Spring 2023
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Saludos from the 2022-2023 Chairs:
Dear LxG community,
It was wonderful to see so many of you at AAG 2023 in Denver! All of us on the LxG board were so energized to see many new faces in our business meeting, as well as folks we had only met over zoom. The sessions we attended throughout the conference were deeply inspiring – there is so much important scholarship being woven by Latinx geographers!
This newsletter is our celebration of our community’s accomplishments, and documents all the ways our specialty group continues to evolve. We hope you enjoy this offering, and that you reach out if you’d like to become more involved in any of our endeavors for the next year!
En solidaridad,
Magie Ramírez (Outgoing 2020-2023 Co-Chair)
Assistant Professor of Geography, Simon Fraser University
Guillermo Douglass-Jaimes (2022-2024 Co-Chair)
Assistant Professor of Environmental Analysis, Pomona College
Yolanda González Mendoza (2023-2025 Co-Chair)
Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Maryland Baltimore County
Past LxG Newsletters
Winter 2022
A message to our members
We aren’t going to sugar coat it, these last almost two years have been tough for us and our members. As we know, Latinx communities have been disproportionately impacted by the covid-19 pandemic. These are our communities, our families, our gente. Many of us have been worried about our parents who are essential workers, grieving loss, parenting small children, caregiving for elders, missing our loved ones, supporting our communities where we can, all the while navigating a neoliberal academy that continues to pressure us to continue “business as usual.” As a board, we decided to shift our pace and focus of work to creating spaces for community building, conversation, and mutual support. In this newsletter, we elaborate on our activities, celebrate the achievements of our members and point to what’s next for LxG and ways you can get involved!
Retrospect: LxG Activities 2020-2021
Over this past year and a half, we have focused our work in various areas, please see below for details:
- Writing Workshops: We hosted two virtual writing workshops led by LxG Activity Director Guillermo Ramos Douglass-Jaimes. Around 10-15 members attended each virtual event.
- Cafecitos: We have also held “Cafecitos” which are more informal networking and community-building events where we can meet, get to know each other, share information and brainstorm future events. Approximately 23 people attended our first Cafecito in November 2020 and around 17 attended in November 2021.
- LxG writer’s lounge:We have been meeting on and off on a weekly basis to write together and offer peer-support. This has been an incredibly important space for people to find community and generate ideas.
- MutualAid: In 2021, we decided to allocate some of our funds($300)to provide mutual aid to graduate students who needed it. Thanks to the generous donation of $600 by the “Geography Methods during a Pandemic Learning Series” program under the AAG COVID-19 Task Force, we were able to offer $900 in funds for the newly created LxG Mutual-Aid Award. This allowed us to offer nine (9) $100 sums to graduate student members of not only the Latinx Geographies Specialty Group, but also the Black Geographies Specialty Group, Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group, Queer & Trans Geographies Specialty Group or Disability Specialty Group. We are also greatly thankful to the AAG’s Graduate Student Affinity group (GSAG) who donated $250 for our efforts this past year, which we will use for ongoing mutual aid efforts this year (see activities for 2022).
- Solidarity: In June 2020 our group released a statement in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and expressed our support for the Black Geographies Specialty Group (BGSG) statement that called for numerous changes see link here. We want to reaffirm our support for the calls BGSG members made and suggest that Council work towards these goals, including but not limited to dismantling anti-Blackness within the discipline of Geography, systematically increasing the hiring and retention of Black faculty and allocating funding for programs and opportunities for Black undergraduate and graduate students.
- In September 2020 our group also joined with other Specialty Groups to write an open letter asking for more accountability and transparency around diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives see link here. We want to restate our call here, especially as the AAG Diversity and Inclusion Committee is working on its strategic plan.
- Membership & Participation Update: As of November 2021, there are 212 LxG members. We are pleased to note that this is a growing trend that denotes a robust set of folks interested in Latinx Geographies, which had fewer than twenty members at its inception in 2018. We also have an ongoing growing Twitter following of 1,599 followers, Instagram following of 309, and a private Facebook group of 81 members. All three of these platforms receive regular engagement, including likes, retweets, and conversation. These contribute to our academic and at-large knowledge community building. If you haven’t already please become an LxG member here: https://www.latinxgeographies.org/join-lxg
- Financial Update: As of November 30th, 2021, we have $1,767.00 in revenue.
The Year Ahead: 2022
Sign-Up for our LxG Weekly Writer’s Lounge
We are excited to announce that we are starting up our LxG Weekly Writer’s Lounge on Fridays, starting Jan 21st, from 11AM-1PM ET/9AM-11AM PT/10AM-12PM CT.
