CESR Newsletter Volume 3, Issue 3: October 2024

Latinx & Hispanic Heritage Month

During Latinx & Hispanic Heritage Month, we recognize the vibrant & diverse contributions of Latinx students at the University of Pittsburgh and beyond. This is a time to celebrate our shared heritage, honor the achievements of Latinx individuals, and engage with our community's cultural, academic, and social richness.
At the Center for Ethnic Studies, we also recognize the conversations around the use of multiple terms such as Hispanic, Chicano/Chicana, or Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latine, and the many intersectional identifying terms people embrace, whether racial identities or signifiers, such as first-generation or undocumented/documented. We respect and appreciate how community members choose to self-identify. While we use the broader term Latinx for this message, we are mindful of both the shared histories of inequities Latinx communities have endured and the historical, sociolinguistic, regional, social, and educational variance and specificities experienced by Latinx peoples. (Photo courtesy of the University of Pittsburgh.)

Photo courtesy of University of Pittsburgh Office for
Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion

CESR Fall Speaker Series: October Guests!

When: October 4 and October 30 at 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Where: 4130 Posvar Hall
CESR is pleased to invite you to join our Fall Speaker Series for 2024 speakers in October! The Speaker Series is aligned with CESR's mission to advance innovative and collaborative ethnic studies research; it also seeks to foster cross-disciplinary dialogues with experts and scholars in Latinx Studies, Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies, Native American Studies, African American and Afrodiasporic Studies. These speakers range from established to emerging scholars and were selected to reflect the diversity that is critical to Ethnic Studies.

This October, we are proud to welcome Professor Lok Siu (she/her/她), PhD, cultural anthropologist, and associate professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, and Professor Perla Guerrero (she/ella), PhD, of the University of Maryland.
Please save the following dates and join us:
Professor Lok Siu (she/her/她), Oct. 4

"Chifa: How Chinese Food Became Peru's National Treasure"
Professor Lok Siu is a Professor of Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies with University of California, Berkeley.
Co-sponsored by the Global Studies Center and Asian Studies Center

Professor Perla Guerrero (she/ella), Oct. 30

"A Southern Take on Deportation: How Anti-Immigrant and Anti-Education Policies Displaced Migrants to Mexico"
Professor Perla Guerrero is an Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland.

Professor madison moore (madison), Nov. 11

Professor madison moore is an Associate Professor of American Studies Brown University.
Lecture topic and discussion forthcoming.

CESR thanks Dr. David Tenorio Gonzalez for their assistance with this Speaker Series and dedication to excellence.

October 4: Lok Siu (she/her/她), PhD, Berkeley University of California, Associate Vice Chancellor for Research, Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies

October 30: Perla Guerrero (she/ella), PhD, Associate Professor of American Studies and U.S. Latina/o Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park

Did you miss the CESR Speaker Series Inaugural Lecture with Professor Mireya Loza?

On September 19, Professor Mireya Loza, PhD, of Georgetown University kicked off the inaugural lecture of the CESR Speaker Series for Fall 2024 with her talk, "Beyond Braceros: How Temporary Labor Shaped Industrialized Agriculture in California,1942-1965," which is also the topic of her book Defiant Braceros (UNC Press) .
Lecture Abstract: As the largest employer of Mexican guest workers during the era of the Bracero Program, California growers stand center stage in this talk about race and food production in America. Beyond braceros, growers relied increasingly, but not exclusively, on Mexican undocumented workers and actively recruited laborers from Japan and Puerto Rico. California growers' global search for cheap labor challenges long-held assumptions that Mexican workers were the logical, if not inevitable, ideal farmworker. This talk will explain the lobbying efforts, political reach, and racial meaning-making of California growers as they handpicked their most coveted farmworker and explain how the contemporary reality in American agriculture was not inevitable but created by design through policy and grower influence
Professor Loza is also a curator in the Division of Work and Industry at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution and a public historian who contributed oral histories, trained communities, and helped amass over 800 oral histories with bracero communities featured in the Bracero History Archive.
CESR warmly thanks Professor Loza for her participation in our Speaker Series, and to our partners at the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) for co-sponsoring this incredible lecture.

Mireya Loza (she/her), PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of History, Associate Professor in the American Studies Program at Georgetown University

Indigenous Rights & University Community Activism Panel

When: October 18, at 3:00 p.m.
Where: Pitt Global Hub (1st floor, Posvar Hall)

Join us for a panel discussion to hear about the University of Pittsburgh's community development work with indigenous groups through the Lakota Perspectives on Environmental Sustainability and Indigenous Rights study away program. Hear from a student participant, as well as from Pitt faculty and staff, and learn why such programs are critical for universities to offer and how you can get involved.
Co-sponsored by: The Global Experiences Office, Pitt Global Hub, the Global Studies Center, and the Center for Ethnic Studies Research.