2B. Building Community: Activism, Networking, and Policy
11:15am-12:45pm
Activist efforts on Afro-Latin@ issues remain dispersed and disconnected and to date have not impacted in the arena of public policy. Ethnic differences among Afro-Latin@s, regional specificities, and entrenched racist ideas, and limited resources are among the obstacles to building a unified approach and broad visibility. How can we create consciousness among Latin@s about the role of racism in our various communities, and among Afro-Latin@s about their cross-ethnic connections? How can digital technology help to organize, mobilize and ultimately execute our plan of action? What role can academics and cultural workers play in this work?
Activist efforts on Afro-Latin@ issues remain dispersed and disconnected and to date have not impacted in the arena of public policy. Ethnic differences among Afro-Latin@s, regional specificities, and entrenched racist ideas, and limited resources are among the obstacles to building a unified approach and broad visibility. How can we create consciousness among Latin@s about the role of racism in our various communities, and among Afro-Latin@s about their cross-ethnic connections? How can digital technology help to organize, mobilize and ultimately execute our plan of action? What role can academics and cultural workers play in this work?
Presenters
Luis Barrios is a professor of psychology, criminology, Latin American & Latina/o Studies and ethnic studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and of the Ph.D. faculties in social/personality psychology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Barrios is co-author of The Almighty Latin King & Queen Nation: Street Politics and the Transformation of a New York City Gang (2004), and Banished to the Homeland: Dominican Deportees and Their Stories of Exile (2011), and co-editor of Otras naciones: Jóvenes, Transnacionalismo y Exclusión (2008-FLACSO) and Gangs and Society: Alternative Perspective (2003). An Associate Priest at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in West Harlem, Barrios is a former prisoner of conscience from the School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) movement and Co- Executive Director of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) and Pastors for Peace.
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Mirtha Colón was born in Trujillo, Honduras, and migrated to the United States in 1969. She has worked on HIV/AIDS-related issues since the early 1990s when she founded Hondurans Against AIDS. She has been the Principal Investigator for the Ford Foundation-sponsored AIDS education and prevention work in Central America since 2007. She is Secretary of Women’s Issues in the Organization of Central American States (ODECA), and the General Secretary for National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC), a consortium of 89 member organizations throughout the U.S., which advocates for immigration reform. The recipient of numerous awards, she received her Master’s degree in social work from Fordham University and is currently a senior social worker with the South Bronx Mental Health Council, Inc., where she works with children and adolescent services.
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Carlos Flores was born in Guayama, Puerto Rico, and has resided in the city of Chicago for the last five decades. Since the 1960s he has accumulated an extensive track record in community and cultural activism in Chicago's Latino community, both as a participant and documentarian. During the 1980s he was a member of Mayor Harold Washington’s Community Advisory Committee. For the last two decades he has been advocating for the acknowledgement and dissemination of information on the presence and contributions of Afro-Latin@s in the United States. In September 2007, he established the Afro-Latin@ Institute of Chicago.
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Carlos Russell is Professor Emeritus at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York where he served as Chairman of the Department of Educational Services and Dean of the School of Contemporary Studies. A native of the Republic of Panama, he served as the representative of that country to the United Nations and to the Organization of American States with the rank of Ambassador. He has been honored with one of Panama’s most prestigious awards, the Vasco Nuñez de Balboa Medal of Honor. Considered a scholar activist, he is the founder of Black Solidarity Day. A radio host and journalist, he was Associate Editor of the Liberator Magazine and the Brooklyn Editor of the New York Amsterdam News. He has written and produced twelve plays; numerous essays and articles and three books on being of Caribbean ancestry in Panama. His latest book, The Ghost of the Gray Pony-A Collection of Short Stories, is scheduled for release in November.
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Moderator
Ryan Mann-Hamilton is a board member of the afrolatin@ forum and a PhD candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center Dept. of Anthropology. He has an undergraduate degree in International Business and a Masters in Environmental Science with a focus on renewable technologies. He has taught courses in history, anthropology and ethnic studies and given a variety of workshops on social justice, envrionmental activism and social constructions of race. He is currently conducting his field research on the effects and the reactions to processes of land dispossession in Samaná, Dominican Republic.
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