Welcome Latino Museum Studies Program 2017 Fellows
The 2017 Latino Museum Studies Program fellows. (Photo by Adrián Aldaba)
The Latino Museum Studies Program started on July 3, 2017, welcoming a new cohort of 12 graduate students coming together for a six-week summer fellowship in Washington, D.C. The fellowship provides professional development to emerging museum professionals and scholars while looking at museum studies through a Latino lens. It provides a unique opportunity to meet and engage with Smithsonian professionals, scholars from renowned universities, and with leaders in the museum field.
As with each year, each fellow will participate in a practicum project at one of the various Smithsonian Institution museums, cultural and research centers. They will share more information about their projects and interests in a series of upcoming blogs posted on this website. In the interim, let’s take a look at what each of them presented on their first day as fellows!
Christina Azahar, Ph.D. candidate in Ethnomusicology at the University of California - Berkeley, following her introductory presentation at the Smithsonian Latino Center. (Photo by Diana C. Bossa Bastidas)
Christina’s dissertation research examines gender, mobility, and spatial politics in Chilean popular music scenes, focused specifically on the music and political work of Ana Tijoux, Pascuala Ilabaca, Francisca Valenzuela, and Carolina Ozaus. She has also published work on cultural memory and protest song in El Salvador since the end of the country’s Civil War, and regularly serves as a teaching assistant for classes on African American, Asian American, and Chicano music. Born and raised in Milledgeville, Georgia, she received her B.A. at the University of Georgia in Music (saxophone) and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. After graduating in 2013, she spent the summer interning with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, where she became interested in pursuing museum curatorial work and programming.
Christina will be working with María del Carmen Cossu, Program Director for Latino Initiatives at the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service on the practicum - Traveling Exhibition Development for Dolores Huerta: Revolution in the Fields / Revolución en los Campos.
Mayela Caro, Ph.D. candidate in Public History at the University of California, Riverside, following her presentation on Hollywoodisms: Latinx in Hollywood Films 1932-1945. (Photo by Diana C. Bossa Bastidas)
Mayela’s research field is in 20th century United States cultural history and digital humanities. She focuses on the representation of gender and Latinidad in various forms of popular culture of the 1930s and 1940s. Her Master’s thesis entitled, “Hollywoodisms: Latin American Images in Hollywood Films, 1933-1945,” analyzes the manner in which Hollywood represented Latinx actors and how the images that conveyed Latinidad shifted with the implementation of the Censorship Code and the onset of WWII. Her passion for Latino Studies derived from a young age.
Mayela will be working with Taína Caragol and Leslie Ureña, Museum Curators at the National Portrait Gallery, on the practicum -“Piecing Together” Latinx Art and History in the 19th Century.
Shakti Castro, a May 2017 graduate of the Public History Masters program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, following her presentation titled “Do Puerto Ricans Speak Puerto Rican? Boricuas in the Barrios and Beyond”. (Photo by Diana C. Bossa Bastidas)
Shakti Castro is a Puerto Rican Diaspora historian born and raised in The Bronx. She received a B.A. in media studies and English literature from Hunter College at CUNY, where she spent four years at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies as a research assistant and oral historian. During her time at the Center, she was a research assistant who helped launch the Center's latest oral history initiative, Centro Memorias. As part of Memorias, Shakti conducted over 30 oral history interviews with artists, educators, and leaders within the community. This May, she received an M.A. in History with a graduate certificate in Public History, from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. During her time at UMass she worked with the university's new Oral History Lab assisting with workshops and hosting listening parties.
Shakti will be working with Katherine Ott, Museum Curator at the National Museum of American History on the practicum - Health Modalities and History in Latinx Communities.
