Afro-Latinx Studies

This two-section article and interview with Jesús Hilario-Reyes, a queer, non-binary, Afro-Caribbean artist, explores their artwork to connect trans new media histories to contemporary trans Chicanx scholarship via recent notions on "glitch" and "stitch." The introduction connects Hilario-Reyes's uprootedness to trans thoughts on "the cut" and trans Chicanx scholar Francisco Galarte's concept of "Brown transfiguration." In Section One, Hilario-Reyes discusses their new media practices in relation to land, water, displacement, and diasporic disembodiment. The interview in Section One reveals their experiences with migration, as they reflect on their 3D animated work about Puerto Rico's post-Hurricane Maria flooding, and their role as a DJ creating queer Black space. Section Two delves deeper into their 3D art and music as a healing response to displacement, mourning, and "destierro" (being ripped from one's homeland). Hilario-Reyes's creativity, expressed through 3D animations, performance, and sound, becomes an embodied and worldbuilding practice infused with resistance and queer Black sovereignty. Their perspectives on "glitch, love, and storms" offer adjacent strategies to resistance optics, addressing the visibility/invisibility dynamics inherent in transphobia and white supremacy. Their understanding of climate change's white supremacist root cause affecting Puerto Rico leads to a transformation of the disembodying effects of systemic violence through trans and Black-informed gestures. Through Hilario-Reyes's 3D animations and video games, the article connects their work to larger trans scholarship, new media, and trans video game histories. Embodying non-binary and Afro-Caribbean thought, Hilario-Reyes re-engages the body, love, humanness, and their multiple possible selves, turning systemic violence's cataclysmic failures into trans and Afro-Caribbean liberation.

Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature presents the experiences and voices of Black creative writers who are also teachers. The authors in this collection engage poetry, fiction, experimental literature, playwriting, and literary criticism. They provide historical and theoretical interventions and practical advice for teachers and students of literature and craft. Contributors work in high schools, colleges, and community settings and draw from these rich contexts in their essays. This book is an invaluable tool for teachers, practitioners, change agents, and presses. Teaching Black is for any and all who are interested in incorporating Black literature and conversations on Black literary craft into their own work.

This text focuses on US Afro-Latinx literature and the Dominican mythical figure of la ciguapa-a female being with oppositeoriented feet and eyes-a lens to examine the subjectivity and practices of Afro-Latinx mothers genealogies. Although the legend was originally used to dehumanize maroon communities, emphasizing the need to "whiten" the population, this article proposes that la ciguapa can now be reclaimed as a symbol of Afro-Latinx emancipatory mothering. Ciguapas' embodied Blackness and ambiguity decenter the emblematic Virgen-Malinche pair and its dichotomous, mestizo, and Mexican-centric implications of Latinx motherhood. Drawing on Acevedo, Coster, and Avila's work, I argue that ciguapas share with Afro-Latinx mothers their folklore-future ambivalence, their community-based organization, and their "undesirable" and silenced yet emancipative mothering. Linking ciguapas and US Black-Latinx mothers not only through monstrous and othered maternity, but also through marronage and feminist fugitivity challenges conservative, colonial, and capitalist "madre patria" practices.

Introduction: Adolescent anxiety is influenced by a variety of factors, and there is a need to develop more effective care and rehabilitation plans. Being an important component, mindfulness can play a major role in mental health in adolescents.
Objective: The purpose of the study is to check the effect of mindfulness therapy on anxiety levels in adolescents. Methodology: Adolescents studying in Dehradun's private and public schools participated in this pre-posttest study. Written consents were obtained, and 120 study participants who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria were chosen from stratified data. Four groups were formed including 10 male and 10 female adolescents in each group. while 22 adolescents were excluded and 18 were kept in waiting list. The Beck anxiety inventory was utilized to gather data on anxiety. A total of 15 mindfulness sessions were employed for each group to control anxiety. A t-test was applied for statistical analysis.
Findings: Initial anxiety level of adolescents was 48.90 in the extremely severe category. After 15 mindfulness sessions, the subject’s anxiety degree was reduced by 82.11%. Conclusion: This investigation is a diagnostic study, which is aimed at managing the level of anxiety in adolescents. The study discovered that adolescents’ anxiety was reduced significantly following mindfulness. In general, it is found that mindfulness is useful in the management of adolescents’ anxiety

