Social (In)Justice at the U.S.-Mexico Border Series
september 18, 2023 - October 16, 2023
Mural by Jesus ‘CIMI’ Alvarado
Social (In)Justice at the U.S.-Mexico Border is a month-long series of events that seek to bring attention to issues of social justice, and injustice, at the U.S.-Mexico border. This series coincides with the 2023 National Hispanic Heritage Month, highlighting the intricate connections between this liminal space and U.S. Latinx identities, histories, and experiences. Moreover, through the various events that will take place, attendees will recognize that “border issues” do not only concern those at the border; we all play a role, deliberately or unintentionally, in the consequences of border-crossing.
The events will offer a wide variety of perspectives and engagement opportunities for Skidmore’s community and beyond. From conversations with activists at the frontlines to lectures by specialists and workshops with artists, the series aims to show both the complexity of the issues and the multiple and diverse possibilities to address them.
This series is made possible by the joint efforts of the Racial Justice Initiative ('Communities in Conflict' focus area); the Office of the President; the Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies Program (LACLS); the Department of World Languages and Literatures; and the Office of the Dean of Students and Vice President for Student Affairs, in partnership with various offices, departments, and programs across campus.
series Schedule
All events are free and open to everyone in the Skidmore community and to the general public.
Click the 'plus' sign next to any event to learn more and view registration links, where applicable.
Ruben Zecena is an assistant professor of English at the University of California, Davis. He is an interdisciplinary scholar whose teaching and research focuses on Latinx literature and culture, which he engages through the frameworks of queer migration studies, border studies, queer of color critique, and transnational American studies. His work is animated by his experiences as a formerly undocumented queer migrant from El Salvador. He is working on his first monograph, tentatively titled Impossible Possibilities: The Unruly Imaginaries of Queer and Trans Migrants, which explores the cultural productions of queer and trans migrants as important avenues for imagining the world differently.
Co-sponsored by Gender Studies.
David Dorado Romo is a writer, translator, musician, and historian from the American Southwest. He is a "fronterizo," a person who grew up and lived on the border between the United States and Mexico, separated by the Rio Grande River, with El Paso on the American side and Juárez on the Mexican side. The son of Mexican immigrant parents, Romo experienced life in both countries at different times. Throughout his youth in El Paso and Juárez, he felt the lingering presence of the Mexican Revolution as it affected both Hispanics and Americans. Steeped in the fronterizo spirit that strongly defines the attitudes of the U.S.-Mexico border region, and well aware of the powerful effects that the Mexican Revolution still has on the area, Romo conducted a four-year search to document the important history of the area. He is author of Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez, 1893-1923.
Reception to follow.
Acclaimed El Paso, Texas, historian and musician David Dorado Romo, alto saxophone and guitar; Adriana Muñiz, vocalist/poet; Ernesto Tinajero, bass; and Fernando Lechuga, piano and accordion, make up Los Liminals. The band weaves local history, poetry, and a rich tapestry of musical traditions, including rock, jazz, funk, and Latin rhythms, to create a distinctive sound. Their music is meant to inspire audiences to learn about El Paso history – and draw their own meaning from it. Lopez explains: “If we can make music that creates curiosity, more than anything, from anyone, to try to go on their own journey … that’s really where all these ideas came from.” Their music resonates with people who appreciate artistic integrity, musical exploration, and a genuine connection with the audience.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; show at 7 p.m. Free to the public.
Enrique Valenzuela is a demographer and general coordinator of Chihuahua’s State Council on Population, COESPO, the government body that promotes state policies on migration and provides care for migrants. Valenzuela heads the team in Ciudad Juárez for one of the Mexican states that deal directly with the influx of migrants from the south and those deported to this city from the north. He has deep knowledge of what happens on the ground in Mexico when policy is set in Washington, D.C. Valenzuela is widely quoted internationally for his work and has been a regular source for media such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NBC, among many other outlets.
Co-sponsored by International Affairs.
Professor Gina Pérez is a cultural anthropologist and the author of two award-winning books — The Near Northwest Side Story: Gender, Migration and Puerto Rican Families (2004, University of California Press) and Citizen, Student, Soldier: Latina/o Youth, JROTC and the American Dream (2015, New York University Press). Pérez is also the co-editor of two anthologies: Beyond el Barrio: Everyday Life in Latina/o America (co-edited with Frank Guridy and Adrian Burgos Jr., 2011, New York University Press) and Ethnographic Refusals, Unruly Latinidades (co-edited with Alex Chávez, 2022, University of New Mexico Press, School for Advanced Research Advanced Seminar Series). Pérez’s research interests include Latinas/os, youth, militarism, gender, migration, urban ethnography, and faith-based organizing. Pérez’s new project focuses on sanctuary movements and multi-ethnic, faith-based organizing among Latina/o communities in Ohio. Pérez is currently a professor of comparative American studies at Oberlin College.
Lunch capacity is limited; please RSVP by emailing studentaffairs@skidmore.edu by Monday, Sept. 18.
Sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Students and Vice President for Student Affairs.
Painting the Border: A Child’s Voice is a traveling exhibit of 32 paintings created by children stranded and homeless in Ciudad Juárez under the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols policy launched in 2019. Painting the Border: A Child’s Voice was orchestrated by Skidmore Professor Diana Barnes with painter Cimi Alvarado and other volunteers. It was curated by Barnes’ 2019 Scribner Seminar students. The exhibit has been hung at six galleries in the Northeast and continues to travel and reveal the consequences of border policies on the youngest beneficiaries.
Alvaro Enciso is a Colombian-born Tucson artist and border activist. He honors migrants who die in the Sonora desert in Arizona through his multimedia art project “donde mueren los sueños” (where dreams die). With a team of volunteers, Enciso treks weekly to the places where migrants’ remains were found and remembers them with his painted, wooden crosses. To date, Enciso estimates that he has placed 1,200 crosses.Enciso has been recognized internationally for his work and was featured in a 2019 episode of Democracy Now.
Gabriela Galup is a Peruvian-born Tucson artist who “uses hands and imagination to create characters, stories, and dreams about …personal development and social interaction,” Galup writes of her mission. With textiles and puppetry, Galup reveals the isolation, rejection, and marginality that millions of displaced border-crossers face globally in this era of mass displacement. Her work is beautiful, moving, and imperative.
Jesus “CIMI” Alvarado hails from El Paso, Texas. Alvarado grew up on the border and began his prolific painting careeras a graffiti artist.His murals are found throughout the city’s historic Segundo Barrio and beyond. Alvarado’s work is entirely rooted in the community in which he isworkingat a particular time, and his process usually includes elements of community brainstorming and participation within the creation of each public work. In the same vein as Chicano muralists who have come before him — like his former teacher at Bowie High School, Gaspar Enriquez — his art is truly public, honoring the everyday Chicanx population that strengthens border culture in El Paso. The power of both contemporary and historic Chicanx figures is the driving force behind much of CIMI’s work. In addition to honoring his barrio’s history, he is committed to the growth of new artists.
Mary E. Mendoza is an assistant professor of history and Latino/a studies at Penn State and a historian of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, the environment, and the history of race relations in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. Her current book project, tentatively titled Unnatural Border: Race and Environment at the U.S.-Mexico Divide, explores the intersections between the natural and built environments along the U.S.-Mexico border. Specifically, she writes about the history of fence construction along the border, the ways in which nature has shaped and been shaped by construction, and how fences, though practically powerless to stop the movement of dynamic nature, have become a symbol of a racialized landscape of power, control, and exclusion.
Co-sponsored by Environmental Studies and Sciences.
Professor Jean Eddy Saint Paul earned a Ph.D. in sociology at El Colegio de México. His ample publishing history includes books, articles, and contributions dealing with civil society, political sociology of the Haitian state and ruling class, and the intersection between politics and religion. His works have been published by international academic and commercial publishers. As a former member of Mexico’s National System of Researchers and visiting professor at the selective Paris Institute of Political Studies, commonly called Sciences Po., he made substantial contributions to the advancement of Haitian studies. Most of Saint Paul’s scholarly work oscillates geographically between Latin America and the Caribbean. Previously, he was a tenured professor of sociology and politics at the University of Guanajuato, in Mexico, where he co-founded the Ph.D.program in law, politics, and government, the master's program in political analysis, and the B.A. program in political science. He is currently a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College, where he was the founding director of the CUNY Haitian Studies Institute (HSI).
Co-sponsored by Black Studies and International Affairs.
Introduced by students from the Skidmore Bridge course The Frontera Effect: Myth and Reality of the Power of the Wall.
This exhibit will be open Oct. 1-15 in the Case Center gallery.
Reception to follow.
Alvaro Enciso is a Colombian-born Tucson artist and border activist. He honors migrants who die in the Sonora desert in Arizona through his multimedia art project “donde mueren los sueños” (where dreams die). With a team of volunteers, Enciso treks weekly to the places where migrants’ remains were found and remembers them with his painted, wooden crosses. To date, Enciso estimates that he has placed 1,200 crosses.Enciso has been recognized internationally for his work and was featured in a 2019 episode of Democracy Now.
Gabriela Galup is a Peruvian-born Tucson artist who “uses hands and imagination to create characters, stories, and dreams about …personal development and social interaction,” Galup writes of her mission. With textiles and puppetry, Galup reveals the isolation, rejection, and marginality that millions of displaced border-crossers face globally in this era of mass displacement. Her work is beautiful, moving, and imperative.
Jesus “CIMI” Alvarado hails from El Paso, Texas. Alvarado grew up on the border and began his prolific painting careeras a graffiti artist.His murals are found throughout the city’s historic Segundo Barrio and beyond. Alvarado’s work is entirely rooted in the community in which he isworkingat a particular time, and his process usually includes elements of community brainstorming and participation within the creation of each public work. In the same vein as Chicano muralists who have come before him — like his former teacher at Bowie High School, Gaspar Enriquez — his art is truly public, honoring the everyday Chicanx population that strengthens border culture in El Paso. The power of both contemporary and historic Chicanx figures is the driving force behind much of CIMI’s work. In addition to honoring his barrio’s history, he is committed to the growth of new artists.
Students and community members are invited to create their own “art of resistance” in this four-hour workshop headed by border residents, crossers, and artists Alvaro Enciso, Gabriela Galup, and CIMI Alvarado. The artists provide instruction and materials, and participants come to the table with desire and artistic energy.
Refreshments provided.
Each workshop is limited to 15 participants.
Please note: All workshop participants are expected to attend the artists’ talks at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13, in the Payne Room of the Tang Teaching Museum.
Invisible Valley is a 2021 documentary film created by Aaron Maurer and Zach McMillan that weaves together the disparate stories of undocumented farmworkers, wealthy snowbirds, and music festival-goers over the course of a year in California's Coachella Valley. In exploring the Valley’s history as well as its imperiled future, the film uncovers an imminent environmental and social crisis, and the looming consequences for the people who call it home.
Reception and brief meet and greet to follow.
Sponsored by the Office of Advancement.
Current COVID-19 guidance may be found here, including visitor policies.
Borders are built by people who want to keep other people away from them. They, by design, project a built-in social hierarchy that screams, ‘We have power over you, the places you go, the people you see, and sometimes your very survival.' This project intends to present different messages from the border – messages that acknowledge the powerful voices that mostly go unheard, coming from the people who live with the consequences of the border wall at the southern edge of the U.S.Diana Barnes, Skidmore senior teaching professor of Spanish and co-organizer of the series