Transcript: Language, Culture, and Power panel tackles heavy-hitting subjects with students and faculty alike

The Associated Students of Solano Community College hosted a panel on Tuesday, Sep. 30 at 12:30 pm, tackling common Hispanic identities and labels while also discussing how both sit parallel to the history of European imperialism in the Americas.

The panel began with Solano Pulse Spanish Editors, who were also the event’s moderators, Guillherme Silva and Adil Guillen, introducing themselves to the panel and audience alike. The panel went on to introduce themselves and their respective ethnicities, stating how they identify, beginning with the students.

Dennis Lozano: “Hello, my name is Dennis. I’m in my second semester here at Solano Community College. I’m a History major. I’m a mixed race person; I have African, European, Middle Eastern, and Native Central American ancestry. Ethnically, I identify as El Salvadorian.”

Erwyn Ramirez: “Hi, My name is Erwyn. I am in my second year and I am a Puentista. I’m a social justice studies major, and I identify as Chicané, because my parents are from Oaxaca, Mexico and I was basically born and raised here.”

Monica Guerrero: “Hi, everyone, my name’s Monica Guerrero. I’m planning to transfer after the semester and I identify as Nicaragüense and Chicano.”

Lianne Ortíz: “Hi everyone, my name is Lianne and I’m from Cuba. I identify as Cuban and my major is biology.”

Professor Ariana Martinez: “Hola a todos, my name is Ariana, I’m the MESA director here, in the 1500 building. I’m also a former Puentista, my major was in communication studies, and I got a master’s in counseling & now I’m here! I grew up in Fairfield so I’m really happy to be back and talk to you all.”

Dr. Laura Pirott: “Hola a todos, Soy la Profé Laura I’m the [full-time] Spanish professor here at the college. You can find me in room 717. Come say hi and join the Spanish Club! But anyways, I am half as interesting. My father was Argentinian, so very much because he was from the city, very European…and my mother was 100% Colombian. My heart is with Colombia, so I identify as Latina because Spanish was my first language and [I use] Colombiana when I’m around other latinos.”

Dr. Amanda Morrison: “Hi everyone, [I am] Dr. Amanda Martinez Morrison, I am the sole full-time ethnic studies professor here and definitely my area of, like, focus is Chicano Latino history. Like Laura, I have a mixed background. My dad’s a white dude, and my mom is proudly Chicana, and I definitely identify as proudly Chicana.”

Dra. Christina Rodriguez: “Hi everyone, my name is Doctora Christina Rodriguez. I’m the director of Student Support Services, so I oversee the Basic Needs Program, so you can catch me at the food pantry at the walk-in closet. I am first generation born from San Francisco, my parents are from Nicaragua so I’m Nicoya, so I see my sister right there and my Central American brother right there. My pronouns are she/her/ella. I identify as [a] first generation latina, Nicargüense, Nicoya, Nica, all of the modos of being Nicargüense…I got a Bachelor’s in Razas studies from S.F. State. I have a Master’s in Business and I just received my Doctorate degree in Education. I’m a product of community college…thank you everybody for joining and I hope you enjoy the panel!”

Co-Spanish Editor Guillherme Silva greeted the audience and called for another round of applause for the panel before beginning to ask the Panel their questions. He introduced the first question to Dr. Laura Pirott.

Solano Pulse Spanish Editing Staff: As the Spanish Professor at Solano Community College, you have an expertise in the language; with an impact of Spanish conquest and colonialism that has become almost invisible, as if no other language exist or ever did in the Americas, can you explain a little history behind the movements of people, culture, and language that let to the Latin America we know today?

 

Dr. Pirott: “Okay so this is a huge question and I just want to point out my background, I didn’t mention it, I have a Doctorate in Comparative Literature and so I’m not 100% a historian, but as I have obviously studied cultural studies and I’m going to highlight some of the key moments…I think I want to start with 1492. I think we all know what happened then. We think of the coin phrase, you know, ‘Columbus sailed the ocean blue’, but there’s way more that needs to be said about that date that impacts what happens next, which is the conquest of the Americas.

Let me clarify some terms, when I say America or the Americas, I’m referring to the so-called ‘new world’, which again, is a misnomer. I’m referring to North, Central, South America, the Caribbean and not [just] this particular country exclusively. So, in 1492, yes Columbus arrives, [but] is not sure [of] what he’s found, and he makes three more additional trips, again, never fully understanding where he is.

However when he comes back to Spain, Spain is now ruled by what are called the Catholic Monarchs. Ferdinand and Isabella are a very shroud,very powerful couple, [and] part of their mission, or their policy is to consolidate their territories.They married in the late-1460s, and part of their plan was to create, basically, a modern country. They didn’t know it at the time, but what that meant was this.

This was also happening in 1492…it’s the final, what they called ‘the reconquest of Spain’, which is a loaded term. What really happened was that the Jews and the Moors were expelled from Spain. There had been a policy of forced conversions…as part of their campaign, they forcibly expelled the Jews and the Moors to what we know as the diaspora. That is happening at the very same time that Columbus is arriving to the so-called ‘new world’.

Another very important thing to note is that Queen Isabella, La Reina Isabel, was from the region called Castilla, Central Spain, and Ferdinand was from Aragon. He spoke a different language than Isabella. Isabella spoke Castillian…today, when we think of Spanish, that’s what we are speaking…and Ferdinand spoke Aragonese. So part of, also, their political effort to consolidate, they made Castilian the official language of their territories in 1492, when they commissioned a guy named Nebrija to consolidate the language into a formal grammar…we don’t think of this as a big whoop but at the time, you know, the printing press was sort of relatively new, not everyone had access. These two tools of paranoia about religious, sort of proving, for example, that you were old stock christian.

That was part of the inquisition…the inquisition that King Ferdinand and Isabella, along with the Catholic Church, instituted in the 1480s to begin to harass and forcibly convert the moors and the jews, who were sort of on the fence about staying or going.

That inquisition created a huge paranoia of showing your background and your roots as being old stock christians so that there was no doubt cast on your origins…so I’m proposing that Columbus brings with him these tools of cultural and religious paranoia about purity and blood. There was something called ‘Limpieza de sangre’, which [meant] ‘cleaning of your blood’, showing that you were pure, old stock christians.

That comes along those ships, of course, symbolically, along with the book of grammar, which he [Christopher Columbus] also brought over. This creates the setting for what will become a huge, huge crisis and traumatic moment in history. Obviously, we know that the clash for the indigenous populations was huge. We can’t even really get into too much of that here. At the time of Columbus and the Spaniards arrival, they [experts] have estimated that there were between 2,000 and 4,000 indigenous languages.

So, this is the kind of cultural diversity that we’re talking about, as well as when the Transatlantic Slave Trade gets into full force…we also have the linguistic contributions of the African slaves who were forced to work. That’s sort of the backdrop of some of the issues that we now face in terms of finding the right terminology, who are, what are we, et cetera? The term[s] Latino, Latiné, Latinx, are so complicated because there’s so many ways to identify and connect culturally, racially, [and] linguistically. So, Spanish did serve to sort of unify, if you will, coerce people, if you’re maybe familiar with the Mission system, even here in California. Where indoctrination of the Catholic faith was done using Spanish. That was the sort of method they used.

But we can’t forget [about] the cultures and languages that were already in place. That’s one piece of it. The other piece that I just want to touch on is the complexity of the term ‘Latino’.We fast forward now to the 19th century, where we have a lot of the newly formed Spanish countries, babies, if you will, being led by American born-of-European-descent elites, very much influenced by the French revolutionaries of the late-1700s, who inspired a lot of the sort of ideals that led wars of independence in Latin America. It sort of [became] a desire to distance themselves from the imperialistic tendencies of the U.S.

The British empire was also very eager and keen. Central America was very impacted by imperialistic designs to create a canal. As a sort of knee-jerk reaction, the term Latin, from Latin America, became sort of a way to distance and create an ‘us [vs.] them’…Latin as in former colonies that spoke romance languages and romance languages, as you know, are French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, there’s a few others.

