Latinx Studies @ 50: At the Vanguard of Ethnic Studies: PART TWO

a panel discussion with Arturo Arias, Tanya Hernandez, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, & Vicky Ruiz

March 31, 2022, Thursday, 6 to 7:30 pm ET

Join us as we continue to celebrate, reflect and uplift the 50th anniversary of Latinx Studies. During the final event of this two-part symposium, our distinguished faculty alongside pioneers and field-shaping scholars discuss Latinx Studies’ far-reaching legacy. 

(Please note that Emma Perez, previously listed as a panelist, has had to withdraw her participation. Our apologies for this change.)

This Zoom webinar is free & open to the public.

Registration required here.

For more information, please contact the NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality at csgs@nyu.edu.

This event is co-organized by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, and the Latinx Project at NYU.

Arturo Arias is John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Professor in the Humanities at the University of California, Merced. He has published Recovering Lost Footprints: Contemporary Maya Narratives. Volumes 1 (2017), and 2 (2018), Taking their Word: Literature and the Signs of Central America (2007), The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy (2000), The Identity of the Word: Guatemalan Literature in Light of the New Century (1998), and Ceremonial Gestures: Central American Fiction 1960-1990 (1998. 2001-2003 President of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), Professor Arias co-wrote the film El Norte (1984), and has published seven novels in Spanish, two of which have appeared in English (After the Bombs, 1990, and Rattlesnake, 2003). 2020 Guggenheim Awardee, twice winner of the Casa de las Americas Award, and winner of the Ana Seghers Award for fiction in Germany, he was given the Miguel Angel Asturias National Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature in 2008 in his native Guatemala.

Tanya Katerí Hernández is the Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law (USA), where she is an Associate Director of the Center on Race, Law, & Justice.  Hernández is a Fulbright Scholar who holds a B.A. from Brown University and a law degree from Yale University.  She is the author of Racial Subordination in Latin America: The Role of the State, Customary Law and the New Civil Rights Response; Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination; and the forthcoming book Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality (Beacon Press). Twitter @ProfessorTKH.

Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes is Professor and Chair of the Department of American Culture and former director and core faculty member of the Latina/o Studies Program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is also Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of Women’s and Gender Studies. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he received his AB from Harvard (1991) and his MA, MPhil, and PhD from Columbia (1999). He is author of Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora (University of Minnesota Press, 2009) and of Escenas transcaribeñas: Ensayos sobre teatro, performance y cultura (Isla Negra Editores, 2018) and coeditor with Deborah R. Vargas and Nancy Raquel Mirabal of Keywords for Latina/o Studies (New York University Press, 2017). His book Translocas: The Politics of Puerto Rican Drag and Trans Performance was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2021 as part of the Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance series and received the 2021-2022 Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies from CLAGS, the Center for LGBTQ Studies at the City University of New York. He has coedited queer issues of CENTRO Journal, Sargasso, and Hostos Review/Revista Hostosiana and has published two books of fiction, Uñas pintadas de azul/Blue Fingernails and Abolición del pato. Larry performs in drag as Lola von Miramar since 2010, and has appeared in several episodes of the YouTube series Cooking with Drag Queens.

Vicki L. Ruiz is Distinguished Professor Emerita of History and Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California, Irvine. A first generation college-bound student, she received her PhD in History from Stanford University in 1982. An award-winning scholar and educator, she is the author of Cannery Women, Cannery Lives and From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America and co-author of Created Equal: A History of the United States. She and Virginia Sánchez Korrol co-edited the three-volume Latinas in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia, which received a 2007 “Best in Reference” Award from the New York Public Library. Over the course of her career, Ruiz has participated in numerous public history and community engagement programs, including Arizona State’s Hispanic-Mother Daughter Program. From 2007-2012, she served as Dean of the School of Humanities at UC Irvine. In 2012 Professor Ruiz was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Directing twenty-seven dissertations, she has mentored four generations of graduate students from UC Davis, Claremont Graduate School, Arizona State, and UC Irvine. The National Women’s History Project named her a 2015 Honoree in recognition of her scholarship. Ruiz has also received a lifetime achievement award from the Immigration and Ethnic History Association and the OAH Rosenzweig Award for distinguished service. She is past president of the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association. On September 10, 2015, she received the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama.