Latinx Heritage Month Special Issue, Yale Daily News -- Oct. 14, 2022

LIFTING UP LATINX IDENTITY

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2022

A SPECIAL ISSUE FOR LATINX HERITAGE MONTH

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orman Rockwell once imagined the American family as the scene of a Thanksgiving supper—relatives frozen in conversation and eyeing the turkey. Inspired by Rockwell, I too imagined the American family. One that looks like mine and eats the same food that I do. At the dinner table, heritage and tradition are made tangible. They lie in the embroidery of an apron. They rest in the clay curves of earthenware dishes. They are celebrated in the offering of a lime, the unfolding of a corn husk, and the tearing of hot tortillas. Food is the love we share and the stories we pass down. I, like Rockwell, offer you a family at dinnertime. A family just like any other, connected by invisible bonds and partaking in the recipes of the history that flow through them. Jessai Flores, Illustration Editor

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

LATINX HERITAGE MONTH Introducing the Latinx ¿Latinx, Latine, Hispanic — Que? Heritage Month issue Welcome to the News’ special issue celebrating Latinx Heritage Month! We are thrilled to showcase content centered on Latinx members of our community — including profiles, spoken word poetry, photography and illustrations.

We hope you enjoy these pieces and share them with your broader communities. The work reflected in this special issue has been produced by people both within and outside of the News, and we would like to offer a special note of thanks to guest contributors who submitted content specifically for this issue: Zenaida Aguirre Gutierrez ’24, Anna Chamberlin ’26, Michelle Foley ’25, Kassie Navarrete ’25 and Luana Prado Oliveira Souza ’26.

As editors of this special issue, we want to acknowledge that this is the first time in recent institutional memory that the Yale Daily News has produced and printed a full special issue for Latinx Heritage Month. There are three primary reasons for this — none of them adequate.

First, a historical lack of representation of Latinx people in the newsroom contributes to these perspectives often being left out of coverage. But it is not the burden of people of marginalized backgrounds to be the sole voices advocating for their communities — this coverage is long overdue, and it should happen whether or not Latinx individuals in our newsroom decide to do so themselves.

Second, our Board has historically turned over in the middle of September, right at the start of Latinx Heritage Month. The News has a history of pursuing initiatives related to diversity and inclusion if and when it is convenient for leadership. This is unacceptable, and we strive to make change.

And third, overall, the News has historically not had the infrastructure, vision or effort dedicated toward appropriately covering marginalized groups, with the attention and care they deserve. As members of the News stepping into new leadership roles, we apologize.

The News commits to learning more, working harder and doing better to include more Latinx voices in our paper — both as part of our staff and in the content we produce.

We recognize that significant work still needs to be done toward appropriately uplifting Latinx and representing Latinx voices.

This issue, still, is not fully representative, as many Latinx identities and backgrounds are not included. Our coverage of these communities is not, and will not be, restricted to this issue, and we intend to ensure that diverse communities are consistently part of our daily coverage.

Thank you to the members of the News — including reporters, desk editors, copy editors, production and design editors, audience editors, photographers, illustrators and management — who contributed their time and efforts to the creation of this issue.

And thank you to you, our audience, for your readership! We welcome any feedback — please feel free to contact us at our Yale emails, or to reach out to us individually at the email addresses below.

ANIKA SETH, PALOMA VIGIL, AND SOPHIE WANG are the editors for the Latinx Heritage Month Spissue and staff reporters and editors for the News.

The terminology used to describe people of Latin American or Hispanic descent has become increasingly confusing for people in the Latinx community and others alike.

The term “Hispanic,” historically the most popular, refers to any descendant of Spanish-speaking communities in the Americas and Spain. According to an infographic by Sebastian Ramírez Feune for the Harvard Institute of Politics, the term “Hispanic” is a complicated one — serving as more of a linguistic label that includes most Latin American countries as well as the African country of Equatorial Guinea, another nation with colonial ties to Spain.

The term does not refer to all Latin people, only the Spanish-speaking ones, and has received backlash recently because of its ties to Spanish colonization. Many Latin people feel that the United States Census Bureau imposed the label Hispanic on all Latin immigrants, regardless of nation of origin or language spoken.

The term “Latino” encompasses all Latin people with roots in Latin America, which includes Portuguese-speaking Brazilians and Haitian-Creole-speaking Haitians, but not Spanish-speaking Spaniards.

But in recent years, the term “Latino,” too has faced criticism for being inherently male-gendered. “Latina,” its counterpart, only refers to those of the same background who identify as female.

