Latinx Visions

Amplifying Latinx Voices - Literature with Dr. Amina Gautier

Bienvenidas, Bienvenidos, Bienvenides! 

Our fifth season is dedicated to celebrating the voices, stories, and experiences of Latinx people. Our aim is to offer space for conversation, to register the nuances and complexities within the Latinx overlapping diasporas, recognizing that there is no singular narrative but instead an array of voices that deserve to be heard.

 

In this episoe we discuss with author and scholar Dr. Amina Gautier from our Afro-Latinidades series at Baruch. This conversation was recorded on November 30, 2022, with support from the Black and Latino Studies Department and BRESI (the Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Initiative). This was a conversation between the author and student leaders in my then Special Topic Class: Afro-Latinidades (the class is now part of the BLS course offering). Shout out to Sandy Paulino, Yuddy Fermin, Jonas Reyes, and Isabella Bonilla for developing the questions based on our class discussions. This student-centered course examined African-descended populations in Latin America and Afro-Latinxs in the United States. Throughout the semester, we explored questions of Black identity and representation, colonialism, resistance to slavery and its afterlives, transnationalism, Pan-Africanism, and diaspora. 

 

We first introduce Dr. Gautier and provide some background on her. This is followed with a partial reading of one of her short stories, “Feliz Navidad.” After this, we share the questions originally posed by the students, editing and paraphrasing for conciseness. We then wrap up with some story recommendations within Dr. Gautier’s book Now We Will Be Happy and a brief conversation about how her work resonates thematically with our classes and the podcast itself.  

Transcript

Follow the podcast:

Twitter and Instagram: @LatinxVisions

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Hosts: Rojo Robles and Rebecca L. Salois

Logo Design: Marcos Toledo

Music: Shawn P. Russell

Sound Consultant and Mixing: Shawn P. Russell

Recording and Editing: Rebecca L. Salois

Bonus: NYCC 2022 - Pop-Culture, Fandom, and Comics in the College Classroom

Bonus Episode: Audio from the 2022 New York Comic Con panel, "Pop-Culture, Fandom, and Comics in the College Classroom" featuring Heidi Bollinger, Jennifer Caroccio Maldonado, Tanya Cook, Rebecca L. Salois, and Asif Siddiqi.

In this panel, we shared how we incorporate pop-culture into our own courses and how you might do the same - whether you are a professor or a student! From Taylor Swift to Game of Thrones, Supernatural, Marvel, DC, and more we discussed the validity of pop-culture in the college classroom.

 

Student Special #7

In this episode, we feature projects by LTS 1003 students Leah Garcia and Kevin Lopez, LTS 3100 student Nelson Tavares, and LTS 3012 Student Tatiana Perez.

First up will be Leah and Kevin’s episode which considers Latino representation in television and film. They argue that the Latino stereotypes we see on TV misrepresent the community as a whole by perpetuating harmful and inaccurate generalizations, which lead to discriminatory treatment of them in society.

This will be followed by Nelson Tavares’s interview with his wife, Sabrina about her experiences with cultural assimilation as a Dominican American woman. He draws parallels between these experiences and “Abuela’s Greatest Gift”  by Janel Martinez and Harvest of Empire by Juan Gonzalez. 

Finally we will wrap up with an episode by Tatiana Perez, who explores the topic of Latina owned small businesses in the US. Tatiana looks at the ways in which these businesses can help strengthen communities and build intergenerational wealth.

Transcript

Follow the podcast:

Bluesky and Instagram: @LatinxVisions

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Hosts: Rojo Robles and Rebecca L. Salois

Logo Design: Marcos Toledo

Music: Shawn P. Russell

Sound Consultant and Mixing: Shawn P. Russell

Editing: Rebecca L. Salois

Latinx NYC: The Archives with Joseph Caceres

Welcome to the finale of season 4! This week we speak with writer, scholar, and PhD candidate Joseph Caceres about his work with archives of the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe's last surviving founders, Lois Elaine Griffith. After our interview, stay tuned for a brief discussion about our own experiences with conducting archival research and recommendations for New York City archives and online digital archives.

Transcript

Follow the podcast:

Twitter and Instagram: @LatinxVisions

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Hosts: Rojo Robles and Rebecca L. Salois

Logo Design: Marcos Toledo

Music: Shawn P. Russell

Sound Consultant and Mixing: Shawn P. Russell

Recording and Editing: Rebecca L. Salois

Bonus: Entrevista con Helen Ceballos

**This episode is part of the Black and Latinx Studies Department 2022-2023 Afro-Latinidades Series sponsored by BRESI.**

 

Este episodio es completamente en español./This episode is completely in Spanish.

En este episodio hablamos con Helen Ceballos. Helen es una artista multi-trans-inter-disciplinaria nacida en la República Dominicana que estudió en la Universidad de Puerto Rico y la Universidad Nacional de las Artes en Buenos Aires, Argentina. Ella estableció “Mezcolanza” en 2013, una plataforma cultural para artistas estadounidenses, latinoamericanos y caribeños, y es la directora de Plataforma Eje, una organización que promueve proyectos culturales y comunitarios. Helen usa su propio cuerpo en sus obras para destacar la identidad caribeña y su experiencia con la diáspora y lo erótico. Ella también explora los efectos de la migración y los desastres naturales. Para ella, su arte es personal y su fotografía intenta mostrar el poder de la comunidad, especialmente en y junto a grupos racializados y marginalizados.

Transcript

 

Follow the podcast:

Twitter and Instagram: @LatinxVisions

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Hosts: Rojo Robles and Rebecca L. Salois

Logo Design: Marcos Toledo

Music: Shawn P. Russell

Sound Consultant and Mixing: Shawn P. Russell

Recording and Editing: Rebecca L. Salois

Latinx NYC: Theater by Dolores Prida

In this episode we discuss two plays written by Dolores Prida, Coser y Cantar and Botánica. We provide some background on the author and how her works embody many of the themes and concepts we see in other Latinx playwrights from New York City. Rojo looks at Coser y Cantar and the role of NYC as an interior scape and a bilingual city, as well as through the lens of media and culture. Then Rebecca considers the "transcultural pendulum" that the the main character Milagros experiences in Botánica along with the symbolism of the buffalos in this play. Finally, as usual, we wrap up with a couple of additional recommendations for Latinx theater by NY playwrights.

 

Follow the podcast:

Twitter and Instagram: @LatinxVisions

Transcript 

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Hosts: Rojo Robles and Rebecca L. Salois

Logo Design: Marcos Toledo

Music: Shawn P. Russell

Sound Consultant and Mixing: Shawn P. Russell

Recording and Editing: Rebecca L. Salois

Latinx NYC: Literature - Bodega Dreams

Welcome to episode two of our fourth seasons of Latinx Visions. In this episode we discuss the novel Bodega Dreams by Ernesto Quiñonez, which was published in 2000. Rojo proposes three entryways into Bodega Dreams, a novel that goes deep into the idea of Nuyorican empowerment highlighting the importance of personal determination, cultural pride, and political engagement in creating a just and equitable society. And Rebecca discusses neoliberalism and its effects on the character of Willie Bodega and on El Barrio as a whole. Finally, we wrap up our episode with a couple of recommendations for novels by Latinx authors that take place in New York City. 

 

Follow the podcast:

Twitter and Instagram: @LatinxVisions

Transcript

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Hosts: Rojo Robles and Rebecca L. Salois

Logo Design: Marcos Toledo

Music: Shawn P. Russell

Sound Consultant and Mixing: Shawn P. Russell

Recording and Editing: Rebecca L. Salois

Latinx NYC: Television and Film - Ugly Betty and Raising Victor Vargas

Bienvenidos, Bienvenidas, Bienvenides. Welcome to season 4 of Latinx Visions. This season we will be focusing on Latinx New York City. New York City has a significant Latinx population, with over 2.2 million people identifying as Hispanic or Latino in the city as of 2020. This diverse group is made up of migrants, immigrants, and descendants from a variety of countries, including the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Ecuador to name just the biggest groups in terms of population. The Latinx community in NYC is concentrated in boroughs like The Bronx and in neighborhoods, such as Washington Heights, El Barrio or East Harlem, and Los Sures or South Williamsburg.

In this episode, we discuss the ABC television series Ugly Betty, which starrs America Ferrera, and the film Raising Victor Vargas, a 2002 Latinx coming-of-age comedy film directed by Peter Sollett and co-written by him and Eva Vives.

 

Follow the podcast:

Twitter and Instagram: @LatinxVisions

Transcript

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Hosts: Rojo Robles and Rebecca L. Salois

Logo Design: Marcos Toledo

Music: Shawn P. Russell

Sound Consultant and Mixing: Shawn P. Russell

Recording and Editing: Rebecca L. Salois

Student Special #6

In this episode we feature projects by LTS 3059 student John Avila, LTS 1003 students Daisy Ho and Jaydin Mohan, and LTS 3012 student Kevin Calixto.  

John’s research focuses on family building and economic stability for Latinx workers. He uses the novel Chingada by Rigoberto Gonzalez and Estamos Aqui: Poems by Migrant Farm Workers to guide his discussion. 

Daisy takes a different approach to her project and considers the implementation of the carbon tax in Chile. She discusses the effects of climate change in Latin America and the response to Chile being the first country in Latin America to enforce a carbon tax on corporations. 

Jaydin dives into Latine stereotypes found in pop-culture. She speaks to the importance of breaking racial and ethnic stereotypes and dives into the history of Latinx representation throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. 

And to wrap up this week’s podcast episode, Kevin considers the influence of Latinas in film and the importance of diverse representation. In particular he considers the lack of Afro-Latina representation in the media and how that affects the ways in which audiences perceive latinidad. 

 

Follow the podcast:

Twitter and Instagram: @LatinxVisions

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Hosts: Rojo Robles and Rebecca L. Salois

Logo Design: Marcos Toledo

Music: Shawn P. Russell

Sound Consultant and Mixing: Shawn P. Russell

Recording and Editing: Rebecca L. Salois

Student Special #5

In this episode we feature projects by LTS 3012 students Edith Valerio, Roxanna Escamilla, and Nina Rodas and LTS 1003 student Michelle Kozinets.

First we will hear from Edith who speaks about the struggles of being both a full time student and a full time worker. Edith herself identifies as both of these things and wanted to explore the effects of doing both on the mental, emotional, and physical health of students who are also full time employees. 

This will be followed by Michelle’s exploration of mental health awareness and treatment for women in Latin America. She considers how physical issues such as gender-based violence and varying degrees of abortion access can lead to mental health issues. 

The third segment features Roxanna Escamilla who discusses issues related to Latina body image. She investigates the struggles and pressure that Latinas face to live up to certain body image standards and the effects of the family and media on those insecurities. 

We will wrap up this episode with Nina’s exploration of Latinas who do not speak Spanish. She argues that just because someone does not speak Spanish, it doesn’t make them any less Latina. She elaborates on some of the other ways in which people can participate in culture beyond language.

Transcript

Follow the podcast:

Twitter and Instagram: @LatinxVisions

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hosts: Rojo Robles and Rebecca L. Salois

Logo Design: Marcos Toledo

Music: Shawn P. Russell

Sound Consultant and Mixing: Shawn P. Russell

Recording and Editing: Rebecca L. Salois