́́́UWL Hispanic Heritage Month 2009

Opening Reception

Sept. 22          Opening Reception, “Hispanic Heritage in Wisconsin,” remarks by V. M. Macías-González (ILLAIS) and Víctor Bañuelos (LASO).   3:30-4:30 PM, Ward Room.  Brief remarks followed by musical program and reception.  Music by UWL students.  Free hors d’oeuvres.

Film Series

Sept. 28            Film:  “Las 13 Rosas”  (2007)  Spanish docu-drama (13 Roses) about 13 young women members of the Communist and Socialist Youth organization unjustly executed in Madrid the end of the Spanish Civil War.  Spanish with English subtitles.  6:30-8, CWH 141.   Film discussion follows, led by Professor Jean Janecki de Sotarello, Modern Languages.

Oct. 6              Film: “Retorno a Hansala,” (2008) Spanish drama (Return to Hansala). After meeting the sister                  (Farah Hamed) of a dead man who risked his life to travel from Morocco to the Iberian Peninsula               on a rubber raft, a Spanish mortuary owner (José Luis García Pérez) is forced to reassess the nature                    of his work. While it's undeniably lucrative to help the Spanish government clean up the endless                 stream of corpses washing ashore, it proves morally problematic once he sees where the bodies are                  coming from in this moving drama.   Spanish and Arabic with English subtitles. 6:30-8, CWH 141.                     Film discussion follows, led by Professor Melissa Wallace, Modern Languages.

Oct. 12             Film: "Casi, Casi" (2006)  Puerto Rican comedy  (“Almost”) about a high school crush and its                   effects on student government elections.  Spanish with English Subtitles. 6:30-8, CWH 141.   Film                discussion follows, led by Professor  Darlene Lake, Modern Languages.

Performance and Exhibit

Oct. 14             “Portraits of Courage: Latinos Shaping the Nation,” by Will and Company. 7-8 PM Graff Main Hall Auditorium.  Free and open to the public.  This Multi-Media production (including music, video clips, pictures, and sound bytes) covers the lives of 6 Latina/os who have all lead incredibly fascinating, productive, impressive and often heroic lives. Through this event, we see how Latinos have influenced America and every aspect of our lives!  Characters include: Puerto Rican educational pioneer Rafael Cordero (1790-1868), Puerto Rican baseball player and humanitarian Roberto Clemente (1934-1972), Guatemalan-born U.S. Latina labor and social activist Luisa Moreno (1907-1992), Mexican-American Daniel Fernández (1944-1966) was the first Latino to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, Mexican-American Andrea Pérez filed the famous Perez vs. Sharp Supreme Court case that ended legal prohibition in California against interracial marriages, and an anonymous migrant worker and his daughter will describe their experience in the present-day U.S.    Will and Company is a non-profit theatre ensemble based in Los Angeles and was founded in 1988 whose purpose is to bring Shakespeare (and social-impact theatre) to underrepresented minorities.  Seating is limited.

Nov. 3-4          Day of the Dead Exhibit, Nov. 3-4 Port O’ Call.  Altar Exhibit, dedicated in memory of U.S.                Hispanics, political causes, and individual LASO members’ family members.

Lecture Series (All lectures in English unless otherwise specified)

Oct. 5              Latino/a Lecture Series: Enrique Morones, “Human Rights and Immigration on U.S. Border.” 6:30-7:30 PM, reception follows, Cleary Hall, Strzelczyk Great Hall.   Enrique Morones, an Immigration activist, is president of Border Angels, a humanitarian relief organization he founded in 1986, which places food, water, and other provisions in the desert on the U.S.-Mexico border, with the goal of saving migrant lives.  He also founded Gente Unida, a human rights border coalition of 65 groups, formed in response to the xenophobic, anti-immigrant group “Minutemen.”   He has received many awards and recognitions, and is listed as one of the 100 most influential Latinos in the U.S. by Hispanic Business Magazine

Oct. 19             Latino/a Lecture Series: Tanya Torres “Art and Life.”  7-8 PM, reception follows, Cartwright Center 339.    Tanya Torres,      M.F.A., is a Puerto Rican artist, printmaker, poet, and arts entrepreneur based in New York City.  With degrees in Printmaking, Art Education, Painting, and Art History, her early work focused on Puerto Rican politics and popular arts.  Torres has also explored themes of motherhood, women, and health.  Diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma in 2001, she has explored the healing power of art.  Since 1999, she has directed Mixta Gallery, an institution in Spanish Harlem that has promoted a young generation of Latina/o artists, musicians, and poets. Torres has received a number of commissions for public art and her solo exhibitions have appeared around the U.S., Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.   Torres has received grants and fellowships from the Mellon and Rockefeller Foundations, and was awarded the Women of Substance Award and the Association of Hispanic Arts Award in New York.  She is active in the Association of Hispanic Arts and has led workshops for adults integrating poetry writing and art with an emphasis on healing for Mount Sinai and Columbia Presbyterian Medical Centers.

Oct. 20             Contemporary Latin America Lecture Series:  “Hope, Change and Human Rights: How a New Government Has Changed Community Organizing in El Salvador.”  Rosa Valle Centeno, Cartwright Center Valhalla B, 7-8 PM.  The speaker is Rosa Valle Centeno, President of CRIPDES (the Association for the Development of El Salvador).  Rosa has worked with CRIPDES for the past 20 years, where she now oversees organizing and human rights work in over 300 rural communities in El Salvador, representing roughly 100,000 people. Rosa began work with CRIPDES as a health promoter to the wounded during the civil war and from there began women’s organizing. She now coordinates the CRIPDES Women’s Program and Rural Women’s Movement in El Salvador. Rosa will be speaking about the challenges and opportunities that communities in El Salvador are facing following the election of El Salvador’s first left-wing president, Mauricio Funes in March of this year.  Spanish with translation provided. 

Nov. 12            Latina/o Lecture Series:  Salvador E. Valdez “Doing Movies with a Conscience.”   7-8 PM, reception follows, Cartwright Center, Valhalla B.  An accountant and lawyer by training in his native Chihuahua City, Mexico, Valdez has become an important social documentary director, and producer in the last decade.   His most recent short films give voice to the plight of the visually-impaired, the aged, and the poor.  His current project, on the struggle of factory workers to receive medical care and continue their education, sheds light on the plight of workers  in maquiladoras (twin plants along the U.S.-Mexico border).   Valdez has worked on important feature films with producers like Carlos Cuarón and actors like Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal.   His short “Un día más” (One more day, 2009) was awarded the 2^nd place in the Recordocs 12 Tijuana Film Festival.  

2009 UWL Hispanic Month made possible by:  LASO, Latina/o Students’ Organization; ILLAIS, the Institute of Latina/Latino, Latin American, and Iberian Studies, UWL College of Liberal Studies; Office of Multi-Cultural Student Services; Office of Campus Climate and Diversity; UWL Office of the Provost Visiting Scholar of Color Program; UWL Departments of History, Modern Languages, Music and Sociology/Archaeology;  UWL Campus Activities Board; UWL Department of Modern Languages  Language Resource Center; Center for Caribbean and Latin-American Studies, UW-Milwaukee; and Latin American Studies Viterbo University.