One gender-neutral term to describe someone of Latin American descent is “Latinx.”About one-in-four U.S. Hispanics have heard of the term, and only 3 percent use it, according to a Pew Research study from 2020. Yet the Spanish language is naturally gendered and conflicts with gender-neutral terms aris-

ing from the usage of “Latinx.” The use of “x” to replace the “o” in “Latino” is seen with disdain by many in the community, as they feel it crosses a line — anglicizing an identity label to the point where, for many, it loses its meaning and cannot be pronounced within the Spanish language.

A solution that some use is “Latine” — another gender-neutral term that can be used in lieu of “Latinx” — as it aims to remove the gender binary found in the general Spanish language by using the neutral “e” to end the term instead of an “a” or “o,” while still preserving the linguistic norms of Spanish. This term then opens the door to gender-neutralizing all Spanish nouns by replacing the “a’s” and “o’s” with “e’s,” and it is easier to pronounce and acclimate into the Spanish language and grammar. Many still disagree with this proposition because of the old linguistic traditions of “o’s” and “a’s” that the Spanish language has upheld for hundreds of years, considering the appending of an “e” to be antithetical to the language.

The University and La Casa Cultural, which describes itself as Yale’s Latino Cultural Center, refer to this month of recognition as Latinx Heritage Month.

For that reason, the News has decided to use the gender-neutral term “Latinx”. Though we choose to adhere to what the University and La Casa use in the present, the News wants to recognize that each of these terms has its own set of pros and cons and should not be used interchangeably.

PALOMA VIGIL is a sophomore in Pauli Murray College from Miami, Florida. She can be reached at paloma.vigil@yale.edu.

Tio Time: Latin Family Orientedness vs. American Individualism

Much fanfare was made about thEvery Mexican has a tio who they aren’t quite sure is their tio — biologically, at least. That is to say, if an adult around your parents’ age is around enough, they’re granted the tio title. I’ll be guilty of this, too. My friend Andrea jokes that to immerse my future children in Spanish, I can send them over to her for a month and lie that Tia Andrea doesn’t speak any English so it’ll be puro Español with her.

Mexican families are typically more extensive, and so is their role in daily life. Generally, family connectivity is celebrated more prominently in Latino cultures than American culture. Of course, no particular culture loves their families more than others — love is just shown differently. Many Latinos fundamentally believe that individual action reflects one’s family values, so loyalty, tradition and honor are prioritized accordingly. Greater group orientation characterizes the family as a larger safety net against hardship.

It’s an imperfect system. Strict adherence to the family unit may entail that instances of abuse and dysfunction are swept under the rug. At my local community college’s sociology symposium, one presenting student explained that Latinas are less likely to transfer to a fouryear college after community college

partly due to cultural pressure to stay home. Increased family dependence may also enforce unbalanced power dynamics, enabling parents to dictate children’s career paths or enforce religious and gendered ideas into the minutia of their children’s lives. But familial culture doesn’t necessitate hypercontrol: there’s plenty of room for diverging perspectives. A personal standout is my mom’s conversation with a friend who’d pushed her daughter to turn down a master’s degree program scholarship abroad to stay closer to family.

“It’s Mexican culture,” she said, but my mom disagreed. She told me she almost saw her children as an extension of herself, so their successes and travels felt like hers, too.

Therein lies the distinction between family-oriented and helicopter parenting. Hovering over growing children carries a perception of weakness, so many American parents pridefully send their children “out of the nest” as soon as they can. To be a “helicopter parent” implies that you believe your child can’t handle the real world on their own. A more balanced perspective is that your child can absolutely tackle adulthood, but you’ll remain an important part of it.

Americans often romanticize the ’50s nuclear family model as the suburbanite ideal, but there’s merit

to an expanded family. One or two caretakers per family unit allow for fewer shock absorbers; with a smaller group of people to rely on, familial strife may affect us more acutely and leave us lonelier. One dysfunctional parent can more easily fracture a smaller family, but having grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins to turn to helps dilute the problem. “It takes a village” isn’t just a saying: it’s evolutionary biology.

Take the widely-explored grandmother hypothesis, which suggests that grandparents long outlive their reproductive years partially because their presence in their grandchildren’s lives increases the parents’ reproductive fitness and resource availability. We benefit from wider familial systems not only for our own upbringing, but also for that of our children.

Platonic touch is comparatively rare in cultures like the U.S. and U.K., so we may turn to family for touch instead. We should put our fingers on the dissonance that many patients of color feel when encouraged by culturally white American therapists to simply cut off unhealed family members, or told that self-love is enough to compensate for lacking close relationships.

Of course, we should welcome various definitions of family and

found family. In this way, we may stop turning to the hyper-individualistic, materialist default of American sociality for achievement, fulfillment and belonging in this world. The Latin practice of defining and redefining family combats isolation through resortion to some of the most natural systems we have. When we have a strong emotional core

MICHELLE FOLEY/CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

to return to again and again, we can live in abundance and resilience, regardless of what life has to offer.

Guest columnist MICHELLE FOLEY is a sophomore in Benjamin Franklin College from Carmel Valley, California.

She can be reached at michelle.foley@yale.edu.

A land of tomorrows stuck in yesterdays Latin America has a complicated relationship with democracy, filled with plot twists, unbelievable comebacks of dictatorships, and a lack of democratic political culture. Despite the chaotic reality, the region is generally regarded as the most promising democratizing region, a land of very hopeful tomorrows that unfortunately has not yet come. With a disturbing past, it seems that the region keeps repeating its history because it hasn’t learned from it.

According to The Economist’s Democracy Index 2021 - Economist Intelligence Unit 59% of Latin America lives in a flawed democracy and 30% in hybrid regimes. But only 1.3% live in what is considered a “full democracy”(Uruguay and Costa Rica). The most concerning factor here is that this is not an isolated reality — there is a cycle of instability that pervades the region and repeats itself frequently.

Until 1991, Latin America counted 253 Constitutions and 133 coups’ of State. Thus, instability is the norm. If you analyze 253 Constitutions, considering that Latin America has 33 countries, it is an average of 7.6 Constitutions per country, which shows a weakness in the respect of the institutions and legal uncertainty, besides the clear lack of judicial stability. The very unfortunate number of the 133 Coup of State also demonstrates how sadly Latin Americans are used to this reality of authoritarianism. Especially remembering the bloody dictatorships in the recent past is disheartening to observe how the cycle doesn’t seem to be over yet. This melancholic relationship to its past is seen in cultural expressions, raising the question of when this cycle will be over, as it is possible to see in Caetano Veloso’s song Podres Poderes, one of the greatest names of Brazil-

ian music: “Won’t we ever do nothing but to confirm // The incompetence of catholic America // Which will always need ridiculous tyrants? // Will, will, will, will // Will this stupid rhetoric of mine // Need to sound, need to be heard for a thousand years more?” (Translated version).

The low marks on political culture in 2021’s Democracy Index materialize the issue of instability in the past. The ranking gave the mark of 4.53, which is lower than the Global average (5.36) and 2020’s Latin American average (5.18).

But how could you blame Latin Americans for not trusting democracy when they never quite experienced a stable form of government? The lack of political culture is extremely connected to the troubled past and the only form for it to change is by rethinking education about Democracy to its citizens.

It is worth noticing that most Latin American democracies emerged in the

transition from the colonial past to the beginning of their own history. However, I am afraid this new chapter just reproduced several forms of exploitation from when they were colonies to their own people. Speaking in general terms, when the democratic transition occurred, they didn’t think about creating a system that would work for them; the general system of the United States Democracy was applied there, and so Latin American democracy didn’t start democratic at all. This 1982 quote from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” reflects on this topic: “Latin America neither wants nor has any reason, to be a pawn without a will of its own; nor is it merely wishful thinking that its quest for independence and originality should become a Western aspiration.”

Therefore, thinking about the future, I would go even further by

stating that Latin Americans need to have the chance to dictate their own story by rethinking and building their own democracy. A democracy that is thought for their own climate, their own people, and their own rules. In honor of all that already died in Latin American dictatorships, I optimistically still see hope in the future because of my unquestionable faith in the resilience of the people that always come back ready to fight for another day.

“So many times I was killed many times I died nonetheless, I’m still here coming back to life” (Como la Cigarra, Elena Walsh, translated version).

Guest columnist LUA PRADO is a freshman in Jonathan Edwards College from Aracaju, Brazil. She can be reached at luana.souza@yale.edu.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

SPISSUE Seven Latinx athletes talk heritage and representation ANNA CHAMBERLIN. CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

BY PALOMA VIGIL STAFF REPORTER From track to sailing to soccer, Latinx athletes are excelling.

Football player Joe Gonzales ’25, grew up playing sports in an area with very few Hispanics. Gonzales, a Washington native, is Mexican on his father’s side of the family and a defensive back on the football team.

He told the News that he appreciates his team’s “broad spectrum of cultures and ethnicity.”

“I am proud to be a Hispanic athlete and to represent my heritage every time I strap up the helmet,” Gonzales said.

His Hispanic heritage, Gonzales said, has “strengthened” his relationship with athletics.

Gonzales’ favorite player of all time is NFL star Tony Gonzalez, who he respects both on and off the field.

“Seeing someone on a stage like that, in the NFL, with my last name was so awesome,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales is one of seven Latinx athletes who spoke to the News about their relationship to sports during Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. Yale Athletics held a “Noche Latina” at Reese Stadium to celebrate its Latinx athletes.

Around 40 Yale student-athletes identify as Latinx out of over 1,000 student-athletes at Yale, according to Yale Athletics assistant director Sam Rubin.

Moving from the gridiron to the docks, California native Ximena Escobar ‘25 is one of a handful of Hispanic sailors competing for Yale.

The Mexican-American sailor recently aided the women’s sailing team to come in second in the FJ fleet and third in the 420 fleet at the Yale Invite hosted at the McNay Family Sailing Center on Sept. 17.

Escobar’s parents moved to San Diego when she was young and put her and her older brother into an aquatic summer camp that included sailing. As she watched her brother become one of the best sailors in her hometown, she was motivated “to take sailing seriously,” she said.

Now, Escobar has worked her way to the top and is on the 2022 NEISA Women’s Crew of the Year Watch List.

Her teammate, Carmen Cowles ’25, grew up speaking French and Spanish at home and has always considered Spain a “home away from home.”

The Hispanic female athlete has found that being multicultural has

helped her “connect” with competitors from other Hispanic or Spanish-speaking countries.

Carmen Berg ’26, also on the sailing team, feels “wonderful” that she is part of an extended Latinx community that shares the same values of hard work and collaborating as a whole in the same fashion that athletics does.

“As a student-athlete, we are training and competing as one; working for the victory and bringing all teammates up to the podium,” Berg told the News.

Berg is part Puerto Rican and commented on the strong role of women in her family. Berg explained that in her culture, “Gran Madre, Madre and Tia are strong role models and worked alongside [her] male role models in business and in the home.”

However, Yale Athletics has supported Latinx heritage events around campus to promote even more inclusion among its student-athletes.

Women’s volleyball first-year, Isabella Mendoza ’26, calls Miami, FL home. There, she felt that she was able to connect with various coaches and players because they all spoke Spanish and shared many of the same customs that she knows from her Ecuadorian parents.

Mendoza also mentioned the accompanying “culture shock” that comes with being Latinx on majority-white teams that do not share these same customs.

But coming to Yale has also presented new opportunities.

“I have a unique story to tell people, whether it’s about how my parents came to the US or how I learned to speak English,” Mendoza said. “I am also able to listen to new stories and ideas that weren’t there back home.”

Dominican women’s soccer player, Giovanna Dionicio ’23, is a seasoned player who also played for the Dominican Republic National team while at Yale.

“Being able to play for my heritage and represent the Dominican Republic has helped me appreciate soccer in a different way and makes me more grateful to play the sport each time I go to compete with them,” Dionicio said.

Dionicio said that she loves being a Latinx athlete at Yale and has never felt “limited” as an athlete due to her heritage.

Christian Pereira ’25 is Mexican-Cuban and performs in the long jump special event for the Track and Field team. Soccer has

always been a big sport for Pereira culturally, and he would always heer on Team Mexico in international competitions. Although he chose to pursue track at a collegiate level, he will “always have a soft spot for soccer.”

Pereira said he has thought about quitting sports a couple of times in his life, but his dad encouraged him to stay.

“He thought it would be essential to my self-realization to overcome those challenges, and he was right,” Pereira said.

“Must be the Cuban grindset.”

SAAC Executive Board members Chelsea Kung ’23, Ashley Au ’24, and Kaity Chandrika ’26 described the organization’s diversity goals in a joint statement.

“It is important that we continue to embrace and welcome the diversity amongst our student-athletes in order to continue making strides towards creating an inclusive and equitable community within Yale Athletics.”

Escobar, Cowles and Berg will look to defend their title as the top sailing team in the country this year.

Contact PALOMA VIGIL at paloma.vigil@yale.edu.

Latinx professors at Yale break barriers in STEM

BY KAYLA YUP AND SOPHIE WANG STAFF REPORTER AND SCITECH EDITOR Latinx educators are pushing the bounds of human knowledge while inspiring and guiding students through mentorship in a wide range of roles, from professor to head of college.

Assistant professor Martha Muñoz, and professors Enrique M. De La Cruz, Daniel Colón-Ramos are three professors whose identities have been foundational to their research, impacts and future goals. As they continue to conduct groundbreaking research and serve in leadership roles at Yale, they strive to increase diversity and inclusion in academia. “[My background] contributes to how I view research and my roles as an academic and a scientist, and it certainly contributes to my dedication and commitment to science and teaching,” De La Cruz said.

“I’m well aware that I am lucky to be here … I also recognize that I’m here because of others’ goodwill and … I understand that I am very privileged now, and I intend to use this privilege in a form of service to help others achieve their goals and experience things they may not even be able to imagine because they don’t know what it is.”

Martha Muñoz Munoz is an assistant professor of ecology and environmental biology Growing up in a tiny apartment in New York City, Muñoz rarely experienced the natural world. Yet her imagination ran wild during visits to museums, which she saw as magical places.

“It’s a real act of love for me, the way that collections and museums can stimulate wonder and curiosity in people and connect them to the natural world,” Muñoz said. “[And they] very much fuel the beating heart of science.”

Muñoz also serves as an Assistant Curator at the Yale Peabody Museum, but growing up, she hadn’t known that there were scientists in the museums, seeing scientists as an abstract concept — an “elite group of folks.”

At her middle school in Queens, she was one of the few Hispanic kids. According to her, it was a burdensome feat to even have access to good schools, especially for those new to the country and trying to escape poverty, as her parents’ generation had.

“My grandmother never got a break,” Muñoz said. “She went straight from working to the bone to raising both me and my

sister. If I had had the privilege I would have given her a much more peaceful retirement.”

In her first year at Boston University, Muñoz discovered “real science” as a work study student in a neurophysiology lab led by Ayako Yamaguchi. Muñoz learned of the struggles Yamaguchi experienced coming to the U.S. and drew parallels to her own Cuban American experience.

“She was just really energetic, surprisingly relatable, surprisingly human,” Muñoz said. “I thought scientists were these superhuman beings who couldn’t possibly be as human as the rest of us.”

Muñoz went on to earn a doctorate degree at Harvard University while working with collections in their Museum of Comparative Zoology.

Now, her research asks how the organisms themselves can influence evolution as it does not proceed evenly, Muñoz explained.

Sometimes evolution can be rapid, sometimes there can be lineages with lots of species — and sometimes neither occurs.

“I knew in particular that I wanted to work in Latin America because I wanted to, in a sense, go home and connect to that part of myself by studying evolution and organisms that were found there,” Muñoz said.

Though now an award-winning biologist with a successful lab under her belt, she had to overcome self-doubt. Muñoz sees imposter syndrome as the natural doubt people experience amplified by societal pressures — such as a “societally induced toxicity” from not seeing anyone who looked like her in a certain space.

She said to disregard the societal pressures that amplify doubt, but also allow the voice of doubt to ground yourself, while still holding onto the voice of the dreamer who maps out somewhere greater to go.

“The way I see it, there’s nothing I’ve done or could do with my life that could ever match the sacrifice, commitment and effort of my parents and my grandparents,” Muñoz said. “They were heroes, they went through real struggle.”

Enrique De La Cruz De La Cruz is a professor and chair of the department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry De La Cruz’s passion for his field of study began when he was an undergraduate studying biology at Rutgers University.

After taking physical chemistry, he realized that he wanted to work in a chemistry lab and joined the

YALE NEWS

Martha Muñoz, Enrique M. De La Cruz and Daniel Colón Ramos spoke on their journeys and reflected on diversity in education program called the Minority Biomedical Research Support Program, an NIH funded program that helped members of underrepresented groups get lab experience.

De La Cruz recalled having “very supportive” advisors and the “liberty of having a job,” which made it possible for him to transition from working in a biology laboratory to a chemical one.

Beginning as a graduate student, De La Cruz has strived to increase diversity in science and in education. As a graduate student, trainee and postdoctoral student, he “focused on teaching and [facilitating] workships.” He also mentored postdoctoral students, other graduate students and even elementary school students.

As a professor, he has continued with those same efforts and has formally mentored members of underrepresented groups in institutions beyond Yale. De La Cruz — who serves as the head of Branford College — noted that, on campus, he has the ability to provide individual attention by mentoring students one-on-one in the lab, classroom or residential college.

“I’ve tried to be active and done what I could along the way … it just seemed natural to care for people who didn’t have the same opportunities,” De La Cruz said. “My family is from Cuba, and I know … the difference when you have the opportunity.”

Last month, De La Cruz and Colón-Ramos were named two of the one hundred most inspiring Hispanic/Latinx scientists in America.

De La Cruz described his approach to leadership as the same for all his roles, from department chair of molecular biophysics and biochemistry (MB&B) to

head of Branford college. He said that “first and foremost, … lose the ego.” In addition, he “strives to be the first among equals,” “lead by example” and to not ask other people to do what he isn’t able or willing to do himself.

“It’s very important that I do serve as an example for what a scientist looks like and where scientists could come from,” De La Cruz said.