I think I went well beyond the five minutes. I could say a lot more, but I think those are the things I want to leave you with. Language became a unifying tool, also an oppressive tool because it pushed out so many nuances and other different languages. At the same time, I want to say that Spanish holds, if you will, the scars or the remembrances of all of the other cultures that have influenced it. It’s not a monolithic thing, it’s a live thing. Whenever you speak Spanish and you say words that begin with al…you are essentially using Arabic.

There are ways in which those other languages remain alive and well. I want to suggest that keeping Spanish alive is important, but not in this way that you put it on a pedestal and say ‘oh, this is some sort of archeological artifact that we have to preserve’. It is an evolving thing and it is a link to power and to access multiple spaces. So when I hear students speak Spanish and I hear them say ‘I don’t think I’m speaking it correctly’, I say ‘you know what? Be super proud you have a tool and you use it. Use it to your advantage.’ I want to encourage everyone to think in those terms with this incredible legacy that you have in your language. Thank you.”

Editor’s note: The sections of this response that were removed consisted of Dr. Pirott recounting the origins of Romance Languages and explaining the 1823 Monroe Doctrine.

Adil Guillen presented the next question to Dr. Amanda Morrison.

Solano Pulse Spanish Editing Staff: Can you tell us a little about how and why labels & identities of Spanish speakers and Latin Americans in the U.S. have evolved over the last 100+ years?

 

Dr. Morrison: “Well, we could go back about 100 years, you could go back 500 years. Where do you begin? I’m not totally sure about the history of how popular the term ‘Hispanic’, but what I do know is [that] the 1930 census, as far as recognizing Latinos or Hispanics as an official demographic in the U.S., had Mexican as a race on it. That was the first, I think, and only time any Latino [or] Hispanic population was ever recognized on this official document in the Federal Government.

That had a nefarious motivation. It was during the Great Depression where we were in another hugely anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican, and by extension, anti-Latino moment. It was the program of Mexican Repatriation which —does this sound familiar? Immigration and border officials were snatching Mexicans and other Latinos, but mainly Mexicans and Mexican Americans off the street [and] shoving them into bands, buses, trains, [while] also making their lives a living hell so that they would self-deport. At that time, people were blaming Mexicans, and by extension, Latinos for ‘taking their jobs’ because it was during the Great Depression.

This is kind of a sad history. During the Great Depression, Americans were suffering. Many Americans did lose their jobs and instead of looking at the real culprit, which is Wall Street, someone gets scapegoated. Like if you were to use the [1930] census as an example, ‘Mexican’ was on it and the people who organized to get it off were latinos.

It was the LULAC. The League of United Latin American Citizens was an early civil rights organization of Latinos before there was sort of a very coalesced identity of Hispanic or Latino, I don’t think, but they were starting to make it. Between 1930 and 1940, LULAC said ‘we know you’re [only] counting us because you want to deport us’. It’s so nefarious because it was all these people who are U.S. born citizens, but they were also being rounded up and deported.

The other entity that said ‘don’t officially recognize us as a racial group by any means’ was the Mexican government because the Mexican government then reminded the U.S. that when the U.S. went to war with Mexico and took over half of Mexico’s land, which is the land we’re on right now; California, Texas, and the U.S. Southwest, the treaty of 1848 promised that the Mexicans who were living here got to naturalize and be American citizens. What that meant, at the time, was racial whiteness because only white people could vote and be full citizens in 1848. Then you get the whole dynamic of Latinos, in this case it’s really more Mexican Americans sort of being adjacent to whiteness. There were a lot of arguments in Latino communities in that time [such as] ‘do not racialize us as anything but white.’ It’s really a complex history. In Texas, you literally had signs that say ‘no Black people, no Mexicans, no dogs.’

Officially, Latinos weren’t recognized as any kind of racial group. Of course, identities coalesce over time around [thoughts] like ‘okay, are we Hispanic or are we Latino? Or is that such a big umbrella? Does it have any meaning?’ Some Americans who are [of] Latin American descent are arguing ‘yeah, let’s create a big umbrella because we will create a solidarity movement of like a united people. Let’s create a people out of Brasileños, out of Hondureños, out of Mexicanos, out of Nicoyas,’ and so there’s an argument for having a Hispanic/Latino identity that emerges.

