‘The Problem with Latinidad:’ A Critical discussion on the single narrative of Latinidad, anti-Blackness and white privilege within Latine communities, US imperialism, and Indigenous erasure from the perspectives of library and archives workers
Friday, May 7, 2021
with Cristina Fontánez Rodríguez, Mario Macías, Obden Mondésir, Yvette Ramírez, Amanda Toledo, and Gabby Womack.
Further Reading
Resources shared by the panelists and moderator in preparation for the event.
The Problem with Latinidad by Miguel Salazar, 2019, The Nation.
Montiel-Overall, P., Nuñez, A., & Reyes-Escudero, V. (2016). Latinos in libraries, museums, and archives : cultural competence in action! : an asset-based approach. Rowman & Littlefield.
Contra Aztlan: A Critique of Chicano Nationalism, Ediciones Inéditas Anthology.
Latin America: The Allure and Power of an Idea by Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo.
Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano.
It’s time for non-Black Latinx people to talk about anti-Blackness in our own communities - and the conversation starts at home by Canela López, Insider.
The Tortilla Cartel by Elizabeth Dunn, Taste.
THE DISHWASHER (2019), directed by Sam Roden and Nick Hartanto. Short film // satire.
XQUIPI’ GUIE’DANI (GUIE’DANI’S NAVEL) (2018), directed by Xavi Sala. Feature-length // Drama. Watch the trailer.
Social Order in the Spanish New World by María Elena Martínez.
War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony by Nelson A. Denis.
Researchers and Resources shared during the live event.
LIS scholar Ana Ndumu (Afro-Indigenous from Nicaragua)
Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature by Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vasquez
@priscilagarciajacquier has a great video on instagram called “But my Black friend said I wasn’t white” with @sydmejeure
Looking Like Language, Sounding Like Race: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and the Learning of Latinidad by Jonathan Rosa
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Fobia by Sabrina Strings
Parsley Massacre, Wikipedia
The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, TEDGlobal 2009
Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir by Deborah A. Miranda
¿Nunca más un México sin nosotros? By Yásnaya Elena A. Gil
English Translation: Never Again Mexico Without Us
The Map and the Territory: National borders have colonized our imagination by Yásnaya Elena A. Gil, Translated from the Spanish by Ellen Jone
Hindsight is 2020: Futures of Teaching and Preserving Mother Tongues (Keynote) by Yásnaya Elena A. Gil
Playlist
For the best experience, play on shuffle and hit Allow smooth transitions between songs in a playlist in your Advanced Settings. ¡Wepa!
Meet the Panelists
In order of appearance:
Gabby Womack
Gabby Womack (she/her) is a Reference/Access Librarian, archivist, and historian specializing in nineteenth and twentieth-century African American history. Her grandparents from Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic and her large family helped raise her. Gabby’s work analyzes personal and societal racial identities, particularly among descendants of the African diaspora, and their effects on policy in the United States. Her research interests include the intersections of race, ethnicity, immigration, eugenics/race science, and policy in the United States. Gabby loves inspiring folks to read books by underrepresented populations on her Instagram and Facebook pages.
Gabby’s website: bookishafrolatina.com and Gabby on Instagram: @bookish_afrolatina.
Obden Mondésir
Obden Mondésir is an Outreach Archivist and Adjunct Lecturer at Queens College, City University of New York, and an Oral History Manager at the Weeksville Heritage Center, which is an historic house museum in central Brooklyn that preserves the remaining homes apart of a 19th century free Black community.
At Queens College, he helps develop curriculum and collect interviews on the SEEK program. For the Weeksville Heritage Center, he developed public programming and he has conducted and presented on several community-based oral history projects that have focused on education, Black joy, and Black-owned restaurants in Central Brooklyn.
Obden has a dual M.A. in Library Science and History from Queens College and is the recipient of a West African Research Center Library Fellowship and the Citi Center for Culture + Queens Library Fellowship.
Obden on Twitter: @Goldenoil.
Yvette Ramírez
Yvette Ramírez is an arts administrator, oral-historian, and archivist from Queens, NY - the land of the Munsee-Lenape peoples. She is inspired by the power of community-centered archives to further explore the complexities of information transmission and memory within Andean and other diasporic Latinx communities of Indigenous descent. Her archival practice is rooted in recordkeeping practices that embrace a hyperlocal and liberatory praxis especially when working with identity-related collections. With nearly a decade of experience as a cultural producer, Yvette has worked alongside community-based and cultural organizations such as The Laundromat Project, PEN America, Make The Road New York and New Immigrant Community Empowerment. Currently, she is an MSI candidate in Digital Curation and Archives at the School of Information at The University of Michigan and currently works at the University of Michigan Library's Digital Preservation Unit. Yvette is also a co-founding member of the collective Archivistas en Espanglish.
Find her on Twitter @YvetteGRamirez and on IG @yvettegramirez.
Mario Macías
Mario graduated from the MLIS program of the U of Washington in 2014; he studied Literature for his undergraduate degree from Grinnell College, thanks to the Posse Foundation. Mario emigrated from Jalisco, Mexico to California when he was ten years old. He is the first Latino librarian to receive tenure in the Library Department of Pierce College, part of the Los Angeles Community College District. Mario serves as the vice president and president-elect of the California Academic & Research Libraries CARL, the state chapter of ACRL. He is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Mario on Instagram: @justicebuddhist and on Twitter: @andornotnear.
Cristina Fontánez Rodríguez
Cristina Fontánez Rodríguez is the Virginia Thoren and Institute Archivist at Pratt Institute where she also teaches a course on management of archives. Cristina’s work is focused on participatory and non-hierarchical ways of knowledge-seeking and making through archival practice. She is a founding member of Archivistas en Espanglish, a collective dedicated to amplifying spaces of memory-building between Latin America and Latinx communities in the US, and is an editor for Archivoz International Archives Magazine. She is the Director of Outreach for the Archivists Roundtable of Metropolitan NY and currently co-runs Barchives, an independent outreach initiative that brings archivists to bars to talk about New York City’s archival collections and local history. Cristina holds a BA in Geography from Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto de Río Piedras and an MLS with a certificate in Archives and Preservation of Cultural Materials from CUNY Queens College.
Amanda Toledo
Amanda Toledo (She/Her/Ella) is a writer and library assistant with a focus in youth and family services. A first generation daughter of Cuban immigrants, she grew up on a steady stream of books and croquetas. In her public library work, her focus is in social justice, equity, and emotional intelligence and how to implement those values for systemic changes. She lives, works, and dreams in Southern California.
Event Credits
Direction and moderation by Jennifer A. Ferretti, Founder & Principal of We Here®️, first-generation US born Latina/Mestiza. On Instagram @thecitythatreads and on Twitter @citythatreads.
Tech and content support by Kristina Santiago, up//root Editor & Afro-Puerto Rican MLIS candidate at the University of Arizona iSchool.
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This event was free to attend, but We Here paid speakers and tech support for their labor. Not to mention the multiple online platform subscriptions necessary to make this type of event happen. Consider joining our Patreon community to help keep this type of work going while at the same time getting access to exclusive content.
“Latinidad” as Erasure: Words from a Critical Discussion on the Single Narrative of Latinidad
Read the edited transcript of the event by Jennifer A. Ferretti, Cristina Fóntanez Rodríguez, Yvette Ramírez, Amanda Toledo, and Gabby Womack, published by up//root: a we here publication.
