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Last summer, Claire Payton—inspired by the post-earthquake chaos she saw unfolding in Haiti—bought an audio recorder, packed her bags, and booked a flight to Port-au-Prince.

Despite having studied Haiti extensively, her motivation to travel to Haiti was purely personal. She wanted to help tell people’s stories.

Soon after arriving in Port-au-Prince, she developed contacts and started doing interviews. Traveling to interviews was particularly challenging because of the traffic, which had worsened due to the buildings lying in the streets. When Claire arrived in Haiti, she spoke fluent French, but not Kreyol. After several interviews, and with help of translators, she developed a grasp on the language.

Almost a year later, Claire launched the Haiti Memory Project, an “online archive of oral testimony about the January 12, 2010, earthquake and post-earthquake life.” She was motivated to create the website so that she could share people’s stories with a broad audience.

In Spring 2011 CLACS Faculty members Aisha Khan and Millery Polyné will host a colloquium titled “Our America: Cross Currents and Intimate Dialogues in the Making of a Hemisphere.” This colloquium will investigate the U.S. “from the 19th century to the present, as simultaneously a site of empirical practice and an imagined way of being.”

In the U.S., journalism is rapidly evolving to meet the demands of a technological age, and CLACS journalism students are at the forefront of innovating the field. In November 2009, CLACS students Andrew O'Reilly, Roque Planas, Mari Hayman, and Rachel Brooks-Ames launched an innovative online news source to produce original news pieces about Latin American and Hispanic immigrants in the U.S.

A year later, the Latin American News Dispatch (L.A.N.D.) is a sophisticated online news site with daily, breaking news on Latin America, and features reporting by foreign correspondents, U.S. based journalists and NYU journalism students and alums.

This week, L.A.N.D. achieved a major milestone. Roque Planas, co-founder and Managing Director of L.A.N.D., broke international news with an investigative news piece regarding Colombian ex-president Alvaro Uribe.

“On our first year anniversary, the Latin America News Dispatch broke an international story. That's pretty awesome,” Planas said.

Dr. Solis holds both a PhD and M.A in Linguistics, specializing in Amerindian languages. Dr. Solis has been the director of the Center for Research in Applied Linguistics (CILA) at the UNMSM for several years. He has also twice been the recipient of the Medal of Scientific Merit from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

Uno nunca debe desestimar el poder de la imagen, su magia, su potencial dentro del proceso de comunicación. Ese es el caso de SAQRAKUNA un programa de TV producido por Tarpurisunchis. Una nueva television en lengua materna (Quechua) es más que una prueba fehaciente de ese potencial.

¿Que es Saqrakuna?
Constituye un esfuerzo único y pionero, porque es el inicio de la Televisión Quechua en el Peru. Busca fortalecer a la juventud en su identificación con su propia cultura y su lengua materna.

Navia has published extensively in both English and Spanish language publications including: La Tercera, Revista Poder, INFOLATAM, Buenos Aires Herald (English), Observatorio Sudamerica XXI, Revista Época Intereconomia.

When I tell people that I study the Quechua language, the news often inspires a feeling of surprise: Here? In New York City? I used to study Quechua as a graduate student at CLACS, but now that I’ve finished the program I have to take more personal initiative if I want to continue developing my language skills. Fortunately, I’m able to attend Quechua Conversation Night – a monthly event that asks participants to engage with the language in a variety of ways that are suitable for beginner and advanced-level Quechua language learners.

Alejandro Velasco is a professor of Latin American history in the Gallatin School at New York University, and a CLACS affiliated faculty member.

Velasco teaches interdisciplinary courses that incorporate cultural studies, urban social movements and human rights, and 20th-century revolutions.

In a recently published article, titled “ ‘Weapon as Powerful as the Vote’: Urban Protest and Electoral Politics in Venezuela, 1978–1983,” Velasco challenges popular notions regarding “popular passivity” in Venezuela in the decades immediately following the founding of democracy in 1958. Velasco argues that street protest played an important role in evolving conceptions of democracy outside of those in urban popular sectors.

Queloides is an art exhibition that investigates race and racism in contemporary Cuba. Cuban artists, including musicians, writers, painters, performers, and academics, have been denouncing the persistence of racial discrimination in Cuban socialist society since the early 1990s. Queloides, curated by Alejandro de la Fuente and Elio Rodriguez, brings together artists whose work actively confronts racism in contemporary Cuba.

