Dear community members:
We, the faculty and staff of the Latina/o Studies Program, call for an end to state violence against Black people and people of color in the United States. We support our colleagues, students, and alumni in the continuing efforts to bring equity and social justice to all of our communities. We recognize the need to say the names of the recently killed Black people and the many people of color who have died in the last two decades of the twenty-first century. From Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd to Tamar Rice, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland and Reika Boyd, we mourn Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Samuel Dubose, Walter Scott, Stephon Clark and, tragically, many more victims of state and vigilante violence.
We join you in our forums and speak out consistently, persistently, forcefully on issues of racial and ethnic injustices and celebrate our fellow citizens who are putting themselves on the line right now in this struggle.
We condemn acts of racism, discrimination, and violence. At the same time, we need to urgently interrogate the persistent and deeply disturbing issues related to race, racism and police violence in America.
Our communities have been affected by the pandemic because of systematic inequalities: Black, Indigenous, and Afro- Latina/o/x communities are the most heavily impacted by COVID-19, as they are unable to retreat from public life, something daily impressed on those of us in the US epicenter in New York. COVID-19 inflicts another burden on top of these tragedies of police violence, and we urge you keep safe and healthy as you take action, in whatever way you feel you can best support the struggle.
We must continue to care for and support each other.
Pioneering antilynching journalist Ida B. Wells wrote, in one of her most famous quotes, “the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them. ” She persevered in her denunciation of the brutal injustice suffered by fellow African Americans, at a time when doing so threatened her life. As it is still. This is a “national conversation” that has been going on for over 100 years, about an injustice that has been allowed to flourish for over 400 years.
One of our tasks as academics is to nurture that light of truth, in a time when journalists are being attacked in the streets by police forces across the country.
In solidarity,
Latina/o Studies jointly appointed/former director faculty:
Debra A. Castillo, Director, Latina/o Studies
Maria Cristina Garcia, Latina/o Studies/History
Vilma Santiago-Irizarry, Latina/o Studies/Anthropology
Ella Diaz, Latina/o Studies/English
Karen Jaime, Latina/o Studies/Performing and Media Arts
Sergio Garcia-Rios, Latina/o Studies/Government
Sofia Villenas, Latina/o Studies/Anthropology
Mary Pat Brady, Latina/o Studies/English
Hector Velez, Latina/o Studies/Sociology
See Cornell Latino Alumni Association (CLAA) statement of support
RESOURCES:
Ways To Engage:
- BlackLivesMatter Resource Card: A collection of resources and links to organizations to support with time and money. An excellent starting point.
- Bail Funds/Legal Help by City: A list of local bail funds and legal aid organizations that need your support.
- U.S. Press freedom tracker: 200 incidents of police attacks on journalists in last few days, starting with Omar Jimenez and his CNN crew arrested live on air in Minneapolis May 29.
- 5 Ways White People Can Take Action in Response to White and State-Sanctioned Violence
- 26 Ways to Be in the Struggle Beyond the Streets: A collection of action items for supporting the ongoing protests.
Educational Resources:
- A Timeline of Events That Led to the 2020 'Fed Up'-rising
- So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Olou
- National Museum of African-American History and Culture: Talking About Race (includes resources for families and children)
- Anti-Racism for Beginners
- Justice in America Podcast
Recent cultural materials—2020 Pulitzer prize winners to feed your soul:
A Strange Loop, by Michael R. Jackson: Usher is a black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical: a piece about a black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical. Michael R. Jackson’s blistering, momentous new musical follows a young artist at war with a host of demons — not least of which, the punishing thoughts in his own head — in an attempt to capture and understand his own strange loop.
The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday): A spare and devastating exploration of abuse at a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity and redemption.
The Central Park Five, by Anthony Davis: In 1980's New York, five African American and Latino teenagers were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were unjustly convicted of a Central Park rape but exonerated through DNA evidence thirteen years later. Davis' opera is a passionate story about an issue that still rocks America today.
The Tradition, by Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press): Beauty abounds in Jericho Brown’s daring new poetry collection, despite and inside of the evil that pollutes the everyday. The Tradition questions why and how we’ve become accustomed to terror: in the bedroom, the classroom, the workplace, and the movie theater. From mass shootings to rape to the murder of unarmed people by police, Brown interrupts complacency by locating each emergency in the garden of the body, where living things grow and wither—or survive. In the urgency born of real danger, Brown’s work is at its most innovative. Jericho Brown here wields this power as never before, touching the very heart of our cultural crisis
