Dialogues in Afrolatinidad: Recent Episodes
Michele Reid Vazquez
The podcast adaptation of the highly successful Dialogues in Afro-Latinidad webinar series ran by the University of Pittsburgh's Afro-Latinx studies initiative is here! In each episode, we educate, amplify, and elevate the stories, histories, and cultures of Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx communities, and their transnational connections. Within 30 minutes, listeners can learn more about the migrations, comparative histories, social and political struggles, and creativity that encompasses Afrolatinidad. All hosted by Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez who will be joined by a variety of scholars, writers, educators, and artist guest speakers each episode.
Dr. Juliana Fillies discusses her research on Afro Latin Americans in 19th and early 20th century photography, shares insights on self-representation and resistance to misrepresentation among the African Diaspora in Cuba, Brazil, Colombia, and Puerto Rico, and the importance of these histories for understanding the persistence of stereotypes today.
Dr. Eduard Arriaga,a native of Bogotá, Colombia, highlights the evolution of his path in Afro-Latin American Studies by sharing personal experiences from home and in Canada, and research on the way Afro-Brazilians, and other communities, use digital tools to address problems, showcase inventiveness, and foster resilience.
Professor NancyLópez shares her journey and work in Afrolatinidad by discussing her Dominican roots, the intersectionality and the visibility of Afro-Latinx communities, the erasure of Afro-Latinos in data collection, and the need for K-12 education on race and Ethnic Studies.
The closing episode of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, Season 3, highlights Eva Margarita, a performance artist, PhD candidate in Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and Board Director at The VORTEX Repertory. She joins guest host, Israel Herndon, to share how her research and art are connected. A participant in the 2022 NEH Summer Institute: Transnational Dialogues in Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx Studies, Eva speaks on the transnational Black traditions and personal experiences that inform her work.
Episode 7 features Benjamin Barson, currently a Fulbright Garcia-Robles postdoctoral scholar-in-residence at the Instituto de Investigaciones Culturales-Museo at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, and an upcoming Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Africana Studies at Cornell University. He joins host, Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez, to explore the interconnections among being a musician, historian, and political activist, which range from his work with Scientific Soul Sessions to his forthcoming book, Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons. The opening and closing background of this episode features music from his group, the Afro-Yaqui Music Collective.
Dr. Ashley Ngozi Agbasoga, Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, joins guest host, Israel Herndon, to discuss how her inquisitive nature motivated her ethnographic research. Dr. Agbasoga argues that the Mexican state’s policies about race are not reflective of Black and Indigenous Mexicans. In addition, she explains how participating in the 2022 NEH Summer Institute: Transnational Dialogues in Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx Studies opened her mind to other research possibilities.
Dr. Ashley Ngozi Agbasoga, Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, joins guest host, Israel Herndon, to discuss how her inquisitive nature motivated her ethnographic research. Dr. Agbasoga argues that the Mexican state’s policies about race are not reflective of Black and Indigenous Mexicans. In addition, she explains how participating in the 2022 NEH Summer Institute: Transnational Dialogues in Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx Studies opened her mind to other research possibilities.
This week’s episode spotlights the conversation between guest host, Israel Herndon, and Dr. Justo Planas, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Endowed Professor for the Study of the Americas at Le Moyne College. Dr. Planas shares his passion for bridging the gap between the Caribbean and the classroom. He discusses his research on Caribbean sex tourism in film. Through his work, he examines how stereotypes about the are created and challenged on the big screen. He also explores the significance of the 2022 NEH Summer Institute: Transnational Dialogues in Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx Studies on his teaching and research.
In episode 4 of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, guest host Israel Herndon, talks to Dr. Reighan Gillam, anthropologist and Associate Professor of Latin American Studies at Dartmouth College. Dr. Gillam shares how her university experiences fueled her passion for Afrolatinidad and the importance of complex media representations for Black people and the anti-racist power of Afro-Brazilian media. She also comments on the impact of the 2022 NEH Summer Institute: Transnational Dialogues in Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx Studies on her professional development.
In episode 3 of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, guest host Israel Herndon speaks with Ammy Sena, a doctoral candidate in Counseling Psychology at the University of Georgia. She describes how her early observations about the impact of racism on communities of color in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic ignited her passion for liberative mental healthcare. She also reflects on the significance of the 2022 NEH Summer Institute: Transnational Dialogues in Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx Studies.
Episode 2 of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad features Tanya K. Hernández, the Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law, and Associate Director of the Center on Race, Law, & Justice, She discusses how her early encounters with anti-blackness growing up in New York City shaped her work as a lawyer and scholar and led to her recent book, Racial Innocence: Unmasking Anti-Black Struggle for Equality.
In this first episode of Season 3 of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, host Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez, speaks with Dr. Ariana Curtis, curator of Latinx Studies at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. She shares her African American and Panamanian roots, the centrality of Blackness to Latinidad, and the evolution of her personal and personal journey.
Get a sneak peak of season 3 of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad! Join our host, Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez, and our guest host, Israel Herndon, for thought provoking conversations with scholars, artists, and advocates who are shaping understandings of Afrolatinidad. Season 3 also includes a special focus on participants from the 2022 Summer Institute on Afro-Latin American and Afro-Latinx Studies, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information on Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, visit the website at michelereidvazquez.com/podcast Look out for and subscribe to the podcast on Apple and Spotify.
In this episode of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, host Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez speaks with Dr. Pablo D. Herrera Veitia, Afro-Sonic Cultural Fellow at the University of Toronto Scarborough about the role of hip-hop specifically and music in general in understanding Afro-Cubanidad
In this episode of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, Dr. Paul Joseph López Oro, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Smith College talks with our host Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez about his research on Garifuna migration and different meanings of Black identity. The conversation also touches upon Afro-Latinx communities in the United States, their relations with African-Americans, and issues of queer identity in these communities.
In this episode of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, our host, Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez, chats with Dr. Solsiree del Moral, Professor of American Studies and Black Studies at Amherst College. Dr. Del Moral addresses her work on the intersection of education, race, class, and children’s history in Puerto Rico. Additional topics include transnational blackness, mestizaje, and U.S. imperialism in Puerto Rico.
In this episode of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, our host Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez talks to Dr. Jason Mendez, Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Urban Education, about his journey from the Bronx to higher education, and the role of understanding Latino
In this episode of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, host Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez, talks with Dr. Erika Edwards, Associate Professor of Latin American History and Latin American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, about her work on blackness and its erasure in Argentina. Dr. Edwards discusses her time spent in Argentina and how it relates to her research interests.
In this episode of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez speaks with Joel Alvarado, Executive Vice President of Internal Affairs for Ohio River South, a leading governmental relations firms in the Southeast, and a doctoral student at the University of Alabama studying higher education administration, about his own journey to higher education and how to make it more equitable for students of color, especially Afro-Latino students.
In this episode of Dialogues in Afro-Latinidad, Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez speaks with Dr. Danielle Terrazas Williams, Lecturer in History of the Global South at the University of Leeds, about the history of free women of African descent in colonial Mexico and the impact of her own Afro-Latina background on her scholarship.
In this episode of Dialogues in Afro-Latinidad, host Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez speaks with Manuel Mendez, founder and president of the D.C. Afro-Latino Caucus. They discuss the history and culture of Afro-Latinos in the D.C. area, efforts to conduct and unveil further research on this group, and activism in D.C.’s Afro-Latinx community.
In the first episode of the second season of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, host Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez speaks with Dr. Dalia Antonia Caraballo Muller, Associate Professor of History at the University at Buffalo, about transnational Cuban history and new ways of approaching racial history and social justice in the pedagogical environment.
This three-part episode features conversations with Jennifer Bennett Brown, a K-12 Spanish language educator; Israel Herndon, a college senior majoring in Africana Studies and History; and Dennis Espejo, a rising junior concentrating in Psychology, Spanish, and Latin American Studies. Together, they bring perspectives on the importance of connecting students to topics and issues concerning the African Diaspora in Latin America and Afro-Latinx communities in the U.S.
