CLACS @ NYU

Quechua Short-film by CLACS Alumna Featured on May Sumak’s Second Day

By Alek Barbour, CLACS MA Candidate

Coming off of its successful first day and workshop, the 5th annual May Sumak Quichwa film showcase continues this Friday, October 23rd. Starting at 8 pm ET and live-streamed through YouTube and on their website. The overarching theme for this Friday’s showcase is Ayllukunamata Yuyay (Memories of Community o Memorias de Comunidad). These films will “speak to the continuity of relationships across migratory realities.”

May Sumak began in 2015 through the Quechua at NYU student-led group, Runasimi Outreach Committee, and is currently co-organized by Sandy Enriquez and Charlie Uruchima who are both CLACS alumni. However, that will not be the only connection on October 23rd. One of the films featured this Friday is by another NYU CLACS alumna, Doris Loayza. Her film, Bronx Llaktamanta is scheduled to be the second film of the night. Doris will also participate in a Q&A forum, moderated by The Quechua Collective of New York, along with filmmaker Chaska Rojas-Bottger.

Racial Justice Advocacy in Latin America and the US Explored Side by Side at NYU this Week

This week, on October 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, CLACS and the NYU Law School are presenting events that spotlight the groundwork of black activists and legal advocates for racial justice in Latin America and the US. The events will explore the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic in the struggle against racism in black communities of South America, and revisit the historic dissent by US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, 35 years ago, that called for equal protection to Haitian immigrants and prohibiting governmental racial discrimination, respectively.

5th Annual May Sumak Film Festival Goes Virtual & Starts Today

The 5th annual May Sumak film festival starts today, Friday, October 16th, and will be held virtually this year over the next consecutive Fridays, on October 23rd and the 30th of 2020, all starting at 8 pm. As in previous years, the film screenings and conversations with filmmakers are organized under the overarching themes of Away Pacha (Weaving Time and Space), Ayllukunamanta Yuyay (Memories of Community), and Sinchi Sapi (Strong Roots). The festival also includes trilingual Kichwa/Quechua community-oriented workshops called Laboratorio Runa Ñawi, designed to “promote the creation of audiovisual media in the Quechua-Kichwa-Andinx diaspora.” The first of these Laboratorios will be held on Monday, October 19th (en Español el Jueves, 23 de Octubre), and it will feature the Kichwa lens-based artist Eli Farinango.

Welcoming our 2020 CLACS Teaching Fellows Program Cohort

by Marchita Primavera, CLACS MA Candidate

On Saturday, September 12, the 2020 Teaching Fellows cohort held its first meeting of the year-long program, and we are excited to report that it was a success. The virtual meeting was attended by ten K-12 educators of diverse disciplines (history, language, and math), and various grade levels, who teach in different New York boroughs, Illinois, and Puerto Rico. The gathering led by program’s coordinator and CLACS Visiting Scholar Thomas Troisi, served to introduce the cohort to the schedule details, vision and goals, as well as to formally introduce the organizing committee which includes education experts and CLACS faculty members.

Cuban and Brazilian Film Featured this Week at CLACS

As we start the Fall semester, in the first week of the season, CLACS will be hosting public programming highlighting Latin American/Caribbean film, from Cuba and Brazil, featuring the scholarly work and commentary of faculty member Dylon Robbins.

On Monday, September 28 at 6pm, we will be hosting the launch of Guillén Landrián o el desconcierto fílmico. The book co-edited by Julio Ramos and Dylon Robbins, features essays by various authors on the recently re-discovered work of Cuban filmmaker Guillén Landrián. The event will feature presentations by the editors, and one the book’s contributor, Cuban scholar Odette Casamayor Cisneros.

To register and for more information, please visit our website.

De la emergencia humanitaria compleja al COVID-19: la migración venezolana

Mikhael G. Iglesias L. – Candidato de Maestría, NYU CLACS

Más de 5 millones de venezolanos han dejado su país a medida que la crisis humanitaria se ha ido agravando, buscando mejores condiciones de vida en países vecinos. Las oleadas de emigrantes han estado presionando a los gobiernos de la región para que examinen qué políticas adoptar para atender la crisis que desborda la fronteras de Venezuela. Recientemente, bajo el contexto de la pandemia por COVID-19, el escenario migratorio se vuelve más complicado. Los venezolanos en otros países se encuentran en medio de la pandemia, afectados por el desempleo y la falta de acceso al sistema de salud pública por un lado. Por otro, sopesando las dificultades de retornar a un país que sigue en deterioro y que los discrimina señalándolos como “armas biológicas”.

Noviembre 2018, paso fronterizo entre Venezuela y Colombia. Créditos: Ligia Bolívar

La situación de los venezolanos que han salido de su país es complicada. El proyecto Migrantes y Refugiados Venezolanos del Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello reporta que muchos han salido caminando hacia Colombia, siendo aproximadamente 1,800,000 venezolanos en el país vecino (Ver gráfica para más detalles). En el caso de Colombia, nada mas el 43% se encuentra en una situación legal regular. Tan sólo unos 5 mil venezolanos han solicitado la condición de refugiado, de los cuales nada más se les ha otorgado a 140. Mas allá de la legalidad, el 90% se encuentra trabajando en el sector informal, lo que señala la condición crítica y vulnerable en la que se encuentran en medio de la fragilidad económica ante la pandemia.