I think it’s a little more of contemporary history. The history that Laura was talking about, Spanish colonization, the majority of Latinos are mestizo. Our ancestry is [formed through] a process of what’s called mestizaje which is ‘mixing’. Most of us, not all, but most of us have European ancestry, usually from Spain or Portugal, most of us have indigenous ancestry, and most of us have African ancestry, to varying degrees. Some people don’t have all three, but it’s very common to have all three. Probably the majority of us have that ancestry.

So where Latinos in the United States fit into the United States’ really rigid, binary, black [and] white racial logic has always been confusing, and I think a lot of us are confused. Like we don’t know who we are. We don’t know who our ancestors are. We don’t know where we come from, other than the nation state which is really important. There’s so many people who identify like, ‘I’m Nicaraguan, I’m Mexican’ here in the United States, but this question of I can recreate and cultivate a very expansive, capacious Latino identity in the United States, that would be politically effective, is an interesting question, especially looking at voting results recently.”

Guillherme Silva presented the next question to Professor Ariana Martinez.

Solano Pulse Spanish Editing Staff: You were a Solano Student from 2016 to 2019 and now have been the MESA director for over a year. What do you remember about the way race, ethnicity, Latinidad was talked about and/or celebrated? What changes have you seen (or implemented) that show how the College is working to better support Latiné students?

 

Prof. Martinez: “I also forgot to mention what I identify as. I identify as Mexican American. I am also a first generation college student so when coming to Solano [Community College] in 2016, I graduated from Rodriguez High School, which is located here in Fairfield, and I honestly didn’t know what I wanted right out of high school.

Community College was the way for me. I actually played soccer here my first year. That was a really big thing for me to immerse myself a little bit more on the community college level. From there, I got to meet a lot of classmates and really just get to talk to them about what resources they use because being the oldest daughter and oldest granddaughter, I had to kind of figure it out on my own what resources were available on campus.

During that time, I remember the community [and] it was good, but I still felt lost. I didn’t know what I wanted. It wasn’t until I took a Spanish class with Margaret Abel-Quintero, which she is no longer working here. She opened my eyes a little bit more to like what I wanted and then I met someone who was in Puente.

I asked her ‘what is Puente?’ and then from there she explained to me that it’s a program that can help with transfer and that’s what I wanted. My goal was to transfer and I didn’t want to give up. From there that was my community, it was Puente and Rebecca [LaCount] and Isabel [Anderson] helping me a lot with that process and what that looked like because I didn’t know what it was like to apply for college, like ‘where do you go? How do you pay for this?’, but that was my community. That’s where we also got to talk a lot about race and ethnicity and anyone could join it. It wasn’t just because you’re Latino, anyone could be a part of it.

However, I knew being Mexican American and wanting to make my ancestors proud and continuing my education, I had to find resources to help regarding that. Over the years, I then became a Puente mentor so I wanted to come back, I always wanted to be here. Coming back to Solano and growing up in Fairfield. That was like a big thing for me.

Also using my Spanish as much as I could in jobs [and] just kept on learning when it came to Spanish. I was in a dual emergent program growing up, so that helped a lot when it came to speaking [writing, and reading] Spanish and using it in my own field of work. But now being a MESA director specifically, I’m honestly not good at math or science, so it’s kind of ironic that I’m in a program with a lot of STEM students, but it teaches me a lot because they’re very ambitious.

I’m really happy to be here and be a part of what helped me shape into who I am. [Regarding] changes that I’ve seen, it’s gotten better honestly. Like this [the panel], I wish I had this when I was in community college or maybe there was and I didn’t know. I was very shy and I didn’t know who to talk to or even just talking to professors was very intimidating at the time.

