Special Issue 2014: Labels, Limits, Boundaries and Crossroads
Filed under: Special Issue 2014: Labels, Limits, Boundaries and Crossroads
Essays
Multiple Hybridities: Jíbaros and Diaspora in Esmeralda Santiago’s When I Was Puerto Rican
By Lorna L. Pérez
Lorna L. Perez is an Assistant Professor of English at Buffalo State College where she teaches courses in Latin@ Literatures, Multi-Ethnic American Literatures, American Literature of the 20th century, Women’s Literature, Literature and Social Justice, Studies in the Novel, and Contemporary Literature. Her areas of interest include Comparative Latin@ Studies, Post Colonialism, Borderland Theory, Feminism, and Post Modernism. She holds a PhD in English from the University at Buffalo.
Creative Non-Fiction
By Scott Duncan
Scott Russell Duncan, frankly, is a lingerer and a lurker. He’s seen a president eat enchiladas, escaped being held hostage by nuns, fled Mills College with an MFA, and makes his lair in Oakland. Scott’s ancestors are Californio, Hispano, and Texian, so he’s half white guy and Mexican. His novel in progress is The Ramona Diary of SRD, a fictional travel diary reclaiming the mythology of Chicano California, which has much to do with a 19th century book named Ramona. His website is scottrussellduncan.com.
By Ana Lilia Soto
Ana Lilia Soto’s commitment to community voice, agency and youth development has guided her involvement with Raza youth and community for the last 14 years. She is a community and mental health worker specializing in cultural rites of passage programming and life skill development for young women with extensive experience working with gang-impacted youth. Ana Lilia has created, developed and implemented empowerment curriculum for under-resourced youth aimed at encouraging young women to acknowledge their own potential using a philosophy grounded in culture, identity, and acknowledgment. Ana Lilia has utilized her own bicultural/bilingual experience in order to become a founder of the Andariega Collective, a organization focused on developing and implementing curriculum centered on youth, identity development, and resiliency. Ana Lilia holds a Master’s Degree in Mexican American Studies from San José State University.
Ricky Martin Is Not the Only Queer Rican
By Enrique Morales-Díaz
Enrique Morales-Diaz is Professor of Spanish and Ethnic & Gender Studies at Westfield State University where he teaches all levels of Spanish language, cultures and literature as well as courses in US Latino/a Literatures, Masculinities, and Queer Studies. His published work has focused on a post-colonial analysis of Reinaldo Arenas’ writing, and has also published on US Queer Latino and Puerto Rican writers. He is currently working on two scholarly projects. The first is a book manuscript studying the ways that contemporary U.S. Latino queer writers interrupt machismo in their literary works. The second focuses on pedagogical approaches in teaching ‘controversial’ and ‘real time’ topics or issues stemming from two recent courses he has taught: Banned in Arizona, and Che Guevara’s Latin America.
Growing Up in a Multiethnic Family during the 1950’s and 1960’s
By Wendy Quinn Parker
Wendy Quinn Parker was born in Guatemala of an Irish American father and Guatemalan mother and was raised in Washington D.C. and Guatemala City. She received a BS in Zoology from the University of Maryland and an MS in Biology from East Carolina University. Her career has included employment as a laboratory assistant for Burroughs Wellcome, a computer analyst, network administrator and she has taught various science classes at Belmont Abbey College and a local community college. Currently she works as a bilingual insurance representative in Charlotte, North Carolina for a national insurance agency.
Theater
By Margarita Pignataro
Margarita E. Pignataro has taught as a Visiting Professor at Syracuse University, Worcester State University and Whitman College. Her specialty is Chicana/o Latina/o Studies. She has written about and taught classes that concern Gender, Race and Identity, Civilizations of the U.S. Southwest, U.S. Mexican Border Literature and Culture, Latino U.S. Immigration, and U.S. Latino Religious Hybridity.
Short Story
By Jenny Irizary
Jenny Irizary holds an MA in English and American Literature and a BA in Ethnic Studies with a focus on trauma, postcolonial theory, Latina feminist theories, Cultural Studies, and Caribbean Diasporic identities from Mills College. A neurotic Swede-Rican from the Russian River wine country, she now lives in Oakland, California.