Jonathan Cortez, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of American Studies at Brown University, following their introductory presentation at the Smithsonian Latino Center. (Photo by Diana C. Bossa Bastidas)
Jonathan Cortez is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of American Studies at Brown University. Jonathan received their B.A. in Mexican American and Latina/o Studies and Sociology from The University of Texas at Austin in 2015. They received their M.A. in Public Humanities from the John Nicolas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage in route to their Ph.D. Their work focuses on Latinx history, 20th-century agricultural labor, comparative/relational ethnic studies, and public humanities. Specifically, Jonathan focuses on the construction of locally- and federally-funded labor camps and the lived experiences of laborers in these camps through issues of race, gender, health, and immigration.
Jonathan will be working with María Martínez, Program Specialist; and Antonio Curet, Curator at the National Museum of the American Indian on the practicum - Contextualizing Museum Archaeological Collections: The Case of Pre-Columbian Mirrors.
Maeve Coudrelle, Ph.D. candidate in the Art History Department at Temple University, following her introductory presentation at the Smithsonian Latino Center. (Photo by Diana C. Bossa Bastidas)
Maeve Coudrelle is a Ph.D. candidate and University Fellow in the Art History Department at Temple University. Her dissertation focuses on biennials, print culture, and theories of cultural contact, looking specifically to global print exhibitions from 1950 to the present in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States. Focusing on regions with colonial pasts and a connection to the print as protest, her dissertation will highlight the role of exhibitions in positioning the identity of a city or nation on the global stage. She hopes to make clear not only the potential of visual objects to re-orient our understanding of human interaction and encounter, but also to underscore that exhibitions exist as theoretical arguments, rather than unbiased histories.
Maeve will be working with Michelle Joan Wilkinson, Museum Curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, on the practicum - Research of Black and Latino designers.
Stephanie Huezo, Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University, Bloomington where she is studying Latin American and Latino History, following her presentation on “Maestros populares and the Narrative of Liberation in El Salvador and in the U.S. – Salvadoran Diaspora (1980 – 2009)”. (Photo by Diana C. Bossa Bastidas)
Stephanie Huezo is a Salvadoran-American and New York native. Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University, Bloomington studying Latin American and Latino History. Her dissertation focuses on the community-based education in El Salvador, critically examined everyday experiences of students to raise consciousness of the oppressed. She analyzes how teachers used popular education as a tool for resistance, as a strategy for survival during the civil war (1980-1992), and its impact on the U.S. Salvadoran diaspora.
Stephanie will be working with Ranald Woodaman, Director of Exhibits and Public Programs (and LMSP Alumnus), at the Smithsonian Latino Center on the practicum - Latino DC History Project: Interpreting Central American Women’s Work.
Ismael Illescas, Ph.D. candidate in the Latin American and Latino Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, following his presentation on “Born to Create: Graffiti, Street, Art, and Patial Politics in the Post Industrial City of Los Angeles”. (Photo by Diana C. Bossa Bastidas)
Ismael Illescas is a Ph.D. candidate in the Latin American and Latino Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His interest in graffiti and street art stems from his involvement in the subculture growing up in South Central Los Angeles during the early 2000s. His research registers Latin@s contributions to the making of graffiti and street art in Los Angeles, and examines the contradictions concerning its celebration in museum and gallery spaces and its criminalization outside of those spatial confines. He has a B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara as well as an Associates of Arts degree in Liberal Arts from Santa Monica College.
Ismael will be working with Melissa Carrillo, Director of New Media & Technology (and LMSP alumna) at the Smithsonian Latino Center on the practicum - Latinos in the 21st Century: A Digital Experience for All.
Daniela Jiménez, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Chicanx Studies and a first-year student in the MLIS program at UCLA, following her presentation on Exploring Relational Chicanxs Studies/U.S. Latinx through Popular Culture and Japanese Cultural Productions. (Photo by Diana C. Bossa Bastidas)
Daniela Jiménez is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Chicanx Studies and a first-year student in the MLIS program at UCLA. Most recently, she is completing a graduate certificate program through the Urban Humanities Initiative --an interdisciplinary effort to explore urban space and cities as artifacts through the fields of architecture and design, urban planning, and the humanities. Her research interests include the reconfiguration and reinterpretation of Chicanx and U.S. Latinx in European and Asian countries, the role of social media in intercultural exchange, community-based archives, and archival theory and practice. Outside of her graduate work, Daniela is involved with the revitalization of Third Woman Press.