This week Dr. Nancy Mirabal, a scholar of Afro-Latinx and Latinx studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, joins the conversation. In this episode, Dr. Mirabal challenges the perception that Cuban-American history begins with the migrants of the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Her parents immigrated from Cuba for economic opportunities in the early 1950’s, and their experiences with xenophobia and racism in the United States served as a catalyst for her research. Her work highlights how Afro-Cuban identities are not a new phenomena, but a rich, yet understudied, part of U.S. history.
In this episode of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez chats with Dr. Zuly Inirio, an Afro-Dominican soprano and doctor of musical arts. Dr. Inirio details her upbringing and how she got her start in music. She highlights her Afro-Latinx Song & Opera project, which aims to spotlight and increase representation of Afro-Latinx artists in classical music. This episode also features a performance by Dr. Inirio.
This week on Dialogues in Afrolatinidad Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez chats with Dr. Zach Morgan, an Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Penn State University. He is passionate about issues of race, freedom, and citizenship as applied to Afro-Brazilians and other Afro-Latin Americans. He also draws attention to the differences between abolition in the US and across Latin America, and elaborates on two activist movements that connect his research on 19th century Brazil to modern Afro-Latin American communities in the region.
This episode spotlights Jade Cintrón Báez, a Bilingual Early Childhood Literacy Specialist for The Free Library of Philadelphia and host of ¡Looking Bilingüe! a storytelling series on Youtube that focuses on Latinx empowerment and cultural celebration. Season 2 of ¡Looking Bilingüe! focuses on Afrolatinidad. She draws inspiration from her Spanglish-filled upbringing in New Jersey, numerous years living abroad in Spain, and arts administration training in Philadelphia. Her work and involvement with several theatre companies reveal the power of the arts in advocating for Latinx biculturalism, bilingualism, and community building.
This episode of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad features Dr. Sherwin K. Bryant, an Associate Professor of African American Studies and History at Northwestern University. He specializes in the history of the African Diaspora and questions of slavery, race, law, and legal history in the Andes. In this conversation, he delves into his early formative experiences and how they set the stage for his development in academia and interest in the erasure of slavery in Ecuador. He also explores the geographical marginalization that Afro- descendant communities have experienced across the Americas.
Luana Reis, born and raised in Bahia, Brazil, is a poet, educator, and scholar. In this episode, she explores the importance of Portuguese in the African diaspora. As founder and president of the ADDverse Poetry Collective, she brings writers and audiences together across the hemisphere to share the power of poetry as a vehicle for engaging a range of expressions –particularly race and gender, freedom and refuge, and language and identity.
This episode features Dr. Jennifer A. Jones, a native of Chicago and a sociologist specializing in contemporary transnational Afro-Mexican studies. She discusses the way race is made in Latin America through her experiences in both Cuba and Mexico, as well as the broader impact of space, politics, and mobility on racial constructions throughout the U.S. She also highlights her recent book, The Browning of the New South, which explores blackness and anti-blackness in Mexico, the current migration of Afro-Mexicans to North Carolina, and their reformulations of race in the U.S. South.
In this episode of Dialogues in Afro-Latinidad Dr. Eddie Bonilla, a Postdoctoral Fellow in Latinx Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, chats with our host Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez on solidarities within different Ethnic U.S activist movements. Dr. Bonilla speaks about his journey from southern California to academia in Pittsburgh, the evolving field of ethnic studies and what drew him towards this field, Marxism as a foundation for ethnic movements, and Anti-Blackness in the Latino community.
In the first episode of Dialogues in Afrolatinidad our host, Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez, chats with Dr. Kia Lily Caldwell, a social-cultural Anthropologist and professor of African American and African Diaspora studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill who speaks on her work creating scholarship to bring awareness to marginalized communities. Topics focus around the African Diaspora, the experiences of the Black population in Brazil, and producing scholarship on teaching about the African Diaspora that can be used in classroom settings.
In the first official trailer for Dialogues in Afro-Latinidad, you will get a sneak peak delivered by Israel Herndon, of the content that this season is giving you, our viewers. Join our host Dr. Michele Reid-Vazquez every week to hear from the scholars, artists, educators, community leaders, and writers who are shaping understandings of Afro-Latin identity. For more information on Dialogues in Afrolatinidad, visit the website at michelereidvazquez.com/podcast. Look out for and subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, and Google Podcasts