On Wednesday, March 20, 2024, CLAS hosted a successful Lunchtime Talk event with speaker Carolina Sánchez, Colombian writer and researcher. Sánchez is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American Literature at Rutgers University and a co-editor of the Latin American Platform for Environmental Humanities. 

The presentation for the day was titled: "Environmental Historical Memory: Aesthetic Interventions in Contemporary Latin America." This interdisciplinary environmental research delves into how artistic archives contribute to the formation of imaginaries for environmental care and sustainability amid the 20th and 21 st century neoliberal crises in Latin America. In particular, this research analyzes how the novel Autobiography of Cotton (2020) by Mexican author Cristina Rivera Garza and the River Serpent Book (2017) by Colombian artist Carolina Caycedo contribute to building a transnational, environmental, historical memory that includes women, as well as non’human actors like plants and rivers, as marginalized political agents. 

We hope to continue hosting such events and encourage anyone interested in attending other interesting talks like this to please refer to CLAS's Upcoming events page. Events are open to everyone! 

Congratulations to Franklin Moreno,  postdoctoral fellow at The Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice in the Department of Psychology at Rutgers for co-writing and publishing  a new article  in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations. The article, titled:  ’When someone is in a safe place, I believe that your mind rests“ emotional security amid community violence: A cross-national study with youth in Newark, New Jersey, USA, and San Pedro Sula, Cortes, Honduras. 

Youth are impacted by violence across multiple contexts, where prior research on youth well-being has considered community violence as a general source of risk. However, previous research has omitted the experiences of exposure by youth that involve the co-occurrence of insecurity with multiple groups in the community, such as with the police and gangs. This cross-national study examines the experiences of security, insecurity, and violence of youth through an integrated  framework consisting of Emotional Security Theory, prior exposure to community violence research, and a social ecological perspective. Focus groups were conducted with 14–22-year-olds (N 48; 63% Males) in Newark, New Jersey, USA, and (N 60; 61%, Females) in San Pedro Sula (SPS), Cortes, Honduras. Results show similar cross-national responses: youth expressed emotions of anger and anxiety in conditions of violence and insecurity; and sense of calm and happiness in conditions of safety. Differences in interactions between security and violence were found as a function of location. Results also indicate that youth are not only exposed to multiple forms of violence, but varying forms of violence also interact with one another. This qualitative study is the _first phase of research on emotional security across four contexts of community violence: policing, gangs, family, and other neighborhood residents.

Read the Article Here

The Center for Latin American Studies is very glad to announce the recipients of the CLAS/RAICCS 2024 Graduate student research grants. 

This year CLAS collaborated with RAICCS through its Interim Director (and CLAS affiliate), Prof. Kathleen Lopez.

We were able to fund most of the applications we received, and we look forward to hearing next year how the research and training we funded proceeded.  Funding for these grants is provided by the School of Arts and Sciences and the income from CLAS summer and winter session teaching. We shared nearly $20,000 in grants of modest size.  We look forward to receiving more funding for this effort in the coming years.

