DSA2020 Virtually@Hostos: IX Biennial Dominican Studies
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THEME: Crisis of Truth, State of Emergency, and Social Responses: The Urgency of Dominican and Ethnic Studies in the Present Hour. Hostos Community College Bronx, New York The Dominican Studies Association IX BIENNIAL CONFERENCE IS DEDICATED TO FRONT LINE HEALTH CARE WORKERS THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES AND AROUND THE WORLD THANK YOU Hostos Community College Bronx, New York Conference Program The Dominican Studies Association THEME: Crisis of Truth, State of Emergency, and Social Responses: The Urgency of Dominican and Ethnic Studies in the Present Hour Research on the experience of people of Dominican ancestry—in Hispaniola/Dominican Republic, the United States, and elsewhere globally—has produced an indispensable body of knowledge and critical perspectives in multiple disciplines inside and outside the academy. On this 9th edition of the biennial conference, the Dominican Studies Association (DSA) seeks to stimulate dialogue among scholars, artists, and cultural activists worldwide who are working on Dominican subjects that shed light on the complex issues of social relations in countries across the Western hemisphere. How has this field of study informed the prevailing inequity and injustice in the Americas connected with class, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexualities, politics, disability, claims to national belonging, citizenship, and cultural heritage? 3 Hostos Community College Bronx, New York Message from the DSA Co-Chairs Ana I. García Reyes Silvio Torres-Saillant n behalf of the Dominican Studies Association (DSA), welcome to our IX Biennial Conference DSA2020 Virtually@Hostos entitled “Crisis of Truth, State of Emergency, and Social Responses: The Urgency of Dominican and Ethnic Studies Oat the Present Hour.” We urged speakers to tackle the “State of Emergency” created by the COVID-19 era and the polarization spurred by the 2020 U.S. presidential election. They took our call seriously as shown by their quickness to examine structural inequities that preceded the pandemic and made disempowered populations less able to survive it. Organizing an ambitious conference during a global health crisis has required fortitude especially since the organizers inhabit academia, where teaching and learning have become stressful. Doing our jobs has involved monitoring variable health and safety norms, budget cuts, and campus morale to tailor our modes of instruction—in-person, remote, or hybrid—accordingly. We have coped with a constant state of alert that limits us to plan for a short future and to recalibrate as needed. Despite these odds, we celebrate the response that the CFP for DSA2020 Virtually@Hostos elicited. The number of submissions exceeded that of any previous iteration of our biennial conference. The conference program consists of 41 panels featuring nearly 200 speakers representing the arts, environmental studies, law, the humanities, medicine, and popular culture, among other disciplines. The institutional affiliations of speakers include universities, Pre-K-to- 12 schools, NGO’s, and advocacy organizations in Latin America, the Caribbean, Canada, the United States, and Europe. 4 The speakers represent a cross-section of generations, fields of interest, and stages of professional growth (students, junior colleagues, and seasoned scholars), perhaps a sign of productive rotation in the field of Dominican studies. The conference would not have happened without the dedication of our Executive Board, whose members thought it possible and strived to make it so. They are: Evelyn Fernández Ketcham, social work scholar at Hostos Community College; Luis Álvarez López, historian at Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra; Mercedes Fernández-Asenjo, literary scholar at Binghamton University; Luana Y. Ferreira, linguist at Hunter College; Neici M. Zeller, historian at William Paterson University; Norma Fuentes-Mayorga, sociologist at the City College of New York; Ofelia Rodríguez, formerly at Broadway Housing Communities; Marleny Sarante, physician at Nasry Michelen Foundation; and Nelson Santana, library studies scholar at Bronx Community College. His taking on a greater share of the labor than DSA could ask of Board members has earned Professor Santana a special commendation. DSA2020 Virtually@Hostos owes a large debt to his tireless work. We feel enormous gratitude to Interim Hostos Community College President Dr. Daisy Cocco De Filippis for hosting the 2020 DSA conference. Besides hosting, she also accepted roles in the program despite huge demands on her time as she assumed leadership of the campus in the midst of the pandemic. President Cocco De Filippis will participate in a panel on translation that includes the renowned Dominican American poet Rhina