This chapter examines five AfroLatinx visual artists-Carlos Martiel, Alan Pelaez Lopez, Shellyne Rodriguez, Juana Valdés, and Yelaine Rodriguez-whose artworks provoke radical, intersectional empathy to radically unsettle normative and oversimplified accounts of Latinx art and of the Latinx community that favor whiteness disguised behind a discourse of pan-ethnic, multiracial harmony. Instead, these artists insist that we acknowledge how anti-Blackness operates historically and still today within the Latinx community. The term "Latinx" was coined by activists in the early 2000s as a non-binary, gender-inclusive alternative to "Latino/Latina," used to describe people of Latin American and Caribbean descent who live and work in the United States. As a political concept, the term Latinx brings visibility to people marginalized within heteronormative and whitewashing frameworks and it coalesces a justice-oriented political project. Namely, the "x" insists that we acknowledge how oppression and inequality are experienced unequally and intersectionally by Queer, Trans, Women, Black, and Indigenous members of our community. Taking inspiration from the artists considered, this chapter issues a call to action: only by centering AfroLatinx experience and creativity can we fully actualize the coalitional, relational, and emancipatory possibilities of Latinx Studies and methods.

This essay introduces readers to a recent choreopoem, or a play that is choreographed as a poem, by Afro-Latiné author, poet, playwright, performer, and educator Jasminne Mendez, titled City without Altar. The choreopoem centers the transhistorical experience of a massacre of Afro-Dominican and Haitian populations that occurred on the northern Dominican border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic in the town of Dajabón. I name it as transhistorical because of Mendez's intuitive and intersubjective mode of writing that connects her experiences with disabilities, which resemble those of el corte, with the afterlives of the victims themselves. I argue that Mendez provides a genealogical and aesthetic study of el corte that centers a Afro-Dominican femme interior life that is structured by the particularity of its afterlife.

This is an open access arti cle dis trib uted under the terms of a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). 182 Poetic Schemas Reading Antiblack Collusions in Puerto Rican Aesthetics J u d i t h R o d R í g u e z abstract This arti cle reads the affec tive charge of ethnonationalism and antiblackness in Puerto Rican poet ics and per for mance. Moving from the "leg i ble" affect in Afro-Puerto Rican fem i nist poet Julia de Burgos's ethnonational poetry to the "illeg i ble" affect expe ri enced on stage by Afro-Puerto Rican queer the ater and per for mance art ist Javier Cárdona Otero, this arti cle pro vi des a fragmented tra jec tory of the anti black and white suprem a cist affec tive vio lence con sti tu tive of art-mak ing in Puerto Rico. In doing so, it locates an aes thetic col lu sion between ethnonationalism and antiblackness that in turn illumi na tes how the aes thet ics of Puerto Ricanness can be anti black, a claim that calls into ques tion Puerto Rican nation al ism's desire or need for eth nic dif fer ence.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) offers temporary administrative relief from deportation for undocumented immigrant adolescents and young adults who were brought as children to the United States. Accordingly, DACA has contributed to creating a different landscape of opportunities for this group. However, DACA has been and continues to be highly contested in the national political climate. Threats to DACA give rise to considerable anxiety, fear, and distress among its recipients, who face significant barriers to accessing mental health care services. Thus, a group of psychologists partnered with a leading immigrant rights advocacy organization and formed a reciprocal collaboration to understand and meet the mental health needs of undocumented communities. A major focus of the collaboration is to foster learning and support members of the immigrant community in contributing to their own well-being. The collaborative developed and delivered a stand-alone web-based mental health education session to DACA recipients and their families and practitioners serving this population. The session presented the use of dialectical behavioral therapy skills, three emotion regulation and four distress tolerance skills, as a strength-based approach to managing painful emotions and distress. Session content was adapted to include culturally informed examples for each skill. Quantitative and qualitative findings show that those who participated in the web-based program benefited from the education received. Findings also underscored participants' need for learning culturally sensitive coping strategies for managing stress. We provide recommendations on the delivery of culturally congruent healing interventions for immigrants with a focus on enhancing access among immigrant communities.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact on stress and work-related outcomes of an app-delivered mindfulness-based program (MBP; Headspace®) offered to employees in a UK higher education (HE) institution.Design/methodology/approachUsing a randomized waitlist control trial design, participants were randomly allocated to be offered a mindfulness-based program (MBP) immediately for 2 months or after a waiting list period of 2 months (WLC). Data were analyzed using Intention to Treat (ITT; MBP n = 62; WLC n = 63); with supplementary analysis restricting to those who completed all measures; (MBP n = 45; WLC n = 56) and then further restricting the MBP group to those who completed at least foundation level 1 of the app; (MBP n = 31; WLC n = 56).FindingsThe ITT analysis showed significant increases in several aspects of mindfulness and a significant reduction in perceived stress but no significant effects for work-related outcomes. Analysis restricted to MBP participants ...

Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) are widely used to prevent mental ill health. Evidence suggests beneficial average effects but wide variability. We aimed to confirm the effect of MBPs and to understand whether and how baseline distress, gender, age, education, and dispositional mindfulness modify the effect of MBPs on distress among adults in non-clinical settings. We conducted a systematic review and individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis (PROSPERO CRD42020200117). Databases were searched in December 2020 for randomized controlled trials satisfying a quality threshold and comparing in-person, expert-defined MBPs with passive-control groups. Two researchers independently selected, extracted and appraised trials using the revised Cochrane Risk-of-Bias tool. IPD of eligible trials were sought from authors. The primary outcome was psychological distress (unpleasant mental or emotional experiences including anxiety and depression) at 1 to 6 months after program completion. Da...

Objectives This article represents a call to action for the mindfulness field to be more diverse and inclusive of Latinx individuals. Building a diverse and inclusive science around mindfulness-based approaches (MBAs) that considers important group-level cultural and contextual information is an important public health challenge in need of innovative solutions. Methods We describe ways that the Latinx population is poised to benefit from MBAs. We further elucidate challenges, describe potential solutions, and outline a research agenda that may hold promise for building a more inclusive mindfulness movement. Results Our recommendations center around developing nuanced cultural adaptations to MBAs, engaging Latinx individuals in research, increasing the rigor of scientific studies pertaining to Latinx individuals, relying on implementation science to develop innovative methods for disseminating MBAs to Latinx individuals, developing training and certification mechanisms to increase diversity and representation of Latinx mindfulness teachers, and creating mechanisms for the oversight of MBAs within this group. Conclusions There has been a lack of inclusivity of Latinx individuals in the field of MBAs with regards to research studies, barriers to access for economically disadvantaged groups, and lack of diversity in its workforce. Considering the recognition of adverse social drivers of health that generate chronic stress and health disparities, the Latinx population is especially poised to benefit greatly from MBAs. A diverse and inclusive mindfulness science holds promise to enhance the effectiveness, acceptability, feasibility, and wide-scale dissemination and implementation of MBAs.

Objectives This article represents a call to action for the mindfulness field to be more diverse and inclusive of Latinx individuals. Building a diverse and inclusive science around mindfulness-based approaches (MBAs) that considers important group-level cultural and contextual information is an important public health challenge in need of innovative solutions. Methods We describe ways that the Latinx population is poised to benefit from MBAs. We further elucidate challenges, describe potential solutions, and outline a research agenda that may hold promise for building a more inclusive mindfulness movement. Results Our recommendations center around developing nuanced cultural adaptations to MBAs, engaging Latinx individuals in research, increasing the rigor of scientific studies pertaining to Latinx individuals, relying on implementation science to develop innovative methods for disseminating MBAs to Latinx individuals, developing training and certification mechanisms to increase diversity and representation of Latinx mindfulness teachers, and creating mechanisms for the oversight of MBAs within this group. Conclusions There has been a lack of inclusivity of Latinx individuals in the field of MBAs with regards to research studies, barriers to access for economically disadvantaged groups, and lack of diversity in its workforce. Considering the recognition of adverse social drivers of health that generate chronic stress and health disparities, the Latinx population is especially poised to benefit greatly from MBAs. A diverse and inclusive mindfulness science holds promise to enhance the effectiveness, acceptability, feasibility, and wide-scale dissemination and implementation of MBAs.

A lthough I was familiar with works by both McKinzie and Phil, their prints still caught my attention during the Printmaking Graduate Biennial at Rhode Island School of Design in January 2019. In contrast to the numerous talented artists who employed strategies to affirm the relevancy of printmaking in a contemporary discourse, McKinzie and Phil seemed to desire something different. Their collaboration series of Ten Identical Prints was predictably "printerly" and perilously unexciting, betraying a fraught and commonplace relationship between an expressive artist and a scrupulous master printer. How could these two artists showcase such mundanity? What was the stake of not stepping out of bounds when the ease of doing so was enticing and risk-free? Wasn't it their privilege to be showing work in a graduate student gallery which did not embody a shared style or stricture?

Purpose To promote well-being, healthcare education programs have incorporated mindfulness-based skills and principles into existing curriculums. Pandemic-related restrictions have compelled programs to deliver content virtually. Study objectives were to determine (1) whether teaching mindfulness-based skills within physician assistant (PA) programs can promote well-being and (2) whether delivery type (virtual vs. in-person) can impact the effectiveness. Methods During this 2-year study, a brief mindfulness-based curriculum was delivered to incoming first-year students at six PA programs, while students at two programs served as controls. The curriculum was delivered in-person in year one and virtually in year two. Validated pre-and post-test survey items assessed mindfulness (decentering ability, present moment attention and awareness, and psychological flexibility) and well-being (perceived stress and life satisfaction). Results As expected, coping abilities and well-being were adversely impacted by educational demands. The mindfulnessbased curriculum intervention was effective in increasing mindfulness and life satisfaction, while decreasing perceived stress when delivered in-person. Virtual curricular delivery was effective in decreasing perceived stress but not improving life satisfaction. Over half of the participants receiving the curriculum reported positive changes on mindfulness measures with approximately 14-38% reporting a change of greater than one standard deviation. Changes on mindfulness measures explained 30-38% of the reported changes in perceived stress and 22-26% of the changes in life satisfaction. Therefore, the mindfulness curriculum demonstrated statistically significant improvements in measures of mindfulness and mitigated declines in life satisfaction and perceived stress. Conclusion Mindfulness-based skills effectively taught in-person or virtually within PA programs successfully promote well-being.

Black Greek-Letter Organization (BGLO) scholarship presents a long-standing involvement of fraternity and sorority engagement in civil rights, philanthropy and community service. Although scholars have praised Black Greek-Letter Organizations for their commitment to community empowerment, literacy advancement, Black women’s involvement in politics, and racial uplift, some scholarship suggests a critical examination of BGLOs is required. Arguing that BGLOs tend to focus on traditional forms of advocacy, there is a risk of becoming irrelevant in the contemporary landscape of social justice movements and African-American social and political organizations. In this Article, we examine the historical organizational efforts by one BGLO, Delta Sigma Theta, to influence local communities and national policy for social justice. Delta Sigma Theta boasts one of the largest memberships among BGLO sororities. The organization has a long, storied history of civic engagement and political activism...