This is a space where you can come and meet other LxG members, share your writing goals and of course, write! There is no commitment to attend every Friday, but we ask that you please register using this link here so we can send you the information to log-on. More information about the platform we use and the set-up we have is also available on the link above.
Join the LxG Board – Call for Nominations
We are currently holding elections leading up to this year’s AAG Annual Meeting Feb 25-March 1, 2022, for the following positions on our board:
– Co-Chair (1)
– Secretary-Treasurer (1)
– Activity Directors (up to 3)
All positions are for two-year terms (2022-2024). For more information on the job responsibilities of these positions, and to nominate yourself or someone else for these roles, see this Google form: https://forms.gle/jVnvKxezRUYRUHt48
Please submit your nominations by February 11th, 2022.
2022 LxG Mutual-Aid Funding – Apply Today!
We recognize that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a significant impact on the lives of graduate students and has caused disruptions to research, writing and funding. As such, the Latinx Geographies Collective is extending a second round of Mutual-Aid fund to support graduate students. This year, we are able to offer six (6) awards of $100 each. We welcome sponsors in support of additional Mutual-Aid awards and look forward to the possibility of offering more awards.
To apply, please fill out this google form by February 21, 2022. The only eligibility requirement is that you are a current member of one of the following AAG Specialty Groups: Latinx Geographies SG, Black Geographies SG, Indigenous Peoples SG, Queer & Trans Geographies SG, Graduate Student Affinity Group, or Disability SG.
Mentoring Workshops Coming Spring 2022
In March 2022 the Mentoring Committee of the LxG is going to begin planning a series of mentoring workshops that focus on different themes. The first one will focus on the job search and application process. Please keep a look out for more information at the end of March.
Student Paper Awards
We are thrilled to announce that Cristina Faiver-Serna was the winner of the LxG Student Paper Award in 2021! Her paper, “M(other)work of Survival” puts forward a compelling framework for understanding the everyday tactics of Latinx promotoras/health promoters in resisting environmental racism and planting seeds for community survival in Southern California. We can’t wait to see it in print! To learn more about Cristina’s research check out her website: https://www.cristinafaiverserna.com/
We are deeply thankful to the Editorial Board of Environment and Planning D: Society & Space who agreed to continue supporting our LxG Student Paper Award in 2021 and contributed $300 for the cash prize.
We are also excited to share that Alana de Hinojosa, winner of the LxG Student Paper Award in 2019 has published her paper “El Rio Grande as Pedagogy: The Unruly, Unresolved Terrains of the Chamizal Land Dispute,” in American Quarterly link here: https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2021.0052
Her essay powerfully brings to light the complex story of the Chamizal, interweaving archival methods, oral histories, and the pedagogies of the Río Grande, which provides crucial insights for ongoing struggles resisting white settler colonialism. To learn more about Alana’s work check out her website: https://www.alanadehinojosa.com/
Updates from our LxG Community
Cristina Faiver-Serna received her PhD in Geography from the University of Oregon. In Fall 2021 she began a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Departments of Geography and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of New Hampshire.
Diego Martinez-Lugo graduated with a M.S. in Mexican American Studies in Summer 2020 and a M.A. in Geography in Winter 2020 both from the University of Arizona.
Edgar Sandoval received his PhD in Geography from the University of Washington, Seattle. He is now a Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow in Latina/o Studies at Williams College.
Olivia Orosco was awarded a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship for her research project: Relational Methodologies for Coalitional Work: BIPOC Healing on and with Indigenous Land.
Pamela Sertzen was awarded a Mellon-Sawyer Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Newcomb Art Department at Tulane University for the Mellon-funded “Sites of Memory: New Orleans and Place-based histories in the Americas” Seminar. To learn more, see www.sitesofmemorynola.org.
Aída R. Guhlincozzi started a new position at the University of Missouri as a Preparing Future Faculty Post-doctoral Scholar in the Geography and Women’s and Gender Studies Departments and became a faculty fellow at the University of Missouri Cambio Center. While in graduate school, she received the Josephine M. Bresee Memorial Award for the Best Graduate Student Fiction Award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was the C-U 1to1 Mentor of the Month in January 2021.