Congrats to all the awardees 

• Anderson de Andrade, PhD Sociology, New Brunswick--Conduct preliminary ethnographic research at the Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas - a non-profit offering shelter to refugees and migrants through participation in their volunteer program.                       
• Tamara Velasquez Leiferman, PhD Global Urban Studies, Newark--Cover expenses (travel, lodging) for 2-3 weeks of fieldwork in Mexico City this summer.                           
• Diana Iturralde, PhD Art History, New Brunswick  --Travel to Lima, Peru, to conduct field and archival research for my dissertation "Chasing the Amazon: Visual Representations of Andean Amazonia from the Nineteenth Century to the Present." While in this city, I will visit cultural and research centers, museums, galleries, and artists’ studios, allowing me to write two of the four chapters in my project.        
• Jian Ren, PhD History, New Brunswick--Research trip to Brazil and Argentina for collecting locally published Chinese-language newspapers in the 1980s and conducting oral interviews with business and migrant leaders who received Chinese visitors in the 1980s.     
• Gabriela Duncan, MA City and Regional Planning, New Brunswick—Join an Embedded Spring Study Abroad opportunity in St. Lucia with the focus of the course being public management, especially within the non-profit sector in the Caribbean.          
• Nathan Darmiento, PhD History, New Brunswick  --Exploratory research in Mexico City, Oaxaca, Chiapas (National Library, General Archive of the Nation, University of the South - Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca).              
• Leonardo Calzada, PhD Geography, New Brunswick --Travel to the INEGI microdata laboratory to consult the agrarian and ejido census for the years 2007 and 2022. This information will be used as explanatory variables for the construction of a cellular automata model to generate scenarios of forest change to 2030 in the Calakmul Sian Ka'an corridor, Mexico.                           
• Sandra Acocal, PhD History, New Brunswick--Nahuatl language course in summer, and archival work in Arvhivo General de Indias, Sevilla, Spain, autumn 2024.                  
• Gloria D'Alessio, MA Anthropology, New Brunswick --Summer preliminary fieldwork for my thesis proposal on the migration corridor in the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama. Specifically, in the city of Necoclí, on the Colombian side of the corridor, to analyze the local economies and local lives transformation after the increase of migration flow in the last years.                         
• Clive Echague, PhD Anthropology, New Brunswick --Exploratory fieldwork in border cities of northern Chile.                
• Daniela Mosquera, PhD Geography, New Brunswick--Fieldwork during July and August of 2024 in the Caribbean Northwest of Colombia, focusing on the notions of campesinos and campesinas regarding property, and the socio-environmental conflicts tied to this notion in the region.             
• Javier Gonzalez, PhD History, New Brunswick--A two-month research trip to Bogotá, Colombia, to conduct archival work at the historical archives of the Sociedad de Mejoras y Ornato de Bogotá, the Archive of Bogotá, and the National Library. My objective is to explore materials that document specific relationships between people and animals in the city during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This will include investigating the establishment and development of public policies, animal protection societies, zoological gardens, bullrings, horse courses, dog tracks, and game hunting.   
• Nia Cambridge, PhD Geography, New Brunswick  --Support scoping research for my dissertation proposal on climate change strategy and post-disaster futures in the Anglophone Caribbean. This summer I will mostly be conducting document analysis and interviews with key informants         
• Dalia Grinan, PhD History, New Brunswick--Full summer of archival research in Cuba.                          
• Laurien Rosa Rosa, PhD Geography, New Brunswick--Conduct preliminary fieldwork in Puerto Rico. While there, I will conduct interviews with community members claiming lands back from the U.S. Army and visit the General Archive and the Puerto Rican Collection at the University of Puerto Rico to understand the context in which expropriations of these communities were made in the 1940s.  
• Mildred Lopez Escudero, PhD Spanish and Portuguese, New Brunswick--First interview to storytellers for my dissertation "Performance and Public Engagement for Environmental Justice: Storytelling and Community Theatre in Latin America (Peru, Chile)      
• Javiera Barrientos, PhD English, New Brunswick--To research the Colonial Liturgical Manuscript MHN 3-38169 acquired by the Museo Histórico Nacional of Chile in 1911     

Call for Articles and Blogs for Website on Latinos in New Jersey 

The LSRI issued a call for researchers and community leaders to write research-based blogs with photos, sound clips, maps, and other supplementary material that help us understand the diverse Latino communities of New Jersey.  This material will be part of a website that will accompany the publication of the Rutgers University Press book on Latinos in New Jersey, which Professors Lauria Santiago and Ulla Berg edited. As part of this work,  LSRI secured funding from the New Jersey Historical Commission and other sources for a companion website. The website will include information on the book and extend the scope of the book to additional publications in the form of short blogs, teaching guides, maps, and supplementary material by the book chapter authors. 

Please feel free to share the poster below with anyone who may be interested! 

For More Information, Click Here