Research on mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) for adolescents suggests improvements in stress, emotion regulation, and ability to perform some cognitive tasks. However, there is little research examining the contextual factors impacting why specific students experience particular changes and the process by which these changes occur. Responding to the NIH call for "n-of-1 studies" that examine how individuals respond to interventions, we conducted a systematic case study, following an intervention trial (Learning to BREATHE), to investigate how individual students experienced an MBP. Specifically, we examined how students' participation impacted their perceived stress and well-being and why students chose to implement practices in their daily lives. Students in health classes at two diverse high schools completed quantitative self-report measures (pre-, post-, follow-up), qualitative interviews, and open-ended survey questions. We analyzed self-report data to examine whether and to what extent student performance on measures of psychological functioning, stress, attention, and well-being changed before and after participation in an MBP. We analyzed qualitative data to investigate contextual information about why those changes may have occurred and why individuals chose to adopt or disregard mindfulness practices outside the classroom. Results suggest that, particularly for high-risk adolescents and those who integrated program practices into their daily lives, the intervention impacted internalizing symptoms, stress management, mindfulness, and emotion regulation. Mindful breathing was found to be a feasible practice easily incorporated into school routines. Contextual factors impacted practice uptake and program outcomes. Implications for practitioners aiming to help high school students manage stress are discussed.

Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) are widely used to prevent mental ill health. Evidence suggests beneficial average effects but wide variability. We aimed to confirm the effect of MBPs and to understand whether and how baseline distress, gender, age, education, and dispositional mindfulness modify the effect of MBPs on distress among adults in non-clinical settings. We conducted a systematic review and individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis (PROSPERO CRD42020200117). Databases were searched in December 2020 for randomized controlled trials satisfying a quality threshold and comparing in-person, expert-defined MBPs with passive-control groups. Two researchers independently selected, extracted and appraised trials using the revised Cochrane Risk-of-Bias tool. IPD of eligible trials were sought from authors. The primary outcome was psychological distress (unpleasant mental or emotional experiences including anxiety and depression) at 1 to 6 months after program completion. Da...

Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) are widely used to prevent mental ill health. Evidence suggests beneficial average effects but wide variability. We aimed to confirm the effect of MBPs and to understand whether and how baseline distress, gender, age, education, and dispositional mindfulness modify the effect of MBPs on distress among adults in non-clinical settings. We conducted a systematic review and individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis (PROSPERO CRD42020200117). Databases were searched in December 2020 for randomized controlled trials satisfying a quality threshold and comparing in-person, expert-defined MBPs with passive-control groups. Two researchers independently selected, extracted and appraised trials using the revised Cochrane Risk-of-Bias tool. IPD of eligible trials were sought from authors. The primary outcome was psychological distress (unpleasant mental or emotional experiences including anxiety and depression) at 1 to 6 months after program completion. Da...

The present study aimed to explore gender differences in the mindfulness tendency, specifically in the awareness and attention dimensions and also in the observing, describing, acting with awareness and accepting without judgement in Italian nurses. Methods: In June 2020 an on-line questionnaire was administered to nurses in order to analyze any differences both in the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) and the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS) according to gender variable. Findings: 200 questionnaires were collected. Findings showed significant higher MAAS total score in males than females (p=.004). Additionally, by considering the four sub dimensions in the Mindfulness tendency, females reported significant higher levels in some items of "Observe" (p=.004) and "Act with awareness" (p=.001) than males, while males reported significant higher scores in the "Accept without judgement" than females (p<.001). Conclusions: The present study was a pilot research on exploring gender differences in mindfulness in Italian nurses in order to hope that it will be only the beginning of empirical research on this topic and to better address future mindfulness training courses addressed to nurses by emphasizing certain aspects of mindfulness for females compared to males and vice versa.

Background: Aging may result in many physical and mental health challenges that need to be diagnosed and treated. Untreated mental illness is associated with many major health issues, which may be the cause of premature mortality. Nowadays, many non-pharmacological means are being implemented to find out their benefits for mental and physical wellness. Objective: The present study reviewed the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with the purpose of investigating the effects of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program on mental health of non-clinical older populations. Methods: Initially, 518 studies were identified through five electronic databases such as CINAHL, PubMed, PubMed Central, ScienceDirect, and Scopus among which finally, seven RCTs published between 2009-2018 were considered based on meeting the adopted inclusion criteria. The risk of bias and quality of the studies were assessed by the Jadad scale. Results: A total of 997 participants with a mean age of over 40 years from four different countries like the USA, Sweden, Taiwan, and China were included in the current systematic review among them, 482 participated in the MBSR program of 4-8 weeks as intervention group. The studies considered the mental issues viz. anxiety, mindfulness, perceived stress, depression, distress, coping, psychological well-being, quality of life, etc. as dependent variables. The majority of the studies found significant improvement in mindfulness, anxiety, psychological distress, and psychological well-being among non-clinical older adults. Conclusion: Despite the variety in the basic features of the MBSR program, this review study concludes that the MBSR program is effective for improving the overall mental health of non-clinical older adults.

