Tag: Latin American Studies Association
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Black Feminist Epistemologies: Learning with Sueli Carneiro
BEING A GRADUATE STUDENT is not easy, especially in a prestigious program such as the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. In spring 2023, the authors, along with fellow Brazilian students, were talking about the challenges with Dr. Christen Smith, our adviser, and she said, “I…
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“To die little by little”: Disappearance and Ambiguous Loss in the Lives of Activist Mothers in Contemporary Mexico
Leer en español. BY MORAVIA DE LA O Margarita1 has spent the last nine years looking for her son, Mauricio. She keeps a manila folder with photos and articles about his case that she brings when I interview her in June 2017. In one of the photos that she shows me, a young man in…
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María Luisa Puga: A Life in Diaries
BY JOSÉ MONTELONGO Deciding how to end a novel is the author’s privilege. To write novels for a living is a volatile career choice, at least when it comes to paying rent, but the destiny and shape of your characters is not volatile at all, it’s your prerogative—you are the one choosing when and how…
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Eduardo Lalo: Words in Austin
Even before the devastation of Hurricane Maria, contemporary Puerto Rico was confronting unprecedented challenges. A spiraling debt crisis, record-breaking population exodus to the mainland, and draconian cuts to public services and education led to mass protests in the streets, higher taxes, business closings, and overall poverty throughout the island. In his photo exhibition Deudos /…
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A Different Kind of Border Wall
BY LYNDA M. GONZALEZ Six grandchildren. Six different breakfasts. Every morning, 69-year-old Teresa de Lozoya cooks what she can manage from food bank supplies and leftovers from church meal programs: a bowl of ramen noodle soup, hot dogs scrambled with eggs, reheated plain hamburgers. Her deteriorating mobile home in Indian Hills, Texas, will have already…
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Living in a Material World: Art and Otherworldly Understanding in Colonial Latin America
BY BRITTANY ERWIN It was a bustling scene. Excited crowds of people had gathered along the processional route in the city center, which had been elaborately decorated for the occasion. Dressed in their finest wares, a group of civic officials and the religious elite solemnly proceeded along a designated route, with an audience so large…
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La Ruta del Cambio Climático: Climate Change Tourism in the Peruvian Andes
BY MOLLY H. POLK A sure way to put an end to a lively conversation in any social setting is to ask me about my work. The conversation goes something like this: “You’re a geographer. What do you do, exactly?” “I teach at UT Austin in the Department of Geography and the Environment, and my…
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Up All Night: A Librarian and Two Truckers Travel Cross-Country with 16th-Century Goods
BY BROOKE WOMACK and SUSANNA SHARPE A librarian and two truckers are on a mission. They will travel for 27 hours, through four states, and at least one of them won’t get much sleep. Their journey involves high-security cargo, a climate-controlled 18-wheeler, and some rare documents from the 16th century. There will be truck stop…
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Una vida en 327 cuadernos: el archivo literario de María Luisa Puga
BY JOSÉ MONTELONGO Para algunos, un diario es una excursión hacia adentro, confrontación con uno mismo que se emprende en momentos de crisis y de transformación. Para otros no es un proyecto pasajero —que acompaña un rito de pasaje— sino una necesidad vital y cotidiana, una respiración. Eso fue para María Luisa Puga (1944–2004), escritora…
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From the Director
This is my first opportunity to greet you from the pages of Portal as the director of LLILAS Benson. I came into this position with many years of connections to LLILAS and the Benson Collection. I started teaching at The University of Texas at Austin in 1990, when I had an appointment at what…
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México en tiempos de violencia e impunidad: La antropología jurídica y la antropología forense en apoyo a los derechos humanos
POR R. AÍDA HERNÁNDEZ CASTILLO Read in English El contexto de violencia e impunidad que se vive actualmente en México está implicando nuevos retos metodológicos y epistemológicos para la antropología social y de manera más específica la antropología jurídica. A nivel metodológico, el trabajo de campo de larga duración en regiones afectadas por la violencia…