De La Cruz noted that feeling “unprepared or unqualified” can be a challenge. He mentioned how many people might share this struggle and advises people to be just as fair to themselves as their loved ones would be.

Daniel Colón-Ramos, Colón-Ramos is the Dorys McConnell Duberg professor of neuroscience and cell biology.

To Colón-Ramos, science is for the people.

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he derived inspiration from the tropical environment. As an undergraduate at Harvard, he traveled to Central America to work with Indigenous groups living in rainforests.

His senior thesis explored the use of medicinal plants by Indigenous groups near the watershed area of the Panama Canal. But Colón-Ramos was not satisfied by just knowing the identity of the “invisible [chemical] compounds” in the plants: he realized that his brain naturally wanted to know why the leaves caused the effects described, getting closer to the root of the science.

He entered a graduate program at Duke University, where his experiences in Central America equipped him to maneuver the research setting and commu-

nicate his science. To Colón-Ramos, science is not a solitary process, it relates to “our shared human experience.”

At Yale, his lab uses the transparent model worm C. elegans to investigate neurons. His lab is able to visualize neurons “talking” to each other. Colón-Ramos is proud to contribute knowledge to better understand the nervous system and how it goes awry in disease.

A committed mentor, Colón-Ramos compared students to “high performing athletes” as they progressed from consuming knowledge to producing it. In his mind, for students to overcome hurdles, they have to find their pace.

Colón-Ramos has hosted science workshops across the world and collaborated with other scientists in Puerto Rico to spearhead mentoring programs. He helped lead a scientific coalition that advised Puerto Rico’s governor during the process of delivering massive vaccinations during the pandemic. Drawing on his knowledge of scientific findings, he advises policies that affect the lives of millions, which he considers one of the most beautiful experiences he has ever had.

“I still get letters from people afterwards thanking me for making the information accessible, for being able to explain it,” Colón-Ramos said. “I would have never imagined that the skill sets that I had as a scientist would be valuable in that way.”

As of 2020, 4.9 percent of Yale College faculty were Hispanic or Latinx.

Contact KAYLA YUP at kayla.yup@yale.edu and SOPHIE WANG at sophie.wang@yale.edu

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2022 · yaledailynews.com

LATINX HERITAGE MONTH La Casa showcases Latinx talents

BY DALIYA ALI EL ABANI CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The Underground filled with students and families Saturday night gathering for a diverse set of performances from Latinx talents.

The sold-out LatinXcellence showcase, organized by La Casa Cultural Center as part of Hispanic Heritage Month, brought singers, bands, spoken word poets, comedians and artists to the Schwarzman Center, marking the event’s first in-person iteration since its establishment in 2019.

Acts and exhibitions centered around Latinx life, with traditional salsa and bachata rhythms flowing through a space vividly decorated with student artwork.

“This is an artistic space where Latinas take up space outside of La Casa,” said Eileen Galvez, the director of La Casa Cultural Center and an assistant dean of Yale College.

This year’s event coincided with Family Weekend. The LatinXcellence Showcase was first held in the fall of 2019 at the Crescent Underground Theater.

The initiative was brought forth by a student who found the Latinx community lacked a space to present their work beyond La Casa, Galvez said.

Galvez recalled that numerous students immediately jumped on board with the idea as performers.

The venue that year was “packed” with audience members, as musical performances turned into impromptu dance halls.

“It was a lovely, warm and beautiful space where people were affirmed in who they are, in their cultures and in their identities,” Galvez said.

Over the COVID-19 pandemic, La Casa hosted the showcase virtually.

The showcase is an entirely student-driven project, Galvez emphasized. She added that her favorite part is giving students the opportunity to personalize it in ways that feel most natural and relevant without strict guidance.

Jaden González ’25, a student coordinator at La Casa, co-coordinated the showcase alongside Sebastián Eddowes Vargas DRA ’24, a graduate assistant at La Casa. They were in charge of finding artists, providing the platform and organizing the full event.

As the heart of campus, the Schwarzman Center was a deliberately chosen location, González said.

“La Casa is just off campus, so it is really important for Latinos to know that they are allowed to take up space at Yale where they can be seen,” González said.

González added that the goal was to recognize the Latinx life that already exists beyond the walls of La Casa while also creating new spaces on Yale’s campus for celebrating Latinx heritage. Regina Sung ’24, a photographer, visual artist and former photography editor for the News, emphasized this purpose in her array of photos on display at the event.

Sung held an open call for Latinx individuals interested in presenting their expressions of their own Latinidad. Traditional photography can sometimes be “artificial and performa-

tive,” Sung said, so this method showcased the “individualistic expression of identities” of Latinx people on Yale’s campus.

