VISTASTERESA LOZANO LONG INSTITUTE OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES . THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN . 2013 FROM THE DIRECTOR 2012–2013 alumni steering committee Dear Friends, Joe Garvey 1998 Welcome to the second edition of Vistas, our annual newsletter for alumni and Sean Hale 2000 other supporters of LLILAS. It is an Robert T. Huesca 1988 exciting time for LLILAS and the Benson Collection. This year we welcomed Sara (Segