SOLAS BLOG

¡Regresamos!

2009-06-01T16:50:00.003-06:00

Hola Solistas!

The SOLAS blog has been re-activated! Follow us here for news, current events, and happy hours!

If anyone has ideas for lecture topics or would like to invite someone in particular to speak, please let me know! Likewise, anyone who is traveling or doing research this summer is more than welcome to share their experiences with us in an informal brown bag setting.

¡Que los vacaciones vayan rey bien y nos vemos en septiembre!

Saludos,
patty

Mexican Migrants in New York

2008-02-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Dr. Judith Adler Hellman, Professor of Political Science at York University in Toronto, will be presenting a talk entitled, “The ‘competitive advantage’ of Mexican migrants in New York: The labor market, the job market, and the Church.”

Dr. Hellman has written a number of books on Mexico including: The World of Mexican Migrants: The Rock and the Hard Place, Mexican Lives, and Mexico in Crisis. She is also the author of the controversial article, "Real and Virtual Chiapas: Magical Realism and the Left"

The presentation will be at 12:00 at the Latin American and Iberian Institute (801 Yale NE).

Refreshments will be provided

Religous Conflict & Mixtec Idenity Formation in the 1970s

2007-11-29T14:42:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Third year History Ph.D student, Kathleen McIntyre, will present the results of her field research, "Religious Conflict and Mixtec Identity Formation in the 1970s."

The presentation will be at 12:00 at the Latin American and Iberian Institute (801 Yale NE).

Refreshments will be provided

Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)

2007-11-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

Come learn more about Brazil's Landless Workers’ Movement
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) on Wednesday, November 28 @ 12:00 noon

The MST is the largest social movement in Latin America
with an estimated 1.5 million landless members organized
in 23 out of Brazil's 27 states. The MST uses a variety
of tactics including land occupations, marches, and
protests to carry out land reform in a country mired by
unjust land distribution. The talk will focus on how the
movement has survived and even prospered in the face of
government repression and organizational dilemmas. What kinds of factors have lead to their success and what does this mean for other social movements in around the world?

The speaker, Albert Palma, is a PhD student in UNM’s
Political Science Department focusing on Latin American
social movements and will present findings from recent
research in Brazil.

The talk will be at the Latin American & Iberian Institute, located at 801 Yale NE. Refreshments will be provided.

The U.S. Holocaust in Central America

2007-11-08T13:48:00.000-07:00

Author Thomas Melville speaks about his latest book,

Through a Glass Darkly: The U.S. Holocaust in Central America.

Monday, November 19, 2007.
7:00 PM
Albuquerque Center For Peace and Justice
(202 Harvard SE)

Thomas Melville, born in 1929, was ordained as a Maryknoll priest and sent to Guatemala in 1957. There he founded co-operatives and worked on economic development and land distribution programs. Melville was exiled from Guatemala for his work in organizing peasants in opposition to the government. After leaving the order and marrying former Maryknoll sister Marjorie Bradford, he returned to the United States to advocate against U.S. government and business practices in Guatemala. The Melvilles participated in the burning of draft records with napalm in Catonsville Maryland in hopes of bringing attention to U.S. involvement in Guatemalan affairs. After serving his time for the Catonsville incident, Melville earned a PhD in cultural anthropology and has continued as a scholar and activist in Guatemalan affairs. He is the author of a number of books including Guatemala: Another Vietnam and Guatemala: The Politics of Land Ownership. The Melvilles currently reside in Mexico.

*This event is sponsored by the Student Organization for Latin American Studies (SOLAS), Multinational Intellectual Thinkers and Doers (MITAD), Religious Studies, and the Freshman Learning Community*

Indigenous Identity in Monimbó, Nicaragua

2007-11-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, November 14, 2007,

Aaron Sussman, who is pursuing Dual Masters Degrees in Latin American Studies and Community & Regional Planning, will present the results of his field research, "Indigenous Identity in Monimbó, Nicaragua as a Catalyst for Community Organizing."

The indigenous community of Monimbó, Masaya, Nicaragua is known for its fervent opposition to external influence. As an indigenous community whose essentialized characteristics have largely disappeared (language, dress), this rebellious and independent nature has been studied through the historical context of armed resistance during the Sandinista Revolution. This research seeks to understand how Monimboseño identity - a product of social, historical, and economic conditions – manifests itself today in the nature and objectives of local community organizing. It reveals that resistance to external forces persists and a real tension has emerged between
traditional institutions and modern development needs.

The presentation will be at 12:00 at the Latin American and Iberian Institute (801 Yale NE).

Refreshments will be provided

Grassroots Healthcare in Chiapas

2007-11-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, November 7, 2007,

Second year Latin American Studies M.A. student, Wendy Courtemanche, will present the results of her field research, "La otra salud: Envisioning grassroots healthcare in Chiapas."

The presentation will be at 12:00 at the Latin American and Iberian Institute (801 Yale NE).

Refreshments will be provided

Land & Water Managment and Repossession Struggles Among Hispanos in New Mexico

2007-10-29T14:40:00.000-06:00

Wednesday, October 31, 2007,

The UNM Richard E. Greenleaf Visiting Scholar, Dana Levin Rojo, will present her work, "Strategies of Survival: Community Land and Water Management and Repossession Struggles among Hispanos in North Central New Mexico after Reies Lopez Tijerina, with Particular Emphasis on the Embudo-Trampas-Truchas area"

Dr. Levin Rojo received her doctorate from the London School of Economics and is Professor of History at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Atzcapotzalco, in Mexico City.

The presentation will be at 12:00 at the Latin American and Iberian Institute (801 Yale NE).

Refreshments will be provided

Environment, Resources & Immigration

2007-10-23T13:16:00.000-06:00

Brown Bag Discussion

Wednesday October 24 th

12-1 PM

@ the Latin American and Iberian Institute

(801 Yale NE)

Refreshments Will Be Provided

This panel discussion will consider the interplay between the environment, natural resources, and immigration. Dr. Sam Truett, Associate Professor of
History; Dr. Enrique Lamadrid, Professor of Spanish; and Dr. Manuel Garcia y Griego, Associate Professor of History, will each speak on the topic and then discuss the issues that arise from their collective presentations.

Social Movements in Bolivia 2000-2005

2007-02-20T09:55:00.000-07:00

Brown Bag Discussion

Friday February 23 rd

12-1 (noon)
@ the Latin American and Iberian Institute

(801 Yale NE)

Free Refreshments

This talk considers the socio-political conditions that gave rise to a series of social movements in Bolivia, beginning with the Water war (2000) continuing with the Coca war (2000 onward), and the tax War (February 2003) and finally the massive mobilizations of the gas War (October 2003 and May-June 2005) which toppled two presidents in succession, and led to the Presidency of Evo Morales, the leader of the Coca growers. It analyses the various interpretations of these events, the tactics used in the mobilizations, and the influences that structured the social demands in play. Finally, it considers the positioning of these movements today in the light of the ongoing Constituent Assembly, which began in August 2006.

DENISE ARNOLD is an Anglo-Bolivian anthropologist, with expertise in educational and political questions in Bolivia. She holds postgraduate degrees in Architecture and Environmental Studies, and a doctorate in Anthropology from University College London (1988). She has been Leverhulme Research Fellow and ERSC Senior Research Fellow in England, and is currently teaching at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés and Universidad PIEB in La Paz, Bolivia, and in the doctoral programme in the Universidad de Tarapaca, Chile. She is visiting Full Professor in Birkbeck College London, and Director of the Instituto de Lengua y Cultura Aymara in Bolivia. Among her recent publications are ³The Nature of Indigenous Literatures in the Andes: Aymara, Quechua and Others², Vol. III of Latin American Literatures: a Comparative History of Cultural Formations (2004, Oxford University Press); The Metamorphosis of Heads: Textual Struggles, Education and Land in the Andes (Pittsburgh University Press, 2006); and Mujeres en los movimientos sociales en Bolivia, 2000-2003 (La Paz: CIDEM-ILCA, 2005). Her current books in press are Los Andes desde el textil (with Yapita and Espejo) and Heads of State: Icons, Power and Politics in the Andes Ancient and Modern (Left Coast Press, with the archaeologist Christine Hastorf).

ELVIRA ESPEJO is a painter, weaver, storyteller, graphic artist and poet, and a well-known indigenous leader in Bolivia. Born in ayllu Qaqachaka (prov. Abaroa, Oruro), she graduated from the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Paz and has experience in the use of multimedia. She was a teacher in the course, 'Visual languajes in the Andes', for the program Duke in the Andes (2005). Her first book of tales Jichha nä parlt'ä: Now I shall tell you a story, was a finalist in the Concurso de Literaturas Indígenas of the Casa de las Américas in Cuba (1994) and published in Bolivia by Casa and UNICEF. Among her other publications are the book Sawutuq parla: Weaving talk (2005), and a volume of Aymara poetry: Phaqar kirki: Songs to the Flowers (2006). She also has a book in press El Andes desde el textil. She has exhibited her work in Bolivia and internationally. She also participated with the design of braid decorations in the fashion show by Elizabeth Johnston, in La Paz (Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folkore), Sucre and Santa Cruz, Bolivia, in 2003. Elvira Espejo is a member of ILCA (Instituto de Lengua y Cultura Aymara).

2007-02-13T22:43:00.000-07:00

Valentine's Party...
to celebrate friendship and love

Saturday February 17th @ 9:00 p.m.
@ Ivis' Place (The Abbey- The old Church)
1625 Gold Ave SE There will be plenty of food...
Graduates, Undergraduates, and International Students Welcome!!!
Bring your own drinks

John Ross “Zapatistas! Making Another World Possible: Chronicles of Resistance” Book Tour

2007-02-11T14:50:00.000-07:00

Another world is possible; a world based in human rights, autonomy, community participation, consensus building, and true empowerment.

Join John Ross, writer and activist, in this dialogue and in support of the indigenous resistance movements. We encourage activist and community members to share their experiences.

Wednesday February 14^th, 2007
At 6:00 p.m.
Libreria La Semilla
929 4^th St. SW
Dessert, music and poetry

Thursday February 15^th, 2007
At 7:00 p.m.
Room: 2401
UNM School of Law: 1117 Stanford SE

Talk Title: Upsurge from the Bottom

Abstract: Will discuss the stealing of the Mexican election, the Oaxaca intifada, and the state of the Zapatista rebellion - Mexico rose up in 1810 against the Spanish, rose up again in 1910 in the first great revolution of the landless - What’s on the agenda for 2010?

Friday February 16^th, 2007
At noon (12-1)
Latin American and Iberian Institute
801 Yale NE

Title: Building Civil Society in Mexico

Abstract: This talk will cover some of this ground but more succinctly and with a different skew: "building civil society in Mexico - a look at the history, current status, and prospects for Mexico’s vibrant civil society"

Friday February 16^th, 2007
At 4:30 p.m.
Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice
202 Harvard SE

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Born in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan to proud members of the U.S. Communist Party, John Ross grew up in a lively cultural ambiance informed by jazz, abstract expressionist painting, radical politics, and Beat poetry – Ross was a younger member of the Beat Generation, reading his poetry in Greenwich Village bars with the great bass player Charles Mingus.

At 19, Ross set out on the road, following the Beat trail that Burroughs and Kerouac and Ginsberg had blazed to Mexico City. Soon he had separated from this U.S.-based literary movement taking up residence in an indigenous community in the Meseta Purepcha of the state of Michoacan.