“This is a documentation of our present moment, of what the Yale student body looks like and is composed of,” Sung noted.

The showcase also acknowledged the current natural disasters that have impacted communities in the Caribbean.

Mariana Vargas ’23, announced that Despierta Boricua, the Puerto Rican Student Organization, would be collecting donations during the showcase for hurricane relief efforts.

Over the course of the evening, the group raised around 400 dollars, adding to a total donation pool of 7,000 dollars. La Casa’s next event will collaborate with De Colores in celebration of intersectional queerness this Wednesday, Oct. 12, as Latinx Heritage Month nears its end.

Latinx Heritage Month, federally recognized in the United States as National Hispanic Heritage Month, occurs annually from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Contact DALIYA ALI EL ABANI at daliya.alielabani@yale.edu .

DALIYA ALI EL ABANI/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

ER&M class bakes for Hurricane Fiona relief

ANNA CHAMBERLIN/CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

During La Casa’s LatinXcellence showcase Two members of ¡Oye! Spoken Word recited poems during. After the event, they submitted their work to the News.

Mamá’s Song

BY ZENAIDA AGUIRRE GUTIERREZ In a pueblo Sways a río Grazing cows give it a song As the water and dirt meet Subtle splashes give tune And from a towering stone The conductor guides The musical pulse A metrical rhythm Mamá your ensemble composed for only a few years Adulthood interrupted your flow at 8 Before the song went something like Arroz con leche, Me quiero casar Then it was changed to Tamales a 7 pesos, Morisqueta a 9 45 years ago The río lost its jingle You visited it only on your long days To prepare for miles of child labor Paths of dirt Where the only melody Cried from your heavy feet Mamá your music was the closest you got to Childhood No dressing up a doll And giving her a name No plucking Earth’s gifts To make caldito de tierra, agua, y pasto Your Papá said they are business Nothing more No sinking in a plastic pool On a desert-like afternoon Your Papá siad it is a day of business Nothing more En la primaria You suppressed the feelings you had for bright-eyed Mario Your Mamá said boys lead to a panza A panza that won’t let you scream and sell 45 years ago You Reluctantly Dismounted the stone Because your songs were sold to A life of toil Struggle Strive Stress Mamá you grew up too quick In another life At 8 years old Little Lupita would Race with the pueblo’s stray dogs Until her lungs Denied the sour air She’d lay in The nearest patch of green To let the southern sun burn Until she melted into A perfect bronze medal The one she would deserve But never receive At 14 years old Young Lupe would Plan a red quinceañera Shop for the dress of her princess dreams And gold hoops that Drag her perky ears And heels as Tall as her pride

BY ELENA UNGER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The Program on Ethnicity, Race, and Migration held a bake sale on Cross Campus on Sept. 30, raising $1,710 for relief efforts in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic following Hurricane Fiona.

The bake sale was organized by Ximena López Carrillo, a lecturer in the ER&M department and the students in her first year seminar, “Latinx Activism in the United States.” At the sale, students solicited donations and sold a host of traditional Latin American treats including vanilla and chocolate conchas, mantecadas, alfajores and Mexican ponche.

“The students have made all the decisions and mobilized others to help, I have only facilitated coordination and distribution of tasks,” López Carrillo wrote in an email to the News. “They deserve all the credit for this, and we should definitely keep an eye on them because they will do great things at Yale.”

Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 18, leaving more than 100,000 citizens devoid of shelter, food and electricity. As of Sept. 30, 44 percent of LUMA Energy customers — the island’s primary energy provider — remained without power, including major medical facilities.

Fiona reached the Dominican Republic one day later, on Sept.

19, causing significant damage to physical and technological infrastructure. Over 2,000 homes were destroyed and over 12,000 people were displaced as of Sept. 26.

“Many of our students and even faculty and staff come from the very communities who will benefit from this bake sale,” ER&M chair Ana Ramos-Zayas wrote in an email to the News.

“We have family in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and other communities in the path of the Hurricane. This is something close to who we are and what we do.”

