
for undergraduate and graduate students to learn about Mexico and Latin America while earning college credit.
Latin American and Latino Studies
Program (MC 219)
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
1525 University Hall
601 South Morgan Street
Chicago, IL. 60607­7115
LATIN AMERICAN AND
LATINO STUDIES @
UIC
https://www.facebook.com/lalsatuic