The aim of this essay is to analyze how racism is present in everyday media messages and in which way it reflects discrimination and violence. Undoubtedly, racism towards indigenous people is an evil entrenched in Mexican society that is objectified in daily interactions, in media representations and in a culture where the indigenous is usually associated to alien and uneducated concepts as well as to a past that is not worth going back. In Mexico, being an indigenous woman leads to a double discrimination: due to gender and ethnic origin. Therefore we strongly believe that it is necessary to reflect on racism and discrimination against this sector of the population in some media discourses.

Is psychoanalysis as a clinical practice and as a theoretical discourse capable of addressing burning issues of today's society such as race, power, and privilege? Is psychoanalysis only for the well-to-do? Is psychoanalysis normative, sexist, and patriarchal? As early as 1918, two months before the Armistice, aware of the destruction brought about by World War I and the huge problems created for the underprivileged, Sigmund Freud gave a moving lecture at the Fifth International Psychoanalytic Congress in Budapest. The often-quoted short address, 'Lines of Advance in Psychoanalytic Therapy,' initially focused on technical issues of treatment method. However, it dramatically changed its tone toward the end when Freud speculated about the future of psychoanalysis. Then he announced that 'at some time or other the conscience of society will awake' (Freud, 1919[1918], p. 167). The new awareness would entail: that the poor man should have just as much right to assistance for his mind as he now has to the life-saving help offered by surgery; and that the neuroses threaten public health no less than tuberculosis and can be left as little as the latter to the impotent care of individual members of the community. When this happens, institutions or outpatient clinics will be started, to which analytically trained physicians will be appointed, so that men who would otherwise give way to drink, women who have nearly succumbed under their burden of privations, children for whom there is no choice but between running wild or neurosis, may be made capable, by analysis, of resistance and of efficient work. (1919[1918], p. 167) By appealing to the conscience of society, Freud made an apparently obvious remark, although this was quite revolutionary at the time: the poor have as much

Prior research on anti-blackness in education demonstrates that Black bodies are marked as undesirable and therefore require exclusion, neglect, or mistreatment. Building on this research, I turn to geographical theories to understand the lived, everyday experiences of Black students who attended a predominately Latinx high school. Via visceral geographies, I focus on the body as a spatial landscape to explore how Black students experienced antiblack racism and how they embodied these racial moments. Here, I combine the theoretical resources of visceral geographies, BlackCrit, and antiblackness, to interrogate the real and perceived violence that Black students endured during the school day. My analysis revealed two salient themes: (1) Black students felt a sense of unbelonging, and (2) they perceived their blackness as unimaginable to non-Black people. Finally, I argue that the (Black) body is a space where researchers can collect information about antiblackness and work towards addressing racism in schools.

The authors use critical multicultural analysis informed by queer theory to examine the elements of Jessica Love’s Julián is a Mermaid (2019) and Julián at the Wedding (2021) that give rise to a queertopia—a world where one’s gender expression(s) and sexual identification(s) are not differences to be tolerated but sources of joy, community, and connection. As such, these two picturebooks disrupt cisheteronormative tropes frequently identified in children’s literature intended to represent LGBTQ+ youth and (re)imagine future, and present, possibilities for gender creative young people (of color).