Six years later when John Ross returned to the United States, he was incarcerated by the FBI at Terminal Island federal penitentiary in San Pedro California for refusal to report for induction in the U.S. Army and became the first resister to be jailed for refusing service in Vietnam. In 2005, Ross returned to San Pedro to receive the American Civil Liberties Union's annual "Uppie" (for Upton Sinclair) award for his penultimate cult classic "Murdered by Capitalism – A Memoir of 150 Years of Life & Death on the U.S. Left."

In the 1970s, John Ross took up freelance journalism reporting on environmental politics and social movements in California, Spain, and North Africa. In 1984, he won a grant to investigate guerrilla formations in the Andes, filing some of the first reports on Peru's Shining Path for Pacific News Service.

Following the terrible September 1985 8.2 earthquake in Mexico City, Ross returned to the city he first knew as a young Beat and took up residence in the old quarter or "Centro Historico", the ancient Aztec island of Tenochtitlan, where he lives still. Now the dean of foreign correspondents in Mexico, Ross continues to report for Noticias Aliadas (Peru), the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and the Texas Observer, and is a regular contributor to U.S. monthlies like the Progressive, the Nation, and Counterpunch (on line), in addition to the Mexican Left daily La Jornada. His investigations into electoral fraud and human rights abuses in Mexico, environmental carnage, and the struggles of Indians and farmers have won various awards down the years.

Since its earliest hour 12 years ago, Ross has accompanied the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, breaking the story of the impending uprising in a small northern California weekly weeks before it occurred, and writing three volumes chronicling this unique indigenous movement - "Rebellion From the Roots" (American Book Award winner 1995), "The Annexation of Mexico" (1998), and "The War Against Oblivion" (200.) His fourth volume ZAPATISTAS! Making Another World Possible – Chronicles of Resistance 2000-2006" is to be published by Nation Books this October.

John Ross has written eight books of fiction and non-fiction. "Murdered By Capitalism" (Nation Books 2004) is partially a personal history of 40 years on the barricades of the Americas north and south, and partially the strange story of the U.S. Left during the past century and a half. "(Murdered by Capitalism) is a rip-snorting and honorable account of an outlaw tradition in American politics which too seldom gets past the bouncers at the gates of our national narrative" wrote reclusive novelist Thomas Pynchon of the work.

Ross has continued to pursue both his political and poetic concerns over the decades. With nine chapbooks of poetry in and out of print, the latest of which is "Bomba!" hot off the press from Calaca de Pelon, Ross continues to be an active performance and spoken word artist, appearing recently with the Godfather of the Beats Lawrence Ferlinghetti at both Bellas Artes in Mexico City and Lawrence's famed City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.

John Ross's continuing participation in the on-going resistance to Washington's imperialist crusades has been congruent with his stance against the bloodletting in Vietnam. On the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Ross was part of the Human Shield brigade in Baghdad and later journeyed to Palestine where he was beaten savagely by Israeli settlers while picking olives in the Nablus valley.

Now an elder on the brink of his seventh decade, Ross does not consider retiring as an active combatant in the worldwide struggle for peace and social justice. "Movement is what keeps me alive" he tells friends and comrades, "like the pensioners in Mexico tell me 'parar es morir' ('to stop is to die.') I'm going to keep marching until I drop. I believe another world is possible."

Sponsored by:

SOLAS
Nuestra Voz
LAII
NALSA
MASLA
ILSA
CRP/GSA
Liberaría la Semilla
Anthropology Graduate Student Union
Political Sciences Graduate Student Association
Alburquerque Center for Peace and Justice
Amnesty International UNM

Dr. Charles Wallace, MD

2007-01-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

Charles Wallace, MD

From the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua

Brown Bag Discussion

Friday January 26, 2007

12-1 (noon)
@ the Latin American and Iberian Institute

(801 Yale NE)

Refreshments will be provided

Professor Charles Wallace, MD helped set up a convenio between UNM and UNAN in 2005 (signed May 13), working with Dr. David Stoltz, MD of UNM who was on sabbatical in Nicaragua. The convenio is currently bare bones, and Stoltz says there is room for enhancing activities in the areas of public health and medicine. Dr. Wallace is a professor of clinical and public health at the UNAN and is involved in applied community clinical research. He has a PAHO grant involving infant nutrition. Dr. Wallace has a very interesting perspective on the evolution of the public health care system in Nicaragua over the last 20 years, stemming from his involvement in the Sandinista revolution and continuing membership the Sandinista political party. He did an MPH at the Univ. of Antwerp, Belgium, in the early 1990s.

Repression, suffering, and hope in Oaxaca: A people that refuses to be crushed

2007-01-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

Brown Bag Discussion

Friday January 19th
12-1 (noon)
@ the Latin American and Iberian Institute
(801 Yale NE)
Free Refreshments

Rebeca Jasso-Aguilar, a PhD student in the sociology department, was part of a delegation to Oaxaca to investigate the current situation of the social movement that started in May of 2006.

The delegation, which took place during December 16-22, met with and heard testimonies from activists, journalists, ex-detainees, families of people detained and killed during the conflict, and people linked to the governor of Oaxaca. She will give a presentation based on these
testimonies.

WOMEN AND LABOR IN MEXICO IN TIMES OF NEO-LIBERALISM

2006-11-16T00:58:00.000-07:00

WOMEN AND LABOR IN MEXICO IN TIMES OF NEO-LIBERALISM

Presented by: Organizer, Writer, Activist from Cuernavaca, Mexico-- Irene Ortiz

Brown Bag Discussion

Friday Novemeber 17th, 2006

12:00 - 1:00 p.m. (noon)

@ the Latin American and Iberian Institute (LAII)

801 Yale NE / 505-277-2961

Free Refreshments!!!

Discussion about the politics of women in labor, the transformation of the cultural patters on the family and the impact on the quality of life of these women.

Irene's brief biography:

Feminist involved in the movement at the continental level but dedicated to work with women of the poor classes. Irene lives in Cuernavaca, Mexico. In 1975 she integrated herself in the editorial Project of the periodical Maria, Liberación del Pueblo, a bimonthly publication by and for women of the poor neighborhoods in the state of Morelos. For five years she directed the publication of the periodical, participating directly in the development of groups of women readers of the same, beginning circles of literacy, reading and writing.

In 1980, she founded the first shelter for women domestic workers in the city of Cuernavaca, with the desire to empower women by means of workshops of education in labor rights, to place them in jobs that improved their work conditions and human conditions, from women living in shelters to women from this sector with problems of violence, loss of work and day care for their small children.

In 1987, Irene founded in Mexico City Colectivo Atabal, another project directed also at women in domestic service. The objective is the defense of the sector through promotion of their labor rights and valuing their services, through mass media, an employment service, workshops on self-esteem and introduction to the making of contracts in just conditions. In 1998, Irene became director of the Colectivo Atabal and dedicated herself to involving women from academia, communications and legislatures, functionaries of the local and federal government, so that they might aid in the incorporation of these workers into labor legislation and social policy.

Irene has written articles from the perspective of gender in the daily newspaper La Jornada, the review Fem, and other media, including the journal NACLA, (North American Congress on Latin America), edited in New York. She is co-author of the book, “Asi es Pues”, results of a socioeconomic study on the domestic workers, and editor of the book “¿Trabajo Domestico, Ayer, Hoy y Siempre?” She has participated as a
presenter on gender themes in diverse forums, also before students from the US and Canada from the programs of Centro de Educacion Mundial (based in Minneapolis at Augsburg College, a center in Cuernavaca), the Cuernavaca Center for Dialogue on Development, as well as Spanish schools.