Publications related to Latinx Geographies
Alana de Hinojosa (2021) “El Rio Grande as Pedagogy: The Unruly, Unresolved Terrains of the Chamizal Land Dispute,” American Quarterly 73(4): 711-742. https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2021.0052
Amy Shimshon-Santo (2021) How to Become Erasure Proof, GeoHumanities, DOI: 10.1080/2373566X.2021.1960179
Andrea Del Carmen Vázquez (2020) “Joaquin’s refusal: An embodied and geographic active subjectivity.” Association of Mexican American EducatorsJournal, 14(2): 87-103. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24974/amae.14.2.362
Anti-Eviction Mapping Project Editorial Collective (2021) Counterpoints: A San Francisco Bay Area Atlas of Displacement & Resistance, PM Press
Asha Best and Magie Ramírez (2021) “Urban specters,” Environment and Planning D: Society & Space 39 (6): 1043-1054. DOI: 10.1177/02637758211030286
Tianna Bruno & Cristina Faiver-Serna (2021) More Reflections on a White Discipline, The Professional Geographer, DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2021.1915822
Cristina Faiver-Serna. 2021. “Geographies of Environmental Racism: Capitalism, Pollution, and Public Health in Southern California,” pp.147-163 in Lessons in Environmental Justice: From Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter and Idle No More. Edited by Michael Mascarenhas. SAGE Publications.
Diego Martinez-Lugo (forthcoming) “Beyond the Racial State, Racial Capitalism, and Settler Colonialism: Towards a Grassroots Climate Justice,” In The Just City in the Era of Climate Change: Theory, Praxis, Resistance edited by Jennifer Rice, Joshua Long, and Anthony Levenda
Madelaine C. Cahuas (2021) “Voicing Chicanx/Latinx feminisms and situating testimonio in geographical research,” Gender, Place & Culture: https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2021.1987199
Madelaine C. Cahuas and Alexandra Arraiz Matute (2021) “Enacting a Latinx Decolonial Politic of Belonging,” Studies in Social Justice 14(2): https://doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v14i2.2225
Madelaine C. Cahuas (2020), “Reaching for El Mundo Zurdo: Imagining-creating- living Latinx decolonial feminist geographies in Toronto,” Gender, Place & Culture, https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2020.1786015
Magie Ramírez (2020) “Take the houses back/take the land back: Black and Indigenous urban futures in Oakland,” Urban Geography, 41(5), 682-693. DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2020.1736440
Rebeca Gamez and Timothy Monreal (2021) “We have that opportunity now: Black and Latinx geographies, (Latinx) racialization and “New Latinx South,” Journal of Leadership, Equity and Research, 7(2): 6-29.
Priscilla Ferreira. (2021). Encounters in Black Feminist Geographies That Ache and Bond. WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 49(1), 137–160. https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.2021.0025
Guhlincozzi, A.R. and Lotfata, A. (2021). “Travel distance to flu and COVID-19 vaccination sites for people with disabilities and age 65 and older, Chicago metropolitan area.” Journal of Health Research, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHR-03-2021-0196.
Guhlincozzi, A., Cisneros, J., (July 2021). “A framework for addressing the lack of diversity in the Geosciences through evaluating the current structure of institutional efforts.” GeoJournal, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10708- 021-10418-1
McLafferty, S., Guhlincozzi, A., Winata, F. (2021). Quantitative Methods and COVID-19. In. COVID-19 and Similar Futures: Geographical Perspectives, Issues, and Agendas edited by G. Andrews, V. Crooks, J. Pearce, and J. Messina. New York: Springer.
Villela, D.A.M., Gracie, R., Bigler, A.C.A., Douglass-Jaimes, G., Campos, E.M., Williamson, T., 2021. Painel Unificador Covid-19 nas Favelas: metodologia para dar visibilidade a territórios periféricos, in: Barcellos, C., Villela, D. A. M. (Eds.), Covid-19 No Brasil: Cenários Epidemiológicos e Vigilância Em Saúde. Série Informação para ação na Covid-19 | Fiocruz. https://doi.org/10.7476/9786557081211
Brittany Davis, Aída R. Guhlincozzi, and Deondre Smiles (forthcoming) “Take me home country roads’: The Limits of Sanctuary on the American Road Trip” in Southern Cultures.
Guhlincozzi, A. (forthcoming). “Border Thinking: Latinx Youth Decolonizing Citizenship, By Andrea Dyrness and Enrique Sepúlveda III” Book Review. Great Plains Research.
Dissertations & Theses Filed
Cristina Faiver-Serna, “‘Survival First, Health Second’: Geographies of Environmental Racism and the M(other)work of Promotoras de Salud.” PhD diss., University of Oregon, 2021
Pamela Katia Sertzen, “Contesting Erasure: The Museu Da Maré and the Right to the City in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.” PhD diss., Syracuse University, 2021. https://www.proquest.com/pqdtglobal/docview/2584307824/1A78F43DA5654282PQ/1?a ccountid=14437
Other Reminders and Announcements
- Follow us on Twitter @LatinxGeog and Instagram @latinxgeographies
- American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting |Virtual| Friday, Feb. 25 – Tuesday, March 1. For more information: http://www3.aag.org/aag2022nyc
- Latina/o Studies Association Conference 2022 | July 11-14, 2022 | University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN. For more information: https://latinxstudiesassociation.org/