Queloides is currently on exhibition at the Mattress Factory Museum in Pittsburgh, PA. On October 22nd, Queloides artists Marta María Pérez Bravo, Elio Rodríguez, Armando Mariño, and René Peña participated in a CLACS sponsored artist roundtable at NYU. Ana María Dopico, CLACS affiliated faculty and Associate Professor in NYU’s Spanish and Portuguese department, moderated the event.

Panizza defined Populism as the creation of a unified and unifying identity, incorporating a previously oppressed or marginalized group of people into a participatory democracy. He went on to detail four dimensions of Populism that leaders may employ as part of a political strategy, including the rhetorical, the representational, the normative and the political. Panizza describes the rhetorical and representational dimensions as what we most often see in contemporary Populist Latin American leaders, where modes of speech, dress and behaviors give the impression of the Populist leader as a demagogical figure. The normative and political dimensions are used to appeal to dissatisfied citizens who have experienced a fundamental inequity in society and are seeking a way to participate in democracy.

“El Barrio,” the predominantly Latino neighborhood in East Harlem, has long been a cultural center for the New York Latino community. Latinos began emigrating to El Barrio in the 1920s, with a large wave of Puerto Ricans immigrants arriving after World War II. In addition to its cultural heritage, El Barrio has also overcome significant struggles with poverty, and drug and gang activity. Recently, many Barrio residents complain that real estate development in the neighborhood is leading to gentrification, and a loss of Latino cultural heritage in this historic neighborhood.

On October 5th, 2010 the Museum of the City of New York presented a film series titled, “In Danger of Extinction,” which showcased two films dealing with gentrification in New York City. “The Lower East Side: An Endangered Place” by Robert Weber, focuses on the gentrification of the Lower East Side, one of the oldest neighborhoods in New York City that has long been home to a diverse community of working-class immigrants. “Whose Barrio?” investigates gentrification in El Barrio, and was produced by Newsday journalists Ed Morales and Laura Rivera. Laura Rivera is also a graduate of NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. In the film, two Barrio residents—Jose Rivera and James Garcia—reveal starkly opposing views on gentrification.

Evo Morales Proclaims the Rights of Mother Earth
Von Diaz

New York--Bolivian President Evo Morales spoke to a diverse crowd of supporters at the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of New York on Tuesday, September 21st. President Morales’s talk was titled: "Nature is not for sale: The Rights of Mother Earth." When talking with attendees in a line that wrapped around the block, I learned that their reasons for attending were as diverse as their backgrounds. Danni Gee from Philadelphia, PA—who works for New York City’s Central Park—knew nothing about Evo Morales, but had decided to come at the behest of a friend. Sam, who asked to remain anonymous, and lives “somewhere in Manhattan,” said he was a longtime supporter and had a friend who was “tied in with a Bolivian ornithologist.” Jeremiah Hosea, a native New Yorker and professional musician, said, “Evo Morales is the most exciting head of state in the world.”

Evo Morales, best known for his historic ascendance to the presidency as the first indigenous President of Bolivia, regards capitalism as the primary cause of environmental decline and climate change. Unlike most heads of state, President Morales—a native Aymara Indian—openly references his indigenous spiritual beliefs when discussing environmental policy.

NYU CLACS co-sponsored an event at Hunter College to celebrate the Spanish translation of a new biography of Bolivian President Evo Morales.

Bolivian President Evo Morales at Hunter College
Juan Victor Fajardo

New York--Instead of going to class on Monday, September 21, Hunter student Alex Hamblet stood in line outside the College's Kaye Playhouse. He was there to "get an unbiased look" at a president who he says "tends to get a little misrepresented" by the US media. In Latin America "we've had indigenous presidents in the past," said Mariano Muñoz a few feet down the line, "but none with the same impact as Evo."

Bolivian President Evo Morales's story has inspired millions of people around the world. He is a man who grew up herding llamas in the Bolivian mountains, who became the national leader of the Coca Farmers Union, who successfully led a peasant struggle against the privatization of water, and who became the first indigenous president of a country with an indigenous majority.

During the last two weeks of my time in Santiago, my research on Chile’s Memory and Human Rights Museum has covered some exciting, new ground. Interviews with key Museum players – specifically those who have participated in the collection of Museum objects and images – have uncovered a new layer of political complexity, while informal meetings with local researchers has introduced me to a still-emerging set of public debates regarding both the functioning of this institution and its political significance in post-dictatorship Chile.