Daniela will be working with Alison Oswald, Archivist at the National Museum of American History, on the practicum - Documenting Spanish Language Television through Archives.
Verónica Méndez, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, following her presentation on Locating Tejanas in Nineteenth Century U.S. – Mexico Borderlands. (Photo by Diana C. Bossa Bastidas)
Verónica Méndez was born in Mexico, and raised in San Antonio, TX. She completed her graduate training in the Midwest and is currently living in New Haven, CT. She is a first-generation immigrant, mama scholar and Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Working at the intersection of Borderlands Studies, Chicana/o Studies, Latin American and U.S. History, her dissertation interrogates questions of sovereignty, race, gender and citizenship across shifting regimes in nineteenth century San Antonio, Texas. Her focus centers on how Tejanas experienced and negotiated their in/exclusion from imperial and national constructions of citizenship and subject making.
Verónica will be working with Mireya Loza, Curator (and LMSP alumna) at the National Museum of American History on the practicum - Documenting and Collecting Spanish-language Television.
Rudy Mondragón, Ph.D. candidate in Chicana and Chicano Studies at the UCLA, following his presentation on “That’s Totally Disrupting”: Ring Entrances as Sites of Resistance. (Photo by Diana C. Bossa Bastidas)
Rudy Mondragón is a Ph.D. candidate in Chicana and Chicano Studies at the UCLA. His research intentionally responds to Jorge Iber and José Alamillo’s call upon scholars to examine the racialized, gendered, class-based and transnational dimensions of sport among Mexican American and Latina/o experiences. Rudy’s research utilizes the sport of boxing as a site to interrogate representations of race and ethnicity, masculinities, immigration, and citizenship. His focus is on the ways boxers of color use spatial strategies to negotiate their position within and beyond the neo-liberal structures of boxing to creatively claim space, perform resistance, and disrupt the status quo. Methodologically, Rudy is interested in textual analysis of media, archival work, participation observation, and in-depth interviews.
Rudy will be working with Margaret Salazar-Porzio, Curator at the National Museum of American History on the practicum - Latinos and Baseball: In the Barrios and the Big Leagues.
Pau Nava, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan’s American Culture program, following their introductory presentation at the Smithsonian Latino Center. (Photo by Diana C. Bossa Bastidas)
Pau Nava is a self-identified Art Queerstorian. Pau’s research centers on visual representations of queer Latinidad. As a genderqueer person of color, Pau’s social location is a driving force for their consideration of gender within transgender studies that interrogates the limits of the gender binary. They received their B.A. in Art History and Latinx studies, and as a native of the Chicagoland area, spent their undergraduate career researching mural history in Chicago’s Mexican-American neighborhood of Pilsen through the McNair Scholars program.
Pau will be working with Josh Franco, Collection Specialist at the Archives of American Art on the practicum - Research & development of Collection Plan for a target area of the United States.
Carlos Parra, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Southern California American Culture program, following their introductory presentation at the Smithsonian Latino Center. (Photo by Diana C. Bossa Bastidas)
Carlos Francisco Parra is a doctoral student in the University of Southern California’s Department of History. Inspired by his experiences growing up in a bicultural border town, Parra is fascinated by the issue of cultural identity formation among Mexican Americans in the greater U.S.-Mexican border region. His research focuses on the cultural, political, and economic development of that international boundary as well as the formation of identities and communities along the border. Prior to his doctoral work, he attended the University of Arizona (B.A. in Secondary Education) and the University of New Mexico (M.A. in History) and also served as a public high school history teacher in his home community in Nogales, Arizona.
Carlos will be working with Kathy Franz, Curator at the National Museum of American History on the practicum - Documenting and Collecting Spanish-language Television.
Follow the #LMSP Fellows via instagram @smithsonian_lmsp @slc_latino, the Smithsonian Latino Center Facebook page or via twitter @SLC_Latino.