2006-10-03T02:17:00.000-06:00

FREE DOCUMENTARY SCREENING

GRANITO DE ARENA

MONDAY OCTOBER 23RD

@ 7:30 @ THE SUB THEATER

DISCUSSION ABOUT THE TEACHER'S MOVEMENT IN OAXACA WILL FOLLOW

SPECIAL GUEST: DR. LOIS MEYER

Description: For more than 20 years, global economic forces have been dismantling public education in Mexico, but always in the constant shadow of popular resistance. 'Grain of Sand' is the story of that resistance -- the story of hundreds of thousands of public schoolteachers whose grassroots, non-violent movement took Mexico by surprise and who have endured brutal repression in their 25-year struggle to defend public education.

SPONSORES BY SOLAS

FAVELA RISING

2006-10-03T01:52:00.000-06:00

DOCUMENTARY SCREENING

OCT. 6TH , 2006.

7:15 P.M.

@ THE GUILD

TICKETS: $5

Favela Rising is an important reminder of how human beings can unite to effect grass-roots social change...

PLOT DESCRIPTION

This documentary follows one man's efforts to better his own life and the community he calls home. Anderson Sa grew up in the ghettos of Rio de Janeiro (known locally as "favelas"), where drug dealing, gangs, corrupt police officials, and violence were a common part of daily life. However, Sa came to realize that the life he was living was a dead end, and gave up selling drugs and gang life to become a community activist. Sa also had musical talent, as did a handful of like-minded friends, and together they began fusing the energy and immediacy of hip-hop with the hypnotic grooves of reggae, creating a new sound called afro-reggae in the process. Favela Rising follows Sa and his comrades as they share the story of his violent past, his vision of a better future for the favelas of Brazil, and the crucial message behind their music.

SPONSORED BY TERCERA RAIZ AND CO-SPONSORED BY SOLAS

This Friday SOLAS Brown Bag

2006-10-03T01:33:00.000-06:00

October 6th, 2006

12-1 (noon) @ the LAII (801 Yale NE)

SOLAS Brown Bag

Speaker: Albino García

Community Organizer & Religious Leader

The Life Story of Albino is inspiring and powerful!

Lunch will be served

MACHUCA

2006-09-19T10:53:00.000-06:00

SOLAS FREE MOVIE

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 20TH, 2006

11:00 AM

@ THE SUB MOVIE THEATER

Santiago, Chile, 1973: Pedro Machuca is a poor boy of tribal descent, brought into an upper class private school during Chile’s brief socialist era. Gonzalo, the well-to-do boy seated a row ahead, befriends Pedro against the bullying will of his classmates. In so doing, he discovers a raw, thrilling but wildly complicated world outside his own previously sheltered homelife. Pedro’s fierce, attractive young neighbor Silvana by turns mocks Gonzalo’s pampered background, only to fondly lead both boys in a number of kissing games. All around them, Chile drifts towards civil war. At school, their humane headmaster Father McEnroe comes under a hysteria-driven attack by parents for his charity toward poor students. Little Gonzalo must also contend with more intimate kinds of upheaval. His sexy, melancholy mother is having a love affair with a wealthy older man. His father is sweet but ineffectual, and lacks the fire to fight for his marriage. He therefore escapes into his friendship with Pedro. Pedro gets a look at the intense dysfunctions in Gonzalo’s life, and Gonzalo in turn is immersed in Pedro’s world of extreme poverty. The two boys share a love of comic books devoted to the Lone Ranger. With Silvana’s encouragement they also take part in protest marches--selling cigarettes and flags to demonstrators on the right as well as the left, but chanting with committed vigor when marching with the left. The already enormous rift between Gonzalo’s comfortable household and Pedro’s hard-scrabble life a few miles away in an illegal shantytown ultimately becomes impossible to bridge, once the bloody military coup of September 11, 1973 erupts. All three children suddenly face moral tests far beyond their young capacities.