This article examines the role of the diasporic stand-up comic as a transcultural critic and the comedy set as an act of transcultural criticism of contemporary American culture. I use the framework of transcultural criticism developed by Lewis1 (2002) for the purpose of cultural investigation in Hasan Minhaj’s stand-up comedy Homecoming King (2017). Through the amalgamation of political aesthetics and cultural civics, Lewis’ theorization of transculturalism offers an interesting approach for critical discourse analysis of racial injustice and inequality in Muslim American stand-up comedy. Minhaj uses persuasion games and language wars to highlight the dissonance in the dominant discourse about Islam. His goal is not to be a spokesperson for Muslim Americans but to provide new imaginings to the discussion of race, religion, and belonging in the context of Brown Americans in the post 9/11 era both within and outside the community.

La máquina está en movimiento. Reseña de Recalibrando los La máquina está en movimiento. Reseña de Recalibrando los circuitos de la máquina: ciencia ficción e imaginarios circuitos de la máquina: ciencia ficción e imaginarios tecnológicos en la narrativa en español del siglo XXI. Jonatán tecnológicos en la narrativa en español del siglo XXI. Jonatán Martín Gómez, Patricio Sullivan (eds.). Albatros Ediciones, 2022. Martín Gómez, Patricio Sullivan (eds.). Albatros Ediciones, 2022. 404 págs. 404 págs.

In our call for this special issue, we sought submissions that offered analyses of the sensory politics of food pedagogies. Influenced by the aims of Locale, we asked for articles that had a local, national or regional focus on the Pacific Rim across Asia, Oceania, North and South America, including intersections with global and diasporic perspectives. Our call was motivated by our ongoing interest in food pedagogies which we and other scholars have been researching for a few years now. By food pedagogies, we refer to attempts by a range of agencies, actors, institutions and media to 'teach' about growing, shopping, cooking,

This essay revisits Víctor Hernández Cruz’s early poetic work. It reflects how the poet employs musical intertexts and subtexts, suggesting that listening to music and dancing are ways of acquiring knowledge about the world and the power of Boricua and Latinx communities. It also examines the poet’s vision of Puerto Ricans as vibrant musical creators, social dancers, and inventors of transcendent cultural environments.

Millones de caribeños se han desplazado a los Estados Unidos creado las llamadas diásporas, entendidas como comunidades de preservación cultural en el exilio. Al igual que en todas las Antillas, el cine dominicano actual, en ascenso tanto en la Isla como en los Estados Unidos, presenta la fragmentación de la diáspora así como los desplantes ecológicos, administrativos y psicológicos de esta era. El largometraje De lo mío, opera prima de la directora y programadora cinematográfica, Diana Peralta trabaja estos asuntos. El filme se organiza a partir de las disyuntivas existenciales de dos hermanas en un viaje –tentativamente– de cierre con la República Dominicana. Si “de lo mío” es una frase que connota una sincronía emotiva–y metacinematográfica– el título se puede leer tanto cómo una afirmación del territorio nacional y su gente, como un señalamiento a la pregunta, siempre recurrente, acerca de la posibilidad de pertenecer o seguir perteneciendo al país luego de años en Nueva York.

En su relato “Lost in the Museum of Natural History” Pedro Pietri se inserta en la narración como personaje y como fuente de historias inspiradas en la violencia de los géneros del western, los biker films y los melodramas. Esta aproximación a la experimentación literaria, la alteración sensorial y fílmica escenifica una crisis en la enunciación y la representación que hecha luces sobre las relaciones entre las desigualdades sociales, la violencia y la subjetividad.

Black Greek-Letter Organization (BGLO) scholarship presents a long-standing involvement of fraternity and sorority engagement in civil rights, philanthropy and community service. Although scholars have praised Black Greek-Letter Organizations for their commitment to community empowerment, literacy advancement, Black women’s involvement in politics, and racial uplift, some scholarship suggests a critical examination of BGLOs is required. Arguing that BGLOs tend to focus on traditional forms of advocacy, there is a risk of becoming irrelevant in the contemporary landscape of social justice movements and African-American social and political organizations. In this Article, we examine the historical organizational efforts by one BGLO, Delta Sigma Theta, to influence local communities and national policy for social justice. Delta Sigma Theta boasts one of the largest memberships among BGLO sororities. The organization has a long, storied history of civic engagement and political activism...