P. Espaillat, the dedicatee of the 2018 DSA conference, and will join other spokespersons for postsecondary education in the Plenary “Higher Education Leaders on the Challenge of their Mission during the Global Pandemic.” The interlocutors will be The City University of New York Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez; President of Purchase College (SUNY) Milagros Peña; President of Ithaca College (Ithaca, NY) Shirley M. Collado; Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology of the Dominican Republic Franklin García Fermín; and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Instituto Superior Pedro Francisco Bonó (Santo Domingo) Pablo Mella Febles. With DSA2020 taking place virtually, we have relied heavily on key personnel’s expertise in the Office of the President and the Office of Communications at Hostos. Their guidance enabled this conference to materialize. We gratefully acknowledge Director of Communications Soldanela Rivera and Brand & Communications Associate José R. García. We deeply value the work of the Assistant to the President and Director of the President’s Office Diana Kreymer, Conference Center Coordinator Nelson Ortíz, Administrative Assistant Gerson Peña, and IT Assistant Victor Santana. Mr. Santana overextended himself to make the virtual space a reality for this DSA conference to occur online, and we are grateful. Beyond Hostos, we thank CUNY Dominican Studies Institute (DSI) Graphic Designer Javier Pichardo, and we acknowledge the unconditional support of DSI Director Dr. Ramona Hernández. Given our extraordinary circumstances, we have made admission and participation free for all speakers and audience members. We do welcome your donations to ensure DSA’s continued existence, but you do not need to donate to be able to join us. We dedicate this year’s conference to Front Line Health Care Workers throughout the United States and around the world. We honor those who have sacrificed much to save COVID-19 patients or to make their demise less lonely. They have often worked without sufficient resources and, in the United States, facing the animosity of some key government officials. 5 6 Hostos Community College Bronx, New York Program Day 1 | December 4, 2020 I. 8:30-9:45 AM (ET) | 9:30-10:45 AM (Hora Rep. Dom.) PANEL 1: Importancia de los ecosistemas transfronterizos y socio-ecológicos Chair: Carol Franco Billini, Virginia Tech Presenters: Carol Franco Billini, Researcher, Forest Resources/Environmental Conservation, Virginia Tech Víctor Gómez-Valenzuela, VP/Researcher, Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) Solhanlle Bonilla Duarte, Basic Science, Ecology, and Climate Change, INTEC, Santo Domingo Laura Rathe, Directora Técnica, FUNDACION PLENITUD, Santo Domingo, RD “Climate Change, Health, and Resilience at Community-Level Social Justice” PANEL 2: Internships and Mentoring: Keys to Dominican College Students’ Success Chair: Anselma Rodríguez, Graduate Center for Worker Education, Brooklyn College, CUNY Moderator: Luis Cuneo, High Tech Consultant, Mojavié Inc., Greater New York City area Presenters: Luis Cuneo, Co-founder and CEO of Mojavié Inc., Greater New York City area Carlos Sierra, PSC-CUNY Bronx Organizer, Community Liaison for CUNY Citizenship Now! Papers and Panels will be delivered in Spanish or English as listed on the program. 7 Program Papers and Panels will be delivered in Spanish or English as listed on the program. Day 1 | December 4, 2020 I. 8:30-9:45 AM (ET) | 9:30-10:45 AM (Hora Rep. Dom.) PANEL 3: Dominican Politics 2020: Continuity and Change Chair: Jacqueline Jiménez Polanco, Bronx Community College, CUNY Presenters: Jacqueline Jiménez Polanco, Bronx Community College, CUNY “The Odebrecht Fraud: An Analysis of Corruptive Practices in the PLD Cartel Politics Ana Belén Benito Sánchez, Researcher, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain “Distributive Politics: Clientelism and Social Public Expenditure In Dominican Republic” Ernesto Sagás, Ethnic Studies, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO “We Want to Be Counted, Too: The Evolution of Dominican Overseas Voting, 2004-2020” Leiv Marsteintredet, Comparative Politics, University of Bergen, Norway “When Term Limits Are Not an Obstacle: Analyzing Term Limits in the Dominican Republic” II. 10:00-11:15 AM (ET) | 11:00 AM-12:15 PM (Hora Rep. Dom.) PANEL 4: Toward a Pan American Poetry: Translating Pedro Mir, Juan Matos, Julia Alvarez and Robert Frost from Spanish into English or Vice Versa Moderator: Silvio Torres-Saillant, English Department, Syracuse University Convener: Jonathan Cohen, Poet, Translator, Essayist, and Inter-American literature Scholar Presenters: Rhina Espaillat, Poet, Translator, and Poetry Teacher Daisy Cocco De Filippis, Interim President, Hostos Community College, CUNY Roberto Márquez, Emeritus, Latin American/Caribbean Studies, Mount Holyoke College