STRC Newsletter - Fall 2023

THE SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION RESEARCH COLLABORATIVE ABOUT

ADVANCING THE HUMANITIES OF HEALING AND RESTORATION

DePaul’s Social Transformation Research Collaborative (STRC) supports research in the humanities as a source of justice and healing for communities historically shaped by, and continuously facing, racism, violence, and dispossession

Through interdisciplinary research in literature and language, history and culture, the STRC demonstrates how the humanities deepen our understanding of ourselves and our society, and empower us to act, ethically and responsibly, to counter racism, dismantle violence, and build a more just and equitable society.

Our 2023 theme Stories for Racial Justice and Healing will provide a focal point for STRC activities in 2023, including a Summer Institute for incoming DePaul students, quarterly convenings, and a fall conference

The STRC is generously funded by a threeyear grant from The Mellon Foundation

LEADERSHIPTEAM

Julie Moody-Freeman

Faculty Director

Associate Professor, African & Black Diaspora Studies Director, Center for Black Diaspora

Bill Johnson González

Faculty Director

Associate Professor, English Director, Center for Latino Research

Alejandra Delgadillo Project Coordinator

STEERINGCOMMITTEE

Li Jin Professor, Modern Languages

Amor Kohli

Associate Professor and Chair, African & Black Diaspora Studies

Carolina Sternberg

Associate Professor and Chair, Latin American & Latino Studies

Margaret Storey

Associate Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Lourdes Torres

Vincent DePaul Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies / Chair, Critical Ethnic Studies

W H O W E A R E

STRC FACULTY FELLOWSHIP

Each year, the STRC selects cohorts of faculty members and students in support of their interdisciplinary humanities research that promotes cultural resiliency, anti-racism, anti-violence, and healing within both the academy and communities of color.

STRC Faculty Fellowships provide extended paid leave and research assistance for untenured or mid-career faculty to make progress toward publication prior to tenure and/or promotion

2023 - 2024 FACULTY FELLOWS

STRC Faculty Research Fellowship

Rocío Ferreira

Associate Professor, Modern Languages / Chair, Women’s and Gender Studies

Women Shoot: Poetics of Political Violence in Contemporary Peruvian Culture

Juan Mora-Torres

Associate Professor, History

Mexicans in Babylon: Barrio Making in Chicago’s West Side, 1917-1983

STRC Professional Development Fellowship

Jacqueline Lazú

Associate Professor, Modern Languages

Archival Collection Development and Management

Maria Ferrera

Associate Professor, Social Work / Critical Ethnic Studies

Journey to Safety and Belonging: Narratives of Asylees

2022 - 2023 FACULTY FELLOWS

STRC Faculty Research Fellowship

Chernoh Sesay, Jr.

Associate Professor, Religious Studies

Black Boston and the Making of African-American Freemasonry: Leadership, Religion, and Fraternalism in Early America

Susana Martínez

Associate Professor, Modern Languages

Director, Peace, Justice & Conflict Studies

“Coming of Age(ncy) on the Migrant Trail: Central American and Mexican Adolescent Journeys in Contemporary Young Adult Literature”

STRC Professional Development Fellowship

Lori Pierce

Associate Professor, African and Black Diaspora Studies/ Global Asian Studies

DNA Forensics and Genealogy

Lourdes Torres

Vincent DePaul Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies Director, Critical Ethnic Studies

Toward a History of LLEGÓ

2023 STUDENT FELLOWS

STRC Graduate Research Fellowship

Laura Carvajal, Critical Ethnic Studies

“Escaping anti-Haitinismo: What It Means to be ‘Black’ in Dominican Republic”

Shannan Moore, Critical Ethnic Studies

“Black Digital Spaces: Theorizing Resistance in the Wake of Racist Technology”

STRC Undergraduate Research Fellowship

Gabriela Córdova, English

“Calladita No Te Ves Más Bonita: Cultural Practices within Latina Women’s Advocacy”

Laszlo Katona, Philosophy, History, Environmental Science, German Studies

“Writing The Wake: Archives, Absence, and Aesthetics in Black Historiographical Critique”

Jael Davis, History, African and Black Diaspora Studies

“She Was There Too: Enslaved Black Women, Agency, and Community”

Krystal Morgan, African and Black Diaspora Studies, Public Policy

“Hidden in Plain Sight: A Qualitative Analysis of The U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study and Contemporary Issues of Iatrophobia in Black Women”

Lila Nambo, Latin American and Latino Studies, Film Production

“The Bracero Program’s Legacy on its Participants: Positive or Negative?”

Samara Smith, Political Science, History

“Imagining The Black Queer Feminine Through Lemonade: Art Production as a Mode of Knowledge Production”

2022 STUDENT FELLOWS

STRC Graduate Research Fellowship

Keish Lozano, Women’s and Gender Studies

Juana Hernández y las Mujeres Tejiendo Sueños y Sabores de Paz: Afro-Colombian Quilting Tradition as Activism and Healing

Shameem Razack, Women’s and Gender Studies

Dr. Betty Shabazz and Clara Muhammad's Intellectual Contributions to the Black Freedom Movement

Rumi Rivera-Lovato, Social Work, Women’s and Gender Studies

Unsettling Graduate Social Work Education at DePaul University

Paul Mireles, Critical Ethnic Studies

We Keep Us Safe: A Dialogue on the Extent to which Gang Culture and Revolutionary Groups Culture Must Go to Protect Marginalized Folks

STRC POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS

Meloddye Carpio-Ríos, Ph.D.

Latin American and Latino Studies

Taurean J. Webb, Ph.D.

African and Black Diaspora Studies

Saturnino “Nino” Rodríguez, Ph.D.

African and Black Diaspora Studies

2022 - 2023 FELLOWS

SUSANA S. MARTÍNEZ

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, MODERN LANGUAGES DIRECTOR, PEACE, JUSTICE & CONFLICT STUDIES STRC Faculty Research Fellowship

“Coming of Age(ncy) on the Migrant Trail: Central American and Mexican Adolescent Journeys in Contemporary Young Adult Literature”

My project examines migration as a transnational social justice issue. I study YA novels that portray children and adolescents fleeing the genocidal wars of El Salvador and Guatemala (Chapter 1) to the treacherous journey across Mexico (Chapter 2), facing Mexican narcoviolence from the War on Drugs (Chapter 3), and finally, reaching the intended destination of the United States as undocumented immigrants (Chapter 4), while fighting an inhumane detention and deportation system (Chapter 5). The stories serve as validating mirrors that reflect undocumented youths’ experiences as well as insightful windows on root causes for more privileged readers.

“I focus on the representation of marginalized youth in YA literature because YA titles lead the category of books banned at 56% as opposed to 24% Adult, 15% Middle Grade, 4% Picture Book, and 1% Chapter Book. I believe that YA titles are under fire due to their ability to develop empathy across differences[...]”

I focus on the representation of marginalized youth in YA literature because YA titles lead the category of books banned at 56% as opposed to 24% Adult, 15% Middle Grade, 4% Picture Book, and 1% Chapter Book. I believe that YA titles are under fire due to their ability to develop empathy across differences while offering perspectives that are often invisibilized in the mainstream media.

I pay particular attention to novels written by Latinx authors since their voices have been historically marginalized by the publishing industry, and while their numbers have been slowly increasing, the lack of equity and diversity continues to be problematic. I hope that teachers, librarians, immigrant justice activists, and students will use this book as a resource to better appreciate how storytelling and the humanities engage complex issues such as antiracism, youth migration and agency, and empathy across differences.

LOURDES TORRES

VINCENT DEPAUL PROFESSOR, LATIN AMERICAN AND LATINO STUDIES DIRECTOR, CRITICAL ETHNIC STUDIES

STRC Professional Development Fellowship

“A TRIP TO THE ARCHIVES”

Archival research is a lot of fun! I am grateful for the STRC Professional Development Fellowship award which allowed me to engage in archival research for my project, Toward a History of LLEGÓ. LLEGÓ, was a national Latino/a/x lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender organization (1987-2004) that mobilized Latinx organizations to promote a national Latino/a LGBT agenda. I am working with my co-author, Leti Gomez, one of LLEGÓ’s founders, to document LLEGÓ’s rich history

“ARCHIVAL

RESEARCH IS A LOT OF FUN!”

Leti and I recently spent a week digging through LLEGÓ’s organizational records housed at the University of Texas at Austin. The LLEGÓ archive collection contains correspondence, newsletters and printed material, meeting agendas and minutes, reports, financial records, and photographs organized in 71 boxes of materials. Leti and I immersed ourselves in the archives for one week, reading and photocopying historical documents that will inform our project. We were particularly gratified to find materials on LLEGÓ’s cutting-edge programs such as TATA –Technical Assistance and Training in AIDS project, Transgender Leadership Summit, the internationally focused CIPCEN (Cooperativa Internacional de Prevención de VIH/SIDA en Centroamerica Norte) and BASTA, a domestic violence prevention and outreach program. We also found a rich body of materials related to LLEGÓ’s annual Encuentro conferences, as well as newsletters and media reports that track the life of the organization. It was exciting to find and read though all these fascinating documents. Now comes the hard work of shaping all this material into a compelling narrative that tells LLEGÓ’s story.

LORI PIERCE

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AFRICAN AND BLACK DIASPORA STUDIES / GLOBAL ASIAN STUDIES

“DNA Forensics and Genealogy”

The goal of my fellowship project was to explore two subjects that illustrate the legacy of race in the age of genetics: the use of DNA in forensic analysis in the criminal justice system and direct to consumer (DTC) DNA ancestry testing. In each case, DNA has been used to support liberatory projects for African Americans.

In DTC ancestry testing, people of African descent in the diaspora have begun to stitch together an ancestral past in simple and complex ways. Although African Americans use DTC ancestry testing at lower rates than others, DTC databases allow families to genetically connect with kin from whom they were separated generations ago.

The use of genetic testing has the potential to surmount an obstacle put in place by enslavers who separated families in order to maintain control over the enslaved. The same technology has been used to weave together disparate strands of the diaspora; people of African descent in the Americas, Europe, and the African continent can now see each other as actual rather than fictive kin. Similarly, advances in the science and technology of genetic testing have freed hundreds of people who were wrongly imprisoned. The technology is imperfect and judges, attorneys and juries need more education about the ability of forensic testing to convict or acquit.

“The use of genetic testing has the potential to surmount an obstacle put in place by enslavers who separated families in order to maintain control over the enslaved.”

STRC SUMMER INSTITUTE FOR NEW STUDENTS

The STRC examines and celebrates the cultural forms and traditions that people of color have created to survive historical and structural violence Our stories, art, food, music, history, poetry, and religious practices have been, and are, sources of resilience, rebuilding, and intellectual community.

We are very excited to invite newly admitted DePaul undergraduates to become part of our Collaborative by applying for a one-week Summer Institute

This past July, newly admitted DePaul students joined a dynamic group of faculty, staff, current and past DePaul students, and special guests to explore various modes, genres, and forms of stories and storytelling that connect with the Institute's theme.

2022 STRC SUMMER INSTITUTE FACULTY

MONICA REYES

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR WRITING, RHETORIC AND DISCOURSE

I research how people who seek political asylum in the U.S. are required to share their stories with government agencies about what led them to the U.S. People seeking asylum typically tell their stories during stressful governmental and legal interviews or within detailed persuasive writing on governmental applications These narratives are crucial; once an asylum-seeker submits their application, they are placed on the 6 month waitlist for work permits and hopefully more stable lives However, these narrative applications are also painstakingly difficult Not only are asylum seeker’s stories saturated with vulnerability, trauma, and complex geopolitical nuance, but they are also usually composed under the stress of precarity in which newly arrived migrants exist I’ve done work directly with displaced people as a volunteer and a scholar

“Becauseofmyroleasascholar-activist,Iwas thrilledtobepartoftheSTRCSummer Institutebecausestudentswereinterestedin waystheycanbepartofsolutionstocomplex socialproblems.”

Because of my role as a scholar-activist, I was thrilled to be part of the STRC Summer Institute because students were interested in ways they can be part of solutions to complex social problems I was able to share my work with students, hear about their experiences and plans, and even help introduce them to scholars and grassroots organizations in the city. Students were motivated to learn about Chicago’s history, including the struggles and triumphs, regarding racial and social justice. I hope to continue working with the STRC in the future!

I am an activist who became a scholar and a historian of Latin America who has crossed into American history, focusing on the histories of Latinos and Chicanos With that in mind, my book manuscript, Mexicans in Babylon: Barrio Making in Chicago’s West Side, 1917-1983, aims at two scholarly and political targets. First, it challenges the dominant black-white binary framework by placing Mexicans and Latinos at the center of the ethnic transformation of Chicago's landscape from 1945 to 1983, when the city changed from 86% white to an African American and Latino majority. It highlights how Latinos - even in the face of racism, segregation, classism, and xenophobia - created resilient communities to transform the city. Second, it places Chicago’s unique history of racism and anti-racism within a broader context by examining the complex relationship between Black and Brown communities on the West Side I explore the issues dividing both communities and the ones that brought them together, such as school and police reform, affirmative action in employment, and electoral representation, such as the Black and Brown coalition that led to the election of Harold Washington in 1983

“I am an activist who became a scholar and a historian of Latin America who has crossed into American history, focusing on the histories of Latinos and Chicanos.”