The aims of food sovereignty need to be underscored to counteract the prevalence of food insecurity media discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic. La Via Campesina&#39;s inclusion of interacting with others in their definition of food sovereignty helps sustain food autonomy through shared food practices among populations deemed to be at risk. Key to sustaining autonomy is a revision of how food sovereign voices are mediated in documentary media. Documentary media often claim to amplify the voices of the powerless, a move that rings of the same type of paternalism that often marks food insecurity discourse. Drawing from currents in rhetorical studies, film studies, and studies in food communication, as well as my own documentary work, I argue that voice inheres in that which grates against a neoliberal understanding of food systems and the representational modes that operate within that sphere. Developing a documentary approach that navigates the modalities of mainstream food systems ...

When teaching Latina/o/x literature, I find that students are compelled to read agency into scenes of violence against Black, Indigenous, and Latina/o/x bodies, particularly in scenes of sexual violence. This is a well-intentioned impulse that seems to emerge from the desire to imbue Latina/o/x subjects with an agency that subverts the force of intersectional oppressions. But this impulse often causes one to overlook how agency is also a condition of subjugation and therefore always predetermined and restricted. In order to unpack this (mis)understanding of agency, I work with students in the first weeks of class to better understand the processes of subject formation and subjugation involved in becoming a subject – a prerequisite to identity formation. This essay presents how I teach these complex theoretical ideas through scenes of sexual violence using examples from two Afro-Latina/o/x novels: the canonical novelized memoir Down These Mean Streets (1967) by Piri Thomas and the often-overlooked Daughters of the Stone (2009) by Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa.

is one of the most significant figures of contemporary literature. US Poet Laureate between 1995-97, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, and an extremely gifted translator of Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz and of Japanese poetry-The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa (1995)-his poetry defies easy classification. Born in San Francisco in 1941, Hass established his reputation as a poet when he won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award with Field Guide (1973) a collection of poems that draws for inspiration on the Californian landscape and on his background in Eastern European studies. His next volume, Praise, won him the William Carlos Williams award in 1979. Even more critical acclaim was to follow with publication of his 7 Human Wishes (1990), followed by Sun under Wood (1996). His most recent collection is Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005 (2007). His recurrent themes center on art, nature and man's relationship with the natural world, eros and desire, history and nostalgia. In many of his poems he pays tribute to poets and painters:

Scholars have typically studied Chicanas/Latinas in the US and African American women separately. However, this paper explores both the cultural appropriation of Afro-Latinas’ bodies in the US and the strategies they employed to reclaim their bodies and agencies through Elizabeth Acevedo’s novel, The Poet X. Despite the fact that the teenager protagonist of the novel considers herself “morenita,” rather than black due to her Dominican background; her body is simultaneously and paradoxically hyper-sexualized by racist discourses, and called to chastity by the patriarchal Catholic doctrine presiding over her Dominican community. Nevertheless, I argue that the protagonist makes her body a site of activism as she re-appropriates the agency over her body by moving from a self-imposed invisibility and silence in order to try to avoid the hyper-sexualization of her incipient curves, to a non-objectified visible position through her sexual desire, self-representative embodied narrative, and performance of her slam poetry.

To an outsider, the social dance floor of New York’s “on2” salsa scene may appear to be the ultimate melting pot; however, it is the site of ongoing conflicts and negotiations around race, gender, sexuality, the body, skill, and belonging. Professional salserxs frequently tie their dancing with the practice of African and Afro-Caribbean culture. In fact, a complex challenge to normative racialization plays out in the inclusion of and reverence for Afro Caribbean folkloric dance and spirituality. Nonetheless, the scene reconstructs normative anti-Black racial ideologies in a number of ways, including through harsh critique of Black women. I argue that the embrace of salsa’s Afro-Caribbean roots alongside the marginalization of some dancers demonstrates the scene’s ambivalence about Blackness.