The series, which runs from September 18th to October 16th, will feature lectures by experts, conversations with activists, and workshops with artists. Through dialogues, exhibitions and performances, participants will become aware of how ‘border issues’ not only deeply impact those who navigate border areas, but also how they impact us all. You will be asked for it. Topics include border crossings, farm workers, and the environmental impact of walls.
“Maki Maki Theater,” by Peruvian-born Tucson artist Gabriela Gallup, uses textiles and puppetry to create commentary on this era of mass displacement.
“Borders are created by people who seek to keep others away from them. They are, by design, ‘we have power over you, the places you go, the people you see, and sometimes your very existence. It’s projecting a built-in social hierarchy that says, ‘I have it,'” said Diana Burns, Skidmore senior professor of Spanish. She is also the co-host of the series.
“This project aims to present mixed messages from the border. It recognizes the powerful and often unheard voices of people living with the effects of the border wall on the southern tip of the United States. This is a message to do.”
Diana Barnes, Senior Professor of Spanish and Series Co-Host
Highlights of this series aim to draw attention to the impact of evolving border policies on the human body and include:
- El Paso, Texas historian and musician David Romo and his band Los Liminals will perform at Cafe Lena on Thursday, September 21st.
- On October 13 and 14, the Tang Education Museum will host “The Art of Resistance,” a series of talks, performances, and workshops by three artists who transform the border wall into a canvas that conveys humanity in division. Presenters include Gabriela Gallup, a Peruvian-born textile artist and puppeteer currently based in Tucson, Arizona; Mural artist Jesús “CIMI” Alvarado lives in El Paso, Texas. and Alvaro Enciso, a metalsmith and woodworker born in Colombia and currently based in Tucson.
- Documentary maker Zachery McMillan will screen his 2021 documentary film “Invisible Valley,” about the pressing environmental and social crisis in California’s Coachella Valley, on October 16th.
- Virtual speakers include Ruben Zecena, an interdisciplinary scholar who documents queer migration experiences; Enrique Valenzuela, a demographer from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, talks about his experience supervising and providing care to the city’s immigrant population. Mary Mendoza is a historian of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands at Pennsylvania State University who examines the intersection of natural and built environments, particularly through the construction of fences.
- In-person speakers include Brooklyn College scholar Jean Eddy St. Paul, who will discuss the border-crossing experiences of Haitian immigrants; Author and professor Gina Perez is a cultural anthropologist who speaks on the sanctuary movement and faith-based organizing in Ohio’s Latino communities.
This series is supported by Skidmore College’s Office of the Provost, Racial Justice Initiatives, and contributing departments, programs, and offices across campus, including Senior Professor Burns and Associate Professor Oscar Pérez Hernández, Latin America and the Caribbean; Planned and coordinated by the director. , Latino Studies, NY6 Mellon Fellow, Special Assistant to the Dean.
Social (in)justice at the U.S.-Mexico border coincides with National Hispanic Heritage Month, highlighting the complex relationships between this liminal space and U.S. Latinx identities, histories, and experiences.