A US-Colombia University Collaboration Launches the Colombia: Past, Present, and Futures Initiative

By Amparo Hoffman-Pinilla & Sonia Ospina, NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service

During the 2020 Spring semester three Colombian academics delivered presentations about their research through a Faculty Working Group Series that is part of the Colombia: Past, Present, and Futures initiative. This is a collaboration between scholars from NYU and Universidad del Rosario (URosario) in Colombia, which brings together NYU’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) and the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, in partnership with URosario’s Academic Vice-Provost Office, and the Peace, Conflict and Peace Research Center (Centro de Estudios en Conflictos y Paz).

The goal of this collaboration is to raise awareness, deepen understanding and foster discussion among professors, students and community members interested in current challenges and opportunities affecting the peace process, democratic governance and sustainable development in Colombia. The Initiative capitalized on the presence of a critical mass of professors from URosario in NYC during the Spring semester: Juan Vargas, Professor of Economics and Visiting Professor at NYU’s Political Science Department during the 2019-2020 academic year; Angela Santamaría, Professor of URosario’s Conflict and Peace Research Center (Centro de Estudios en Conflictos y Paz) and Visiting Scholar at NYU/Wagner during the Spring of 2020; and Bastien Bosa, Professor of Anthropology and a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University during the Spring of 2020.

Riesgos y necesidades de las comunidades indígenas ante COVID-19

Mikhael G. Iglesias L. – Candidato de Maestría, NYU CLACS

A medida que los casos y muertes diarias aumentan en el mundo, donde Latinoamérica y el Caribe representa un 45% de las muertes, sectores históricamente abandonados por políticas públicas en la región como las comunidades indígenas y afro-descendientes quienes se ven más vulnerables frente a la pandemia. El acceso limitado para estas comunidades a servicios básicos como agua, luz o servicios sanitarios, en el contexto de COVID-19 expone la precariedad y riesgo que enfrentan. Prácticas culturales, o incluso idiomas en algunos casos, están en riesgo de desaparecer. Igualmente significativo es el deterioro de la calidad de vida debido al no poder mantener sus actividades económicas ni poder acceder a un sistema de salud pública adecuado.

Toro Toro, Norte de Potosí, Bolivia. Créditos: Gladys Camacho

Carla García, Coordinadora de Relaciones Internacionales de OFRANEH (Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña) y miembro de la comunidad garífuna de Honduras, describe cómo se preparan ante el COVID-19. “Nosotros estamos en constante comunicación con nuestros ancestros”, comentó Carla al explicar sobre un mensaje transmitido que resaltaba la importancia de tener el sistema inmune activo para reducir o prevenir complicaciones debido a COVID-19. Ella junto a sus hijos contrajeron el virus y con los tés adecuados que mencionaron los ancestros, pudieron lidiar con los síntomas y padecimientos que el virus presentó en sus casos.

CLACS lanza serie informativa sobre COVID-19 en lenguas indígenas y diaspóricas

Conversemos COVID-19 es una iniciativa producida por el Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos y Caribeños de NYU con el propósito de ofrecer información valiosa sobre la pandemia en las varias lenguas indígenas y diaspóricas más habladas en Nueva York.

La información es provista en video-cápsulas de 90 segundos narradas en 8 lenguas habladas por comunidades migrantes de México, Ecuador, Haití, Honduras, Bolivia, Perú, que incluyen Quechua, Creól Haitiano, Náhuatl, Mixteco, Garífuna, y Kichwa. Puede accesar las video-cápsulas http://idlc.nyc/conversemos-covid-19/.

Estas video-cápsulas son escritas creadas e ilustradas como parte de un proceso colaborativo por La Colaborativa de Lenguas Indígenas y Diaspóricas en la que participan miembros del personal del Instituto de Estudios Mexicanos de Lehman College, Kichwa Hatari, y la Summer Linguistics School of Bolivia.

Este primer episodio, ofrece consejos de como mantener la buena salud mental durante estos tiempos difíciles, y está basado en las recomendaciones de la CDC y la Organización Panamericana de la Salud. En los próximos episodios se tratarán temas como el importancia de la utilización de máscaras o barbijos, la higiene y seguridad en el trabajo, entre otros.

CLACS Launches Indigenous and Diasporic Language COVID-19 PSA Series

The NYU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies has launched “Conversemos COVID-19” (“Let’s Talk COVID-19”), an initiative aimed at offering information about the pandemic in various indigenous and diasporic languages widely spoken in New York.

The information is delivered in 90-second video capsules translated into eight languages, including Quechua, Haitian Kreyol, Nahuatl, Mixtec, Garifuna, and Kichwa, spoken by immigrant communities from Mexico, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Peru, Bolivia, and others. The capsules may be viewed online at http://idlc.nyc/conversemos-covid-19/.

The capsules are written, created, and illustrated as part of a collaborative process headed by the Indigenous and Diasporic Language Collaborative, whose members include the Mexican Studies Institute at Lehman College, Kichwa Hatari, and the Summer Linguistics School of Bolivia.

The first episode is based on recommendations promoted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Panamerican Health Organization on maintaining good mental health during the pandemic. Future episodes will focus on mask-wearing and returning to work safely, among other topics.