Featured Speakers and Presenters
Eva Arce is a Human rights activist, poet, and mother of Silvia Arce who disappeared in Juarez in 1998. Ms. Arce's daughter vanished in March 1998 along with a friend, Griselda Mares. She was also a founding member of Voces Sin Echo in 1998, and to date has been active in advocacy for other victims' families and continues to seek justice from authorities in her daughter's case.
Dr. Nancy "Rusty" Barceló is the Vice President and Vice Provost for Equity and Diversity at the University of Minnesota and a nationally-recognized leader in the field, with more than 30 years of experience in equity and diversity in higher education. As Vice President and Vice Provost, Dr. Barceló provides leadership and strategic planning on issues relating to faculty, staff, and student equity and diversity across the University of Minnesota system. Her role also includes administrative and programmatic oversight of units on the Twin Cities campus that provide direct services to faculty, staff, students, and community members. Those units include Disability Services, the GLBTA Programs Office, the Women's Center, Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, and the Multicultural Center for Academic Excellence.
Following a life and career path that took her from California to the Upper Midwest, Dr. Barceló first came to the University of Minnesota in 1996 to serve as the Associate Vice President for Multicultural and Academic Affairs; she also served from 1999 to 2001 as Chair of the Chicano Studies Department. In 2001, she left to serve as Vice President and Vice Provost for Minority Affairs and Diversity at the University of Washington. In 2006, she returned to Minnesota to assume her current post as the University's chief diversity officer and member of the University's senior executive team.
Before coming to Minnesota in 1996, Dr. Barceló spent more than twenty years at the University of Iowa, where she served as Assistant Dean and Provost for Academic Affairs and received the Distinguished Educator in Diversity Award. Earlier, Dr. Barceló received her Ph.D. in higher education administration from the University of Iowa, and before that, her B.A. in social work from Chico State University in California.
Dr. Barcelo's guiding philosophy is that equity and diversity are fundamental to the academic enterprise. She believes that advancing equity and diversity is a shared University-wide responsibility and that leadership on diversity must be collaborative and focused on community building. She believes that an inclusive community that values and affirms differences not only supports individual success and wellbeing but also advances and sustains the university's teaching, research, and service mission. Indeed, she believes that diversity drives learning and discovery, and that we ensure sustainable excellence only by ensuring that diverse cultures, identities, and ways of knowing and being are reflected, supported, and expressed in all aspects of University life.
Dr. Barceló emphasizes that for students of diverse identities and backgrounds to be successful, they must feel welcome and supported on campus; and that for students to develop the competencies they need to thrive in the world's diverse communities and workplaces, they need to be taught and mentored by a diverse faculty and have access to diverse knowledge systems and ways of knowing and being, as embodied in inclusive and diversity-infused curricula, pedagogies, resources, and services.
Dr. Barceló has been hailed as a visionary leader for transformational change around issues of equity and diversity and as an astute and dedicated administrator with a gift for community building. Once the only Chicana student at the University of Iowa, she has since become one of the nation's most highly respected authorities on equity and diversity in higher education. She is also an avid bicyclist and accomplished storyteller, songwriter, and guitarist.
Dr. Benítez brings to Excelencia substantial experience and a particular focus on minority-serving institutions, gained from her years as a college president (1985-94), as a member of the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (1990-1996), as a senior official in the Office of Postsecondary Education in the U.S. Department of Education (1998-2003), as an advisor to the President of the University of Puerto Rico system since 2003, and a senior associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy since 2005. Currently she works with The Education Trust in the Access to Success Initiative, a partnership designed to improve student success and to close by at least half the gaps in both college-going and college completion that separate low income and underrepresented minority students from other students.
Lucia Veronica Carmona, originally from Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, is a descendent of Raramuris ancestors, and the daughter of a seamstress and laundrywoman. She first becomes involved in social movements in the 70's. Her first songs were heard by the four winds in the Plaza de Armas in Juárez, sharing the pain of mothers whose children disappeared for political reasons during Mexico's dirty little war ("La Guerra Sucia"). She was also involved in many environmental justice causes and human rights. As a natural process of living on the border, Veronica and her family migrated to the U.S., where she found herself involved with social justice actions and movements throughout Texas, New Mexico, and Juarez. A community organizer at heart, Veronica now lives in Las Cruces, NM. She works as a community organizer for the Colonias Development Council in the rural areas of Southern New Mexico, she has been involved with such initiatives as the farm workers to help better their lives and improve labor conditions in the fields and their communities. She is also deeply involved in the movement for immigrant' rights. Veronica is a mother, sister, student, promotora, immigrant, singer, poet, rebel, lover and seamstress, who is in the middle of everything. She is an aunt, a niece, and is in solidarity with all those who are engaged in the worldwide struggle for justice.
Denise Chávez is a novelist, short story writer, playwright, actor, teacher and performance writer based in Las Cruces and Mesilla, New Mexico. She has roots in Far West Texas with her mother's family and in Las Cruces, New Mexico with her father's family has learned to love life, literature and tacos in both places.
A true child of La Frontera, Chávez is the author of the recent memoir, A Taco Testimony: Meditations on Family, Food and Culture and the novels Loving Pedro Infante, Face of An Angel, as well as a short story collection, The Last of the Menu Girls. She has published a children's book, La Mujer Que Sab¬a El Idioma de Los Animales/The Woman Who Knew the Language of the Animals. Chávez is author of many plays and is an actor who performs her One-woman shows, Women in the State of Grace and El Muro/The Wall: A Chorus Of Immigrant Women's Voices, throughout the U.S.
Currently Chávez is working on various projects including a novel, The King And Queen of Comezón, a border mystery/love story, a collection of stories, El Inglés Tan Bonito/Beautiful English and a book, Río Grande Family, About her Sephardic Jewish roots in Chihuahua and Delicias, Mexico. Chávez is the Director of The Border Book Festival, a major national and Regional book festival in Mesilla, New Mexico as well as the Cultural Center De Mesilla, the festival's bookstore and home base which brings Literature, literacy and storytelling to people of all ages and backgrounds in the border corridor of southern New Mexico, West Texas and Northern Mexico.
Carrie Dann (Western Shoshone) has, for over forty years along with her sister Mary, been at the forefront of the Western Shoshone Nation's struggle for land rights and sovereignty. They are leading the political and legal battle to retain ancestral lands in Nevada, California, Idaho and Utah. Dann has squared off against international gold mining corporations, the nuclear industry and the U.S. government. For their courage and perseverance in asserting the rights of Indigenous peoples, the Dann Sisters have received numerous awards including the 1993 Alternative Nobel Prize, the International Right Livelihood Award. Dann, also the subject of countless film documentaries, articles and books, is a living legend in the struggles of Native Americans.
The featured artist for this year's MALCS Summer Institute is Angellia Deerwater. Angel, as she is known by most, is Dinè and was born and raised in St. Michaels, Arizona. Raised by her mother, Angel grew up with two siblings and next door to an Auntie. She credits her family for influencing her deep love for and appreciation of art. Angel celebrated her 19th birthday on May 4, 2009 and looks forward to starting classes that will count toward a nursing degree at Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque in Fall 2009.
Having seen art produced by an uncle who was incarcerated, Angel began drawing figures in sixth grade and realized the extent of her imagination and her ability to grow as an artist. She recalls her first attempts at producing art included sketches of family members, photos in magazines and animals.
Admittedly, Angel is still working toward what she calls "her mark." When asked what this means, she says that although she is recognized for having a "softer touch" in her representations, she has yet to express her art in a way that would be recognizable simply by its style. Angel exhibited her art in an art show in October 2008 and intends to continue honing her talent. When asked what she thought about being asked to create a design for this year's MALCS Summer Institute, she says she was nervous and excited. She says it helped to remember that as a young artist, it is important to share her work.
This year's NMSU site committee chose Angel for many reasons. One major reason for soliciting her work was a strong desire to be truly inclusive of the Native and Tribal voices integral to our state and our region that is inherent to the MALCS mission of speaking to issues of Chicana/Latina and Native/Tribal women. Another reason was to support Angel in her youthfulness and potential for growing talent. We were tremendously pleased with her representation that in multiple ways, reflects the theme, "Border as Mirror: Negotiating the View from Here." Angel thoroughly considered the implications of her representation as it would apply to the MALCS mission as well as to this year's theme.
After much contemplation, Angel decided to connect the Aztec-mestiza woman to the ancestral Navajo woman in a circle that is continuous and symbolic of a shared history. Being conscientious of the historic tension between Native and mestiza women in the conquest of peoples in the Western Hemisphere, Angel positioned the women facing outward in an effort to portray the women looking away from conflict but acknowledging and affirming a promising future. The Navajo guardian and the Aztec serpent form a circle of protection and continuity around the turtle, a sacred and significant animal in Navajo tradition and in many other cultures. Finally, the tree of life growing in the center represents an entity that knows "no labels, biases or parameters." Angel says the tree teaches us the lesson "that life is not about your land or my land." A tree grows and produces despite boundaries. Her piece asks us to reflect upon the layers of history that affect humankind along a broad spectrum of experiences. Furthermore, placing nature in the form of animals and plants as central in her image urges us to challenge our typical anthropocentric perspective and consider all living forms in our daily struggle to reconcile our shared history of violence, oppression, survival and complicity. From the committee's perspective, Angel truly captured the essence of local knowledge as both informed by and informing a universal understanding.
Angel cannot join us at this summer institute because she has held an honored place in her community as a Sun Dancer for ten years and the MALCS meeting coincides with this sacred ceremony. Her symbolic image is to be shared and viewed by all. Her verbal message to this year's participants is to "remember we are all one people." She says, "Although there are many cultures, it is important to learn from each other and continue practicing and sharing traditional ways."
Paula Flores is a Community activist and mother of Sagrario Gonzalez Flores killed in Juarez in April 1998. Her daughter is among the 600 and more women slain in Juarez over the past 15 years. Ms. Flores was also co-founder of the organization, Voces Sin Echo formed in 1998 to advocate for families of the murdered and missing women of Juarez. She also began the community based Sagrario Foundation that works with community women for their empowerment around women's rights, health, and education. She also helped to establish the kindergarten Jardín de Niños Ma. Sagrario Gonzalez Flores in Juarez in memory of her daughter.
Mattie Y. Foster is full Navajo. She lives in Gallup, New Mexico and has worked for 42 years at Fort Wingate High School. She earned her Associate's Degree in Human Services from the University of New Mexico- Gallup branch in 1981. Her work with Dine students extends over three generations of families. Her dedication to the Navajo nation is deep and illustrated by the families she has helped over decades.
Dr. Rosa-Linda Fregoso is currently a professor in Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Studies, Language, Society, and Culture from the University of California, San Diego and BJ from the University of Texas, Austin. Before joining the faculty at UC-Santa Cruz she held faculty appointments at UC-Davis in Women and Gender Studies and Chicana/o Studies, and at UC-Santa Barbara in the departments of Communications and Chicano Studies. Her research interests include human rights studies, intercultural and transborder feminism, cultural studies, and Latina and Latino Americas film and media arts. Dr. Fregoso before entering into Academia also worked in radio and television. From 1979-1982 she radio hosted "The Mexican American Experience", and from 1977-1979 produced and hosted "Telecorpus," a daily talk show aired on KORO-TV.
Isabel Garcia, co-chair of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, a grassroots organization in Tucson that fights the militarization of the Southwestern border region and discrimination and human rights abuses by federal, state and local law enforcement officials affecting US and non-US citizens alike. She is also the legal defender of Pima County, Arizona, and won the Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Award in 2008 and the 2006 National Human Rights Award from Mexico's National Commission for Human Rights.
Dr. Inés Hernández-Ávila is currently an English professor, graduate advisor and director of the Chicana/Latina Research Center at UCDavis University of California. She received her B.A., M.A., and Ph. D. in English from the University of Houston. Her training in English has been focused on Modern American Fiction, but her teaching and research are focused in the area of indigenous/Native American literature. Her research interests include contemporary Native American women's literature, Mexico's contemporary movement of writers in indigenous languages, Native American women's and Chicana spiritualities, creative writing/poetry/short fiction, and Native American religious traditions.
Carolina Monsiváis is a recipient of the Premio Poesia Tejana for her book, Somewhere Between Houston and El Paso: Testimonies of a Poet (Wings Press). Monsiváis worked with survivors of domestic violence/sexual assault in Texas and New Mexico. A dedicated advocate/activist in the field of violence against women and children, she co-founded The Women Writers' Collective. The WWC, a community-based group of women writers and activists, showcases the talents of women writers and artists while raising awareness for issues related to women and allies in our community. The WWC has held readings to raise funds and awareness for Amigos de las Mujeres de Juárez and has co-sponsored events to raise awareness through the arts with BorderSenses and the El Paso Center Against Family Violence. She has also volunteered with Nuestra Palabra Latino Writers Having Their Say, a non-profit organization that primarily promotes literature by Latinas/os and writers of color. Her poetry has appeared in several literary journals and in U.S. Latino Literature Today. Currently, she is working on her M.F.A. in creative writing at New Mexico State University, and she resides in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, near her hometown, El Paso, Texas.
Luz Esthela Castro Rodríguez holds a law degree and a Masters in Human Resources from the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Mexico, and is the coordinator of the Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres and legal representative for mothers of disappeared and assassinated young women of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua including the NGO, Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas. She has worked as a consultant for nongovernmental organizations; as a mediator in conflict resolution; and has instructed workshops on gender, human rights, civil resistance and Mexican law.
Margo Tamez is a Lipan Apache and Jumano Apache activist, poet, and scholar. She is currently a teaching assistant at Washington State University in the Department of Women's Studies. She received two B.A. in Archeological Studies and Art History from the University of Texas. She has received many awards and honors including the Poetry Fellowship from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, first place Literary Award from the Frontera Literary Review, Environmental Leadership Fellowship Award, and the Distinguished Achievement Award, the International Exchange Award from the Tucson Pima Arts Council and others. Her book titled "Raven Eye" published in 2007 was nominated by The University of Arizona for a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.