Inclusion constraints and activism: Education and advocacy in the US and Latin America

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Key to inclusion is achieving understanding through educating about the lives of the disenfranchised and the negative effects of prevailing policies and practices. The panelists provide ethnographic accounts of different settings, ones which are in different stages of the process of inclusion. Sophia Rodriguez highlights the plight of undocumented high school youth from Central America in the US South, facing anti-immigrant discourse and policy, which denies access to educational opportunity and social mobility. Alice Pierce-Bonifaz provides an account of an undocumented man from Guatemala currently in sanctuary, who has lived in the US for many years and is suddenly finding himself separated from his family and subject to detention and deportation, as a result of President Trump’s policy. Next, Nadjah Rios and Mirerza González Vélez share The Caribbean Diaspora Digital Humanities Center, an initiative in Puerto Rico using open-access tools to preserve and disseminate non-traditional materials about Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The goal is to foster education, solidarity and justice by providing access to documents with significant historical, social and cultural value reflecting the fluid migrations of those in this geographic area. Finally, Denise Blum shares her research regarding politically active Cuban youth who counter the norm of wanting to emigrate outside of Cuba to supposedly live a better life. Inside the Cuban blogosphere, young socialist-oriented youth are concerned about reforming the future of their island and have gained the attention of the Communist Party members through their activism in the blog, La Joven Cuba.

Sub Track

• Education, Citizenship, and Inclusion

Session Organizer

• Denise F Blum, Oklahoma State University

Chair

• Sophia Rodriguez

Discussant

• María Teresa (Mayte) de la Piedra, University of Texas/El Paso

Individual Presentations

• “Even being a citizen is not a privilege if you’re an immigrant here.”: Undocumented youth perceptions of citizenship and belonging in the US South - Sophia Rodriguez

• Sanctuary Provides Education and Inclusion in a “Zero-Tolerance” America - Alice E Pierce-Bonifaz, Independent Scholar

• Digital Humanities: Preserving the Past, Revitalizing the Future of Education - Nadjah Ríos

• The Cuban blog, La Joven Cuba: Cuban youth (en)countering and educating the state for a more participatory socialist democracy - Denise F Blum, Oklahoma State University