After you get older you start to realize ‘no they’re here to help you and to support you’. Now we have Puente, A2MEND, AANHPI clubs that are on campus as well as the Student Development Program. This is great…since I graduated, it’s almost been 10 years, but I’ve seen it evolve very much. I always encourage my cousins and family who don’t know what [they] want after high school [to] definitely go to a community college because many doors will open up for you.”

Editor’s note: Margaret Abel-Quintero was a full-time Spanish Professor at Solano Community College for nearly 25 years, retiring in May 2020.

 

Adil Guillen shouted out the Puente program and then posed the next question to Dra. Christina Rodriguez.

Solano Pulse Spanish Editing Staff: As a first-generation Nicaraguan, what has it been like speaking up about Latina issues in spaces where people like you aren’t represented? Can you share a moment when using your voice felt uncomfortable but necessary?

 

Dra. Rodriguez: “How much time do we have? Super plug for Puente, I’m also a Puentista. I went to Foothill college and Puente saved my academic journey. I would not be sitting here today as a Doctora and as a Latina administrator if it wasn’t for Puente.

For me, not seeing myself represented in academic spaces as I was completing my doctoral program was very problematic for me. I did not see myself represented in the articles that I needed to center my dissertation. The academic scholarship I saw was centered on Chicana and Mexicana and although they did pave the way within the Chicana movement I still didn’t see myself represented in that because my family and my ancestors are not from here.

My shared experiences were a little bit more towards African and Black women, because of the colorism I experienced and discrimination, so I geared towards that. When I did see myself represented and it talked about Nicaragua, they talked about war and trauma, so already there’s this perspective of women and how we show up in these spaces. It gave me an opportunity to not only define what’s considered academic scholarship.

It allowed me to use the platform that I created, which is ‘Latinas with Master’s’, to define that as data. I am data. [What] I’m experiencing both as a Latina graduate student and as well as a Latina administrator at a community college, is data. I was able to have a very supportive dissertation committee that allowed me and supported me, I would say, to go outside the norms of what is Eurocentric academic research and use social media as data.

It also gave me the opportunity to share the experiences, again, it gave me the dual experience of navigating being the only Latina in my master’s program and then seeing a little bit more of us in the doctoral program, but not as much, but also the experiences of me being a Latina on this campus, you know? I used that experience to center my dissertation on the experiences of [being] Latina in higher education, for the good, the bad, and the ugly.

It’s there for individuals like you that want to pursue that route to see yourself not only represented in academic scholarship, but also so you can name the experiences you are experiencing, you know, like you are being gas lit and there are times when we are experiencing microaggressions and the thing is, that I’ve learned through therapy, is that these experiences, we know how they feel like, but we can’t name them. So the fact that I was able to name them was big for me. It was my own healing journey within itself. For me, specifically being Nicaragüense and seeing Central American [representation], Salvadorians dominate when it comes to Central American representation. They’re 2.5 million [Salvadorians] and then Nicargüenses are at 450,000.

Even if we were to look at the history [of] Nicaragua and why [Nicaraguans] came here, my parents came here during the war. They came here illegally, but they had an opportunity to apply for asylum because there was a revolution, and their space of belonging was no longer belonging to them, and came here to the United States to give us a better life.

I saw that represented in the data, I saw that represented in academic literature, but I did not see myself represented when it came to pursuing higher education. That’s why, for me, I’m not uncomfortable speaking up. Sometimes, what could be uncomfortable is, ‘am I experiencing this?’ or ‘am I tripping?’ or ‘did that just happen?’, that’s what’s uncomfortable because they want us to not be in these spaces.

They don’t want us to be educated [or] be able to call out the things that we’re experiencing. I’m the wrong person for that. If I can help another Latina, another woman of color, get into graduate school, if I can help them get through the barriers for basic needs…I’m going to use that same power to let us in the door so we can continue on the path that we are deserving of and not necessarily asking academia permission to exist.”

Both Adil and Guillherme went on to offer their thoughts and opinions on the previous answers before asking the students on the panel the next question which was first answered by Dennis Lozano.

Solano Pulse Spanish Editing Staff: What did your upbringing/parents/family instill in you about being Latiné? How did this influence the way you identify?

 

Lozano: “My whole family is Salvadorian, so the big thing in my upbringing was keeping in touch with the language [and] the religion. I don’t know if it was because of trauma from the war, there was also a war in El Salvador, that they didn’t really want to talk about back home a lot. I didn’t really get to immerse myself in the culture as much. So my connection to being Latino was more about religion. But then, as I got older I kept getting questions like ‘hey, what are you?’. They assume that I’m just Black or mixed race so I had to come to terms with that because with my family, they weren’t really open about talking about different ancestry.

I had to discover that on my own. [I] took a DNA test and figured out where I’m from and stuff so I could connect to all those different points of ancestry. Now I’m happy to say where I’m from and all the different identities that I’m connected to and I’m open to learning more about them.”

Monica Guerrero responded next.

Guerrero: “For my upbringing, my dad is from Nicaragua, he came here when he was 12. There was a war going on and he, from a very small age, would tell us how — it’s kind of emotional to think about because like, they were literally snatching kids off the bus, like ‘you look old enough. You’re gone’. Luckily for him, he worked for the newspaper. You start working at six years old. He had people looking out for him because they were [saying] ‘he works’.

That influenced my identity a lot because it just makes me have a heart for immigrants and be proud my dad’s an immigrant. He came here legally, but my grandmother was willing to come here illegally because things were getting really bad. It was a fight for your life. Luckily they were able to come over here. But it’s just really pressing when you hear the attitudes towards immigrants today, people are just like ‘stay in your country’ and it’s like, sometimes there’s things going on that other people don’t see.

My dad was raised Catholic [and] turned christian. He really instilled those Christian values [in me] and he doesn’t believe that politics and Christianity go together. He always kind of likes ‘speak out about Christ!’ but like anything for change, ‘you can stay back.’ So I feel part of my identity is…I’m the first in my family to go to college, and I kind of feel encouraged and empowered like, ‘Dad I got you’. I have that heart, I’m Christian, [and] I believe in social change.”

Editor’s note: When Guerrero references her father turning “Christian”, she is referencing her father’s conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism.

 

Erwyn Ramirez was the next to add to the discussion.

Ramirez: “Well, my parents immigrated here from Oaxaca because, from what I remember, they told me that the economic situation was really bad and both of their families were poor. They heard about the U.S. from the family and then they came here and then they had me.

I grew up in Richmond and basically my experience has been a mix of Mexican and then American too because I haven’t gone to Mexico yet. Sometimes, I feel a little embarrassed mentioning that. As I’ve gotten older, [I’ve] just come to accept that my parents’ culture has influenced the way I am today and [accepting] it, and also acknowledging that I grew up here.”

Lianne Ortíz was the last student on the panel to answer this question.

Ortíz: “I’m sorry, I’m nervous. For experience, I was born and raised in Cuba and I lived in Cuba until I was 15 years old. I came here in 2022 and before I left, [there] was no electricity, no water, the situation in Cuba was hella bad. My dad was already here, so my mom and I moved right here in 2022. With the situation with immigration…it’s really scary because I identify as Cuban. I don’t want to say ‘oh, I’m American Cuban’ when I wasn’t [born] here.

I will say the influence from my mom and my family is ‘say what you want to say, and don’t feel left out or scared about what’s going on. Just be yourself.’ Thank you.”

Editor’s note: the “situation with immigration” Ortíz was in reference to President Trump’s direction to the U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement agency to increase and prioritize the deportations of undocumented people in Democratic-ran cities back in June, as reported by the Associated Press.

 

Guillherme and Adil then turned the conversation to the audience, asking them the next question with anyone able to answer.

Solano Pulse Spanish Editing Staff: Who is being left out? How can we expand the umbrella/community here at Solano Community College and how can we invite more people to join us?

 

Solano CC Black Student Union President Imari Cutrer raised her hand and responded.

Cutrer: “[I’m] very big on representation, honestly. Representation and exposure. I think that this panel was a great idea as far as to be an alternative perspective and as far as the collective experience here at Solano, whether it be students, staff or faculty. Continue to do events like this. Continue to open the floor to these conversations that aren’t always pleasant. You may not always see eye-to-eye but there is strength in the ability to agree to disagree.

There is strength in being open to something that you may not have experienced. My parents and grandparents didn’t immigrate here, however there’s still, it’s not a trauma bond, but there’s still a shared experience as far as African Americans, Latinos, and things such as that here in the United States, so It’s just opening the door for this in supporting each other, honestly and genuinely.”

The Solano Pulse Spanish Editors gave the audience the opportunity to ask the panelists any other questions. Kim DeOcampo, a Bay Area indigenous peoples’ activist, Tuolumne Miwok member, and Vallejo native, volunteered to speak.

DeOcampo: “First of all, thank you for this event, and I’d like to acknowledge that [Solano] is the unceded territory of Indigenous Californians. This land did not belong to Mexico, it did not belong to Spain, it did not belong to the United States. We precede all of those colonizer names because we’ve been here for over 10,000 years.

It has been very difficult to come to terms, for many of you, to have to come to the U.S. to escape the turmoil in your country, especially when so many of you have come here as a direct result of U.S. imperialism.

As we speak right now, we are watching, in real time, the United States attempt to destabilize Venezuela, to suppress Colombia and its President for speaking out about Palestine. So, as this umbrella of my Indigenous people from the Southern hemisphere [and] of Turtle Island, we need to not [only] be able to have these difficult conversations, [but] understand that the United States has done a lot of damage in your country and they have to be held accountable for what has happened.

How do you go back to a country that [the United States] continues to destabilize. To continue to put in puppet politicians that continue to kill and abduct people. Thank you.”

Dr. Pirott chose to respond.

Dr. Pirott: “I just want to agree with that, thank you. I didn’t hear an actual question that I could possibly address, but you nailed it. I think that I alluded to the U.S. intervention in politics that [was] sort of formalized in 1823 with the Monroe Doctrine, where the impulse was to protect the nascent, unstable countries from other foreign incursions. But, of course, it became a tool to hide behind and then to police and intervene and a lot of the Central American wars that were alluded to here directly resulted from U.S. interventions there.

The U.S. is definitely tied to so much war, so much trauma. I don’t know where to begin. Part of the question that I saw on my sheet was, you know, sometimes conquest and colonialism has become almost invisible and, frankly, I see it everywhere. I see it in the mass migrations from the countryside to city. That is a direct result of the feudal system by colonial rule that mimicked in the vice royalties, in the land parcels, the exact feudal sort of king and thiefdom. I don’t know how to undo that.

That’s definitely in place and institutionalized. The fact that the percentage of landowners is just miniscule, right? That dates back also to feudal and medieval times, 10% of the population owned most of the land.

I am at a loss. We’re here to celebrate, yes, but we have to remember that these types of traumas are so deeply embedded in the various structures. I think it’s important for us to remember [and] you helped us do that today, and I appreciate that because it’s really easy on the Spanish instructor. It’s easy for me to go in and do all the sort of superficial things that one might do to celebrate the culture.

It’s so important to talk about that. I don’t have answers except we are so tied to not just — the U.S. has been our neighbor, so yes, we feel their presence in everything, but globally, you know, the Americas have really suffered as has Africa. But yeah, I don’t know where to begin.”

The next question the panel took was from an audience member.

“My question was for Dra. Rodriguez. I remember you recalling that doing your dissertation and trying to find work to cite, it was difficult. There wasn’t a whole lot that was done, there wasn’t a lot of facts and data to rely on. I’m just wondering, how discouraging was that in your work? To continue to push for this information and to push for this data, and it wasn’t available for you. I know personally as a Latina growing up, I didn’t see a lot of that either. I didn’t see strong female leaders of a Mexican background in academics. I didn’t see that in my family, I didn’t see that in my friends, so [while] pursuing my own education, I feel a bit of that discouragement. So, how did you combat that and push forward?

 

Dra. Rodriguez: “Thank you for the question, because even searching for that answer doesn’t exist. I did look for that. I’m not even gonna lie, I wanted to quit every day. I wanted to quit as a Latina graduate student, I wanted to quit [being] a Latina administrator on this campus. There’s a lot of things I was experiencing that I was questioning, not so much my worth, but my presence. Either on the campus as a student or on campus as an administrator. I did a lot of reflecting because I was resisting even writing.

Like, right now, I can tell you off the dome everything I need to know, but why does academia have to validate written words in order for me to be validated? Then, I started looking at authors like Tony Morrison and Cynthia Dillard, who were African American women, who basically said that the ancestral knowledge lives in our body so there was a reason why my body was resisting. My body was remembering the resistance that my ancestors experienced in Nicaragua. It’s not like I can ask my parents or anybody in my family. What do I do?

When I started reading literature that explains more of the process of [Latina] existence, that’s when I was like ‘okay, this makes more sense. It’s not me’. The institution is doing what it’s supposed to be doing, which is wanting me not to move forward with an education. They’re making up all made up rules and policies in order for me not to proceed. How do I overcome that? I literally had a dissertation committee chair tell me ‘I don’t have to do this’ and at first, I was like ‘great, I don’t want to do it either. I want to do it a different way’ and he literally was like ‘no like, you can quit’.

I was like ‘mmm, that’s not an option’. That’s the resistance I’m used to. I’m used to resistance and because I’m used to resistance, I come back harder. That is something that is embedded in my DNA through my ancestors. I just basically told myself ‘quitting is not an option.’ I made it this far. This education was not given to me, I paid for it.

I’m not holding anything back and I don’t feel sorry for it because this is my lived experience and who’s anybody to say that this is not real? So to answer your question, I just kind of felt like, even looking back at the history of Nicaragua, the literacy program and education, that also is history. The government over there doesn’t want students to be educated other than a high school diploma and when they came here they had to work. My dad was a maintenance supervisor in housing, my mom worked in hospitality. They had no opportunities to go to college.

I’m it, you know what I’m saying? I’m the product of the upper mobility that’s building for my kids, for my grandkids and I felt like that was my motivation. It’s not something that I’m going to see in my lifetime, it’s something that I’m building for seven generations plus. Again, I [was] born here, but I’m not from here, as far as like [being] indigenous. I didn’t feel a connection, so I had to find a connection, so I had to find a connection through something else. There’s people out there, their existence is resistance.

They’re being silenced from their experience, and there’s [a] hidden curriculum in that and there’s a reason why, because they don’t want you in these spaces. This is my standard, and I’m here to share that with anybody who wants to learn. [I’m] happy to recommend authors and literature where it talks exactly [about] that, or more of the process of your existence and what you overcome. You know the answer, it’s just that it needs to be discovered, it needs to come to life.

But just to let you know, I’m the wrong person. If you’re like ‘I want to quit, school’s not for me’, I’m the wrong one to tell you ‘yeah’. I’m going to push you harder, let’s figure it out. I’m going to recommend so many people. An education for my family was generational. I’m a first-time home buyer [and] first generation born here. At 10 years old, I had to help my parents memorize 100 questions to become a U.S. citizen. I don’t speak up, my family doesn’t eat. To me, quitting isn’t an option. That’s just the lens that I come in, and I’m not apologizing for it.

Even the history of Nicaragua with Guerilla women [fighters], women were at the forefront, like, [a] high percentage wise compared to men. This is how I show up and I’m not apologizing for it, so thank you.”

Before wrapping up, Adil Guillen gave the theater floor and the remaining time to any of the panelists who wanted to share a final thought or message. Monica Guerrero began to speak.

Guerrero: “Our third question was ‘What or who has made you feel like you belong at Solano?’ There’s a lot there, but my two main things are taking Dr. Morrison’s Ethnic Studies class. Like [that] really changed so much. At the end of it, she brought up her Chicano Studies class, so she got me this semester.

She just really emphasized the importance of knowing your background. I have two little boys, so I want to raise them knowing their background. Another thing, shout out to the Solano Speech and Debate team. I feel like I’ve gotten to be able to represent Latinos in communications.”