Show & Tell 2021

December 8, 2021
 

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In this Show & Tell presenters spoke about their final projects which revolve around the topics of the U.S. Mexico borderlands experience, testimonies of transborder identities, and cross-border narratives.

All presenters were a part of our Mellon-Fronteridades graduate fellowship program, made possible with support from through our Fronteridades program funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

 
Presenters:

• Carmella Pacheco Carmella is a PhD Candidate in Border Studies in the Spanish & Portuguese Department at the University of Arizona and is a 2021 Confluencenter Graduate Fellow. Her project  “Cross-border Recovery & Pedagogical Approaches to la Indita” is integral to Fronteridades’ initiatives in its efforts to expand border learning, I plan to incorporate inditas, a song genre that originated in Mexico resembling the corrido, into the Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL) classroom. This study bridges interdisciplinary approaches of both archival and Spanish language recovery to expand border learning in the SHL classroom.

• Luis Carrión is an award-winning producer/videographer with an extensive background in developing projects for online audiences. His project “Mexican Migrants Return South: Transborder Testimonials of Resilience and Adaptation from New Arrival Community in Mexico City” is an ethnographic film project which focuses on returning-migrants living and working in the burgeoning community in downtown Mexico City known as "Little LA." In recent years, 1.5 generation undocumented migrants -those brought across the border as young infants and living in the U.S.- have been forced to cross the border back to Mexico. This trans-border population flow represents the latest stage of a neoliberal migration pattern that complicates our established understanding of the south to north Mexican diaspora.

• Linda Choi is a PhD Candidate in the School of Geography, Environment, and Development with the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona and is a 2021 Confluencenter Graduate Fellow. Her project “Belonging on the Frontier: An Asian American Immigrant Experience on the Borderlands”. This project provides an autoethnographic perspective of the Arizona-Sonora borderlands, drawing from personal narratives as well as placing them within the broader context of the historical patterns of Asian immigration in this region. Building on her own personal reflections, this project seeks to more broadly shed light on the untold stories of belonging, cultural identity, place-making, and community formations for the Asian immigrants who have settled along the borderlands.

• Gloria Flores is a PhD Candidate in Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Arizona and is a 2021 Confluencenter Graduate Fellow. In collaboration with co-producer André Saucedo, their project  “The Frame: A Virtual Pandemic Eye” was made during the safety measures like social distancing during the pandemic, Flores and Saucedo dedicated themselves to mastering virtual tools to be able to continue dancing with others from their homes. In this project, they created a manual for virtual dance instruction for dance instructors, dancers, and directors with technical methods to approach the screen and create a sense of community while still being physically distant. In culmination of the project, they include a virtual dance performance in a Webinar setting that emphasizes a theater-like experience for spectators and dancers.

September 14, 2021
 

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In this Show & Tell event, two of our many PandemiDiarios on the Border awardees spoke on their final projects and what lead up to their creative and reflective responses to the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on them as individuals and on their communities.

Speakers: 

• JD Aragon, also known as Samivaya (Sahmie'vaya) to his tribal community, is an Indigenous 2Spirit artist from the Hopi village of Sipaulovi. Aragón created a video that documents the realities and daily lives of O'odham reservation residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Ruxandra Guidi is an Assistant Professor of Practice at the UA School of Journalism and created an artistic quilt that reimagines Ambos Nogales and the Upper Santa Cruz River Valley.

October 12, 2021
 

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In this Show & Tell event, three artists awarded through our PandemiDiarios on the Border program, spoke on their final projects, which were inspired through reflecting on the human experience in the U.S. – Mexico Borderlands during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Presenters:

• Elena Vega is a visual artist specializing in mosaics, who created "Nogy Town Coloring Book," a coloring book for all ages that celebrates Vega's hometown of Ambos Nogales. She describes that through the coloring book format, "el lector se convierta en parte del libro, dándole colores propios a estos paisajes, un ejercicio de reconocimiento de nuestros espacios y de esparcimiento al colorearlo."
• Alejandro Macias is an Assistant Professor at University of Arizona School of Art. His project, "Everything and Nothing at Once." Is a series of 2D paintings addresses themes of heritage, immigration, and ethnicity, which are set in contrast to critical engagement with the assimilation and acculturation process, often referred to as “Americanization.” Macias These works were exhibited in a solo show at the Tucson Museum of Art.
   
• Lauren Mckenna is a community artist who is an Executive Director of Central School Project, an arts nonprofit in Bisbee, Az. Her project, “Aggregate”, is named after a material used to build the border wall which commenced in our community right as we began to experience the spread of Covid - 19. McKenna states of her project, “I would like expand a body of work that captures the trauma, isolation, and anxiety of my pandemic experience which shares my personal coping mechanisms this past year which also captures parallel events using the word “aggregate" as a means to contain my process and storytelling.”

May 4, 2021
 

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Scholars and artists from the U.S.-Mexico borderlands discussed their creative interdisciplinary projects that interpret and express the unique intersection of the global COVID-19 pandemic and border life. Panelists are recipients of the 2021 PandemiDiarios on the Border microgrant program.

Speakers: 

• JD Aragon 

• Jhonatan Henao-Muñoz

• Monica Martínez-Díaz.

Moderator: Priscilla "Nefftys" Rodriguez

April 6, 2021
 

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University of Arizona graduate students are at the forefront of community-engaged scholarship with U.S.-Mexico border communities. Five panelists and Mellon-Fronteridades Graduate Fellows from diverse disciplines shared their stories and future directions for deepening understandings of our border region.

Speakers: 

• Daniela Torres Cirina, Second Language Acquisition and Teaching

• Diana Peralta, Fred Fox School of Music

• Gloria Flores, Department of Spanish and Portuguese

• Luis Carrión, Department of Latin American Studies

• Cindy Trejo, Department of Mexican American Studies

Moderator: Dr. Michelle Tellez, Assistant Professor of Mexican American Studies at University of Arizona. 

February 2, 2021
 

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Ambos Nogales exists in many dimensions: Ancestral lands of the O’odham, land of the walnut trees, home of artistic legends, a community connected across a militarized state boundary. In history and the present, these intersections contribute to the art and culture woven throughout this unique community. Three panelists presented their work to uplift and revive the creative identity of Ambos Nogales: 

• Priscilla “Nefftys” Rodriguez, Director of the Nogalería mural project 
• Veronica Conran, Barrio Stories Nogales Coordinator with Borderlands Theater
• Caro Iñiguez of the Colectivo COLMENA.

Moderator: Mel "Melo" Dominguez of Tucson's Galeria Mitotera.