Afro-Ecuadorian author Yuliana Ortiz Ruano will have a conversation with WFU students and faculty on the role of music and sound in the political, economic, and personal crises we endure, and art as a tool for understanding the relationship between politics, race, and emotion. The event will be conducted by SPA 318 students, centered on Ortiz Ruano’s novel Fiebre de carnaval.

Free and open to all (in Spanish).

Date/Time: November 6, 5:30–6:30 PM

Place: Greene Hall 321

Please save the date for the upcoming screening of four films as part of the Resistencia Film Festival in Winston-Salem. This first-of-its-kind event celebrates the creativity of Latin American filmmakers, artists, and actors, while showcasing the richness of their cultures. The festival was created as a space to spark thoughtful conversations around challenging topics, inspire new ideas for change, and also offer moments of joy and hope through cinema.

All screenings are free and open to the public—we look forward to seeing you there!

Reserve la fecha para la próxima proyección de cuatro películas en el marco del Festival de Cine de Resistencia en Winston-Salem. Este evento, pionero en su tipo, celebra la creatividad de cineastas, artistas y actores latinoamericanos, a la vez que muestra la riqueza de sus culturas. El festival fue creado como un espacio para generar conversaciones profundas sobre temas complejos, inspirar nuevas ideas para el cambio y ofrecer momentos de alegría y esperanza a través del cine.

Todas las proyecciones son gratuitas y abiertas al público. ¡Esperamos verlos allí!

To kick off Hispanic Heritage Month, OLAS (Organization of Latin American Students) is hosting a lively mercado-themed event inspired by the colorful markets of Latin America! Stop by our booth for fun games, a chance to win beautiful Guatemalan textiles, and some tasty arroz con leche. We’d love to see you there!

Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez, regarded as the father of liberation theology, passed away on October 22. His work inspired the Catholic Church and Latin American society in general to take bolder actions for greater solidarity and justice. To honor his legacy within the Church, academia, and the theological community, the Latin American and Latino Studies Program, with the support of the Divinity School and the Department for the Study of Religions, invites you to a roundtable in his memory.

The event will take place on Monday, November 11, at 6:00 p.m. in Kulynych Auditorium.

Presented By: Dr. Ana Hontanilla

Professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures at UNC Greensboro. One of her areas of research and teaching interests focuses on the Black Atlantic in 18th- and 19th century Spain, Santo Domingo, and Cuba.
Her scholarly work also elaborates on 18th-19th- and 20th-century Spanish literature.

The Humanities Institute, Latin American and Latino Studies Program, Department of Spanish, Environment and Sustainability Program, and Intercultural Center present a film screening and conversation with Spanish film director Alejandro Garcés.

Students interested in learning more about the minor in Latin American and Latino Studies are invited to an info session on Monday, February 5, in Kirby B-03. Students will be able to chat with LALS professors and current minors about the minor’s requirements, study abroad opportunities, our dual BA/MA program, and more.

Dr. Ari Caramanica, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University, will give a lecture on “Water Harvesters of the Pampa de Mocan: Resiliency on the Ancient North Coast, Peru.” This free public event is sponsored by the Department of Anthropology, Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, Environment and Sustainability Studies, and the Humanities Institute (made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities).

Time and location: Thursday, February 8, at 5 p.m. in the Lam Museum of Anthropology (Palmer Hall).

Lecture Abstract: How do societies become resilient to extreme environments and natural disasters? This talk examines past and present responses by agriculturalists to extreme aridity and devastating floods caused by the El Niño phenomenon on the north coast of Peru. The prehispanic landscape known as the Pampa de Mocan presents an agricultural system that co-evolved with these environmental challenges. Preserved in this desert are the vestiges of innovative methods for floodwater farming, flexible technologies built to withstand natural disasters, and resource management strategies; there is also evidence of the enduring impacts and unforeseen consequences of technological choices. Together, these data point to a key to this system’s resilience: prioritizing water and the production of water over land.

Join us at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 7, in 239 Greene Hall for “Sociolinguistic perception online: Heritage Spanish in the U.S. and the no sabo kid persona,” a talk by Dr. Salvatore Callesano, Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Talk abstract: Spanish plays an important and contentious role in the lives of Latinx communities in the U.S. Current national data show the following three points: nearly 20% of the population is Hispanic/Latinx, Spanish is the most used non-English language, and self-reported proficiency in Spanish diminishes across generations. These data point to the socio- and raciolinguistic linkages between language (Spanish) and ethnicity (Latinx) and how shame and insecurity are felt all too often by U.S. Latinxs, especially those with ostensibly less ability to use Spanish conversationally. However, relatively little attention has been paid to these processes as they manifest on social media platforms. One online instance of Latinx bilingualism, which has recently garnered public attention on social media, is the no sabo kid persona. This discriminatory label explicitly identifies young Latinxs as lacking proficiency in Spanish, and as a result, inauthentic members of the Latinx community. In this talk, I will show how linguistic and thematic features co-occur in the online production of the no sabo kid persona. TikTok videos (n = 95) were automatically accessed and coded for meta-linguistic data and video engagement statistics. Videos were then manually coded for the presence/absence of phonological, morpho-syntactic, and code-switching features, as well as discourse themes. I show that the no sabo kid online community is a mediated manifestation of ideologies surrounding U.S. Latinx bilinguals, where, for example, grammatical blending of Spanish and English index an inauthentic ethnicity. Then, I turn to the comment section of the videos and show the current state of a follow-up project that uses computational sociolinguistics to investigate emotional reactions through machine learning sentiment analyses. Finally, I argue for stronger considerations of the role of perception in the production and maintenance of sociolinguistic styles and personae, especially among marginalized speech communities.

All are welcome at this free public event, which is cosponsored by the Wake Forest University’s Department of Spanish, Latin American and Latino Studies, and the Linguistics.

Hola! An updated list of all LALS/LAS classes can be found here. This semester we have course offerings from Economics, History, Music, Politics and International Affairs, Sociology and Spanish.