When students introduced the idea of a bake sale to the depart-

POETRY SUBMISSIONS

So high Every step Would be even more powerful than the last She’d sing corridos About the drugs she’d never take And the men she’d never desire She’d be smothered in kisses From her papás Telling her she’s a blessing And so much more Than business Mamá today you are living your teenage dream Your 16 Wishes A 13 Going on 30 fantasy Except more like 52 Going on 18 So I smile everytime you lift your phone A few inches away from your face To take a selfie With a filter That hides your manchas Your worry wrinkles A reflection that makes you feel 17 Again Through the screen you see The Lupe you desire to be A reflection of Microbladed brows Soft skin Shining under eyes Sanity— And perfectly carved metallic eyeliner That calls out my name Zenaida Como te pones las pestañas postizas Mamá I wish you Saw the beauty and strength we all see Your mamá didn’t read you bedtime stories Teach you the ruthlessness of racists Raging men Or the repulsive truths of reality And yet You made a life of your own By your own Planted your seeds in los estados To watch them grow into Enchiladas made on a gas stove Water running through the pipes of your home

Gifts under the Christmas tree Your Mamá’s smile on FaceTime And four What you call Hijos de la chingada All inspired Motivated Moved Mothered by you 45 years ago The pueblo stopped smiling The río stopped dancing Earth no longer chimed Mamá the world begs for you to compose again Necesitamos tu música Para verte Bailar y cantar Aprender y gozar Amar y volar ZENAIDA AGUIRRE GUTIERREZ is a junior in Branford College from Los Angeles, California. She can be reached at zenaida.aguirregutierrez@yale.edu .

ANNA CHAMBERLIN/CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATOR

ment, Ramos-Zayas told the News, she initially expected “some small gesture” but was “really proud” of what the students achieved.

Norma Mejía ’26, who helped run the bake sale, noted that the event was not only an opportunity for her and her peers to help others, but a chance to celebrate their own respective cultures.

“Most of us in the class are Hispanic so we enjoy all these traditional desserts,” Mejía said. “We collectively came together and pitched some of our favorite treats.”

According to the funds distribution report, 70 percent of the proceeds will be donated to Puerto Rico, which was more severely affected by the hurricane.

The remaining 30 percent will be donated to relief efforts in the Dominican Republic.

Half of the donations going to Puerto Rico will go to Junta for Progressive Action, a Latinx nonprofit based in New Haven that is working to resettle Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Fiona.

The other half of proceeds will go to Techos Pa’Mi Gente, a Puerto Rican organization that works to construct weatherproof homes.

The 30 percent of total funds going to the Dominican Republic will be donated to Abrazos de Esperanza,

which is collecting sanitary items and food for affected families.

The bake sale’s financial success was accompanied by a strong sense of community among ER&M faculty and students.

“Everybody in the class, we all just came together,” said Michaell Santos Paulino ’26, who played a central role in organizing and running the bake sale. “The fact that a professor initiated the conversation and then invited the class to join in, I think that was really unique.”

López Carrillo expressed her gratitude for Ramos-Zayas’ support, saying it illustrated ER&M’s “philosophy of fostering scholarly work that also engages with social issues.”

Before organizing Friday’s bake sale, students in López Carillo’s Latinx Activism seminar have previously partnered with Junta for Progressive Action and Comunidades Unidas to improve local LatinX voter representation.

“In a sense, ERM is a product of solidarity. Solidarity and struggle are at its very core,” Ramos-Zayas wrote.

López Carillo was appointed as a lecturer in the ER&M Department in Spring 2022.

Contact ELENA UNGER at elena.unger@yale.edu .

Niña Mezclada

BY KASSIE NAVARRETE My parents son de un rancho en mi lindo Michoacán.

Mi piel el color De La Rosa Mazapán con un poquito de miel caliente; ¡I survived the Spanish colonization of the Aztecs y que chido se siente!

My ancestors cruzaron deserts y la frontera para una vida mejor: Mexican snakes buscando un lugar de opportunity only to be eaten by a batch of big bald eagles who we like to call reality, struggle, and Border Patrol.

Soy una Chicana who grew up on 1227 Hampshire St. in the Mission District donde mi corazón admired the murals that cover las paredes like chile picoso covers watermelon candy.

I am the black and white posters used in the East L.A. Walkouts, every letter yelling, “¡Viva La Raza!,” with pride as I become first-generation college-bound.

Mi abuela says, “¡¿Échale ganas okay mi amor?! Pero primeramente Dios.”

My lineage went from, “Fíjate que no tengo dinero ahorita carnala,” to, “That

will be $403.56 ma’am. Thank you for shopping at Nordstrom Rack.”

From the United Farmworkers who refused to become slaves, majestic butterflies emerging from their restraining shells, To watching countless episodes of Spanish novelas in a newly renovated San Francisco apartment.

Cocinando tamales con masa de La Casa Lucas y hojas de La Palma while listening to “Fiesta” is a must; mis caderas gruesas moviéndose de lado a lado.

I am Mexican-American history, pain and suffering, achievement, perseverance.

I have one body, one mind, and one soul, yet I don’t know which version of me writes this poem.

KASSIE NAVARRETE is a sophomore in Pierson College from San Francisco, California. She can be reached at kassie.navarrete@