Besides being an awardee of the 2023 - 2024 STRC Faculty Fellowship, which will allow me to work on my book manuscript, my relationship with the STRC includes co-teaching with Dr Monica Reyes, the “Influencers for Racial and Social Justice” course for the 2022 Summer Institute The course examined historical “influencers” like Lucy Gonzalez de Parson, Ida B. Wells, Young Lords, and the Mexican muralists to the more contemporary working in Black, Brown, and Asian American communities I blended into the course my experience of leading walking tours of neighborhoods in Chicago most impacted by poverty, gentrification, segregation, and redlining For instance, the aim of our visit to Black North Lawndale and Mexican South Lawndale (Little Village) was to introduce students to the meaning of racial boundaries and multi-racial coalitions and to engage them to use Chicago as a roadmap for learning outside of the classroom and to expand their intellectual curiosity by encouraging them to enroll in African and Black Diaspora, Global Asian, and Latin American and Latinx Studies courses

MICHELE MORANO PROFESSOR, ENGLISH

Let’s start with the end, the last afternoon of the 2023 summer STRC program, when students were presenting their final projects and Fantazia Torres-Cain walked to the front of the room, hit play on her phone, and stunned us all by rapping a reflection on our week together. Let’s start with the deafening applause that followed, celebrating Fantazia’s creativity and intelligence, as well as much more: an intense time spent reading, writing, traveling, talking, challenging, and acclimating to DePaul as a place where the title of our course, “Transformative Humanities” could not have been more apt.

Let’s continue with awesome faculty, including co-teacher, poet, professor Tara Betts; program directors Julie-Moody-Freeman and Bill Johnson-Gonzalez; Associate Dean Margaret Storey, without whom the program would not exist And with the artists and scholars who visited our class, including DePaul professors Francesca Royster, Jacqui Lazu, and Mark Turcotte, alum Matthew Manning, and artist Darius Dennis. The work each of them do is grounded in a commitment to storytelling, truth, and social justice, and it was a pleasure each day to witness the inspired curiosity of students as we talked with guests, toured museums, and visited community hubs throughout the city.

What

an

awesome opportunity this program offers for previewing what awaits at college, at DePaul, where the city of Chicago is truly a classroom.

And let’s end at the end, too. With those student projects grounded in observations and questions, in fascination with the Gerber-Hart library archives, the Honeycomb Network, the quilts at DuSable Museum of African American History. Let’s end with those final presentations essays, poems, podcasts, music, collage, graphic design accumulating into a sense of accomplishment and friendship that filled the room as STRC participants prepared to say goodbye for a few weeks. What an awesome opportunity this program offers for previewing what awaits at college, at DePaul, where the city of Chicago is truly a classroom.

PROFESSOR OF PRACTICE AND POET IN RESIDENCE, THE THEATRE SCHOOL

TARA BETTS

During the 2023 Summer Institute, the students got a chance to explore Chicago and engage with artists and scholars in a way that not only revealed the diverse and rich histories of various cultures throughout the city, but they also considered the socio-economic conditions that impacted the stories of the people and neighborhoods that make up a complicated, surprising, and beautiful city. Students looked at the architecture, murals, poetry, stories, and food directly inspired by the city and its people. We visited DuSable Museum, the National Museum of Puerto Rican History, The Honeycomb Network, the Gerber/Hart Library of Midwest LGBT History, the Little India neighborhood in Rogers Park.

“I think this week gave them a chance to explore the value of their stories and personal journeys in a larger continuum of growing, evolving history.”

Students also got to explore the history of the Young Lords in the DePaul area and Humboldt Park. Students were excited to read and discuss poems from Wherever I'm At: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry and the nonfiction book Inciting Joy by Ross Gay. Students spoke with artists like Darius Dennis, Mark Turcotte, and Matthew Manning. Students engaged each other deep dialogue and encouraged each other to ask questions and have their say about all these experiences in a way that I hope helps them carry through practices of active engagement in their classes and their own lives as they begin their undergraduate experiences, but most of all I think this week gave them a chance to explore the value of their stories and personal journeys in a larger continuum of growing, evolving history.

BANNED BOOKS

VOICES FROM OUR COMMUNITY

Gerardo

Avila, Driehaus College of Business 2022 STRC Summer Institute Alum

Favorite Banned Book: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

“Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird is one of my favorite pieces of literature as the story is portrayed through the lens of a young girl, Scout Finch, growing up in the small rural town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression and Jim Crow era. To Kill A Mockingbird tackles themes such as coming of age, race, identity, gender norms, and societal norms. The book is constantly challenged due to its vulgar use of language and its depictions of racial relationships.”

Jennifer P. Gardner, Center for Black Diaspora Assistant Director

Favorite Banned Book: Beloved by Toni Morrison the African American experience. Beloved is beautiful. Beloved is visceral. Beloved is important.”

“Beloved is a novel that reveres time, ancestors, and spiritual hope in a moment where African Americans were surrounded in despair in the history of the United States. When challenges to the novel’s theme arise in fear of exposure to mature topics, it speaks to Toni Morrison’s ability to vividly write

Favorite Banned Book: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

“True Diary was one of the first books I read shortly after moving from Mexico to Chicago. I was 17 and still learning English, and, as I read it, I appreciated how this Young Adult novel was written in very simple language and helping me understand a bit more about racism, discrimination, and poverty in the U.S.

I loved that I could feel my eyes welling up during incredibly sad passages, but Alexie’s clever integration of humor had me laughing out loud by the end of the next sentence.”

Dr. Chernoh Sesay, Jr., Religious Studies 2022 STRC Faculty Research Fellow

Favorite Banned Book: Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America by David Walker

“First published in 1829 and revised two subsequent times in the following year, this pamphlet was banned throughout the nineteenthcentury enslaving south even as it was reprinted in free northern cities. A bounty was placed on Walker’s capture because his message so explicitly critiqued slavery and white supremacy and so emphatically argued

in support of violent revolt by the enslaved to gain their freedom. This text illustrates that book banning has been a continuing pattern in American history but also that abolitionist and anti-racist activists of yesterday and today have remained undeterred in writing against the forces of systemic discrimination and revising histories that have obscured fundamental patterns of inequality.”

Alex Delgadillo, The Social Transformation Research Collaborative Program Coordinator

Dr. Susana Martínez, Modern Languages

2022 STRC Faculty Research Fellow

Favorite Banned Book: Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez

“One challenged book that has a special place in my heart is Before We Were Free (2002) by Julia Alvarez. It’s a Young Adult novel that depicts the repressive Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s through the perspective of a 12-year-old girl. I wish I could have read this novel as a 10- or 12-year-old, when I’d visit Guatemala and was confused about stories of violence that I’d overhear my family discussing. I had no idea at the time that the country was experiencing a civil war that included genocide against the Maya.”

Dr. Lisa Poirier, Religious Studies

2023 STRC Undergraduate Research Seminar Co-Instructor

Favorite Banned Book: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

“Back in the 1980s and 1990s, I eagerly awaited each weekly installment of Alison Bechdel's comic strip, "Dykes to Watch Out For." I loved the lesbianculture-based humor, and I was amused by Bechdel's well-placed literary references. When Fun Home was published in 2006, I expected more of the same. Instead, I found a deeply philosophical, poignant, painful, heartbreaking, and still somehow humorous memoir that (inexplicably) echoed and resurfaced some of my own childhood experiences. What a revelation. What a book.”

Dr. Ashley Stone, African and Black Diaspora Studies

2023 STRC Undergraduate Research Seminar Co-Instructor

Favorite Banned Book:

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

“The Bluest Eye was one of the first books that I read that I could feel. I understood every character because I had seen them all in my daily life. There are parts of the book that I have actually lived. Toni Morrison was a genius at capturing the humanity of Black people in literary form.”

Meloddye Carpio Ríos, Latin American and Latino Studies

STRC Postdoctoral Fellow

Favorite Banned Book:

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

“Satrapi's childhood and coming-of-age story is one of truth, resilience, love, and strength. In a time of false narratives and fake news, her experiences become a lesson to those of us who seek to forge our own paths and live our truths. #FreePersepolis”

Dr. Carolina Sternberg, Latin American and Latino Studies

STRC Steering Committee Member

Favorite Banned Book:

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

“I have picked Persepolis as one of my favorite banned books. I find it fascinating how this graphic novel can force any westernized reader to work hard to understand the complexities of Middle Eastern culture, in this case, Iranian political and social dynamics.”