Closing Plenary: Dialogue & Resolution
5:30pm - 6:30pm
Harold M. Proshasky Auditorium
At this final session of the day we will hear summary reports on the proceedings of the various panels, including the substantive issues discussed and recommendations for future work. The assembly will approve a final statement of consensus that represents the intent and spirit of this gathering.
Harold M. Proshasky Auditorium
At this final session of the day we will hear summary reports on the proceedings of the various panels, including the substantive issues discussed and recommendations for future work. The assembly will approve a final statement of consensus that represents the intent and spirit of this gathering.
Rapporteurs
Miriam Jiménez Román is Executive Director of afrolatin@ forum, a research and resource center focusing on Black Latin@s in the United States. For over a decade, she researched and curated socio-historical exhibitions at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, where she also served as the Assistant Director of the Scholars-in-Residence Program. She was the Managing Editor and Editor of Centro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. She has taught courses on race, ethnicity, and gender in Latin America and the Caribbean at Binghamton, Brown and Columbia universities. A frequent speaker and consultant on African American and Latino issues, her essays on diasporic racial formations and inter-ethnic relations have appeared in a number of scholarly publications. A visiting scholar in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, she is co-editor of The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History and Culture in The United States (2010), which received this year’s American Book Award.
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Ejima Baker-Morales is an artist and academic whose work focuses on popular culture, race, and gender. She is intensely interested in the multiplicity of black and Latin@ identities, their intersections, and the ways in which racial identities can be employed for political, economical, and cultural strength. She has a BA in Africana Studies and Music and a MA in Ethnomusicology and is working on her PhD in anthropology. A board member of the afrolatin@ forum, when she is not teaching, her days are spent reading, singing, writing and researching.
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Karen Juanita Carrillo is a Brooklyn, New York-based writer and photographer. She specializes in covering African American and Afro-Latin@ issues and operates the website AfroPresencia.com. She is the author of The View from Chocó: The Afro-Colombian Past, Their Lives in the Present, and Their Hopes for the Future (2010). Her almanac of Black history in the United States, entitled African American History Day by Day, will be published by Greenwood Press in 2012.
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Miguel López Jr. has devoted his brief professional career to working in the non-profit sector. He is especially interested in empowering underserved urban adolescents and in creating the conditions for effective dialogue between African Americans and Latin@s. A graduate of Long Island University, he is a counselor for the Learning to Work program in Harlem Renaissance High School, and a member of the afrolatin@ forum. He finds inspiration in the work and words of Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, "It is the season for us to devote our time to kindling the torches that will inspire us to racial integrity."
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Lori S. Robinson is the editor of B.L.A.C. (Black Life, Arts & Culture), an award-winning lifestyle magazine in Detroit. She is also the founding editor of VidaAfroLatina.com (now on hiatus), a digital news and opinion publication. Robinson has traveled widely in Latin America and Spain. She has been writing articles about Latin America’s African descendants for 15 years and her freelance work has appeared in national newspapers and magazines. During a year living in Ecuador, she taught a media course at Universidad San Francisco de Quito. She currently serves on the board of When And Where I Enter Inc., a Houston-based foundation that provides grants to charitable organizations that improve the lives of Black women in Latin America. In addition, Robinson, a rape survivor, is the author of I Will Survive: The African-American Guide to Healing from Sexual Assault and Abuse.
Melissa Valle, a member of the afrolatin@ forum, is a sociology PhD student at Columbia University developing a project that seeks to deepen our understanding of the socio-spatial dimensions of exclusion in Latin America. Her current research explores the network bases of power and identity of Afro-Colombian social movement organizations. She served previously as a New York City Teaching Fellow on the Lower East Side and as a community development public policy director in Harlem. She holds a dual BA in economics and African-American studies from Howard University, an MPA in Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy from New York University and a Master of Science in education from Pace University.
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Laura Rivera worked as a staff reporter for Newsday and served a brief stint at El Diario/La Prensa in New York. She also co-directed a documentary about gentrification in New York called "Whose Barrio?" Last year, she co-produced a series of public service announcements for the afroatin@ forum’s Census 2010 campaign. Laura was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she worked as a correspondent and producer for public TV station WIPR. She is a graduate of Emory University and New York University, and is currently a first-year student at Emory Law School in Atlanta.
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