Latinx Visions

Today we begin our sixth season of Latinx Visions. This semester we are considering Latinx Climate Activism and are speaking with different individuals and organizations about the connections between culture, community, and climate. We are speaking with writers, creators, and activists on how they engage with and bring attention to the climate crisis.   In this episode, we share a conversation we...

In this special student episode, we feature projects by LTS 1003 students Samantha Lopez, Zittlali Tepezila Bonilla, and Fareha Othiye. First we hear from Samantha who considers the many different labels used by people of Latin American descent in the United States. She discusses the popularity of these terms, the generational expectations surrounding these terms, and the general awareness of word...

Today we have a conversation with scholar and cultural activist, Dr. Lizbeth De la Cruz Santana, who also just happens to be our newest Baruch College, Black and Latino Studies colleague. We recorded this interview in person on October 28th, 2023 at Baruch College. In previous seasons we have spoken with Dr. Keisha Allan and PhD Candidate Joseph Caceres, who are also BLS colleagues, and we hope to...

Today we have a conversation with poet, storyteller, and essayist Roberto Carlos Garcia that we are excited to share with you. This interview took place on October 7, 2023, via Zoom. In a sense, this is a follow up to the season 2 episode, Afro-Latinidad and Literature: Afro-Latinx Poetry in which, along with We Are Owed by Ariana Brown and Love is Hard Work by Miguel Algarín, we discussed García’...

Hoy presentamos otro episodio en español tal como hicimos en la temporada pasada. Nuestro plan es seguir produciendo, por lo menos, un episodio en español cada semestre. Iniciamos el episodio introduciendo a nuestra invitada, Natalia Lassalle-Morillo. Compartimos algunos datos sobre ella como contexto, incluyendo sus intereses particulares y metodologías artísticas. Después damos paso a la entrevi...

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 w...

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 Gam...

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 generalizat...

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 arc...

**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...

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...

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 equi...

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 Rep...

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...

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...

In this episode we introduce you to two fantastic New York-based Puerto Rican playwrights who are at different stages of their careers: Javier Antonio González and Daniela Gonzalez y Perez. We were able to sit down with them and discuss their experiences as queer Boricua-Latinx creators and will be sharing our full conversation with them in this episode. After the conversation concludes, we will c...

On Thursday October 20th, the Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence Program held a reading and conversation with best-selling and award winning author Carmen Maria Machado and invited us to interview her as part of that event. This episode includes a brief background Machado, the author of In the Dream House, The Low, Low Woods, and Her Body and Other Stories along with numerous essays and short stori...

In this episode, featuring Dr. Keisha Allan, we discuss Jean-Michel Baquiat, a Black American artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican ancestry who grew up in New York. We provide background on the artist and discuss a current (as of 2022) exhibition of his art, King Pleasure. Then we look at some of the connections he had with other artists and some of the theories related to his art. Most importantly,...

In this episode, Rebecca discusses the ways in which Love, Victor (2020-2022) provides a necessary and relatively positive (but sometimes overly safe) coming out/coming of age story for a gay Latino teen. Rojo considers the 2019 independent film The Garden Left Behind. This film follows Tina, a Mexican trans woman who moved to New York City when she was a child and as an adult lives with her grand...

In this week's Student Special we feature projects by LTS 1003 student Roxanna Escamilla, LTS 3100 student Diego Gonzalez, LTS 3085 students Matthew Queme and Emma Rose, and IDC 3001 students Tasia Muskan and Allyson Triana.  Roxanna’s research focuses on Latinx identities, in particular that feeling of living in between cultures and not feeling as though you truly belong as an American or as a La...

Over the next two weeks we will be sharing podcast episodes that feature recordings our students created over the past year. In this episode we feature projects by LTS 3110 student Jacqueline Ortiz and LTS 1003 students Abigail Garcia Vazquez, Arleth Robles, and Nina Rodas First up is Jacqueline’s episode which considers, in her words, “blackness and whiteness and their role in creating and permea...

In this episode we bring you an interview we recorded with Black Latinas Know Collective scholar and member, Dr. Omaris Zamora. We provide a bit of background on the Collective and Dr. Zamora before we get into the interview itself. You will then hear our previously recorded interview with Omaris where we ask about her research and publications, her experiences with the Collective, and how the org...

In this episode we discuss Latinx and, more specifically, Afro-Latinx representation in comic books in general, share some examples of Afro-Latinx superheroes, and introduce the hero of this episode: Miles Morales, Spider-Man. Since this episode focuses on Afro-Latinx art, we then discuss the creation of Miles Morales as Spider-Man as a comic book figure as well as the storifying and geometrizing...

In This Episode we introduce you to three poetry collections: Love Is Hard Work: Memorias de Loisaida, by Miguel Algarín, black/Maybe by Roberto Carlos Garcia, and We Are Owed., by Ariana Brown. In the main segment of our episode today we share a little bit of the history of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and discuss Algarín’s role as one of its founding poets. Then we analyze Brown’s inclusion of Gaspa...

In the first episode of season two, we discuss both film and television. In particular we consider Afro-Latinx representation in the 1994 film, I Like It Like That and the 2018 television series, POSE. There are a number of themes that overlap between the two works, but for this episode, we focus on trans lives in Latinx communities, chosen family vs. biological family, queer activism, and the flu...