Stop by for free lunch and a mini-lesson or two from our in-house experts, the 2018-2019 Latino Research Initiative Research Fellows. No need to commit to an hour-long lecture! Just follow our Fellows down the rabbit hole in the time it takes to scarf down a plate of enchiladas. (Yes, there will be enchiladas!)

Topics, In Their Words: 

"Double-Crossers: U.S. Latinos in the Civil War"
By: Jesse Aleman

"My talk is not so much about US Latino/as who participated in the Civil War as much as it is about how the Civil War proved to be transformative for those Latino/a observers or participants who wrote about it. The Civil War, I maintain, embattled Latino/as living in the United States at the time, putting them at war with divided national loyalties between Mexico, the United States, Cuba, and the Confederacy; these divided loyalties in turn ignited conflicted personal positions around issues of language, acculturation, race, religion, and assimilation. We'll look at recovered letters, journals, autobiographies, and other forms of writing to examine how the Civil War era put U.S. Latino/as at civil war, so to speak, with themselves, their national identities, and their conflicted sense of belonging in the United States, leaving them crossed and double crossed along multiple fronts." 

"Crossovers: U.S.-Mexico Art, Cinema, and Literature"
By: Amy Sara Carroll

"In this presentation I’ll discuss my critical and creative process, referring to my past and current work. I’ll read a poem or two; speak about my monograph, REMEX: Toward an Art History of the NAFTA Era; and, straining against time limitations, share some of my recent thoughts on Guillermo del Toro’s myriad iterations of The Strain Trilogy and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s virtual reality installation Carne y Arena. Acknowledging the joys of collaborative thinking, I'll finally note that I look forward to the public conversation with Jesse about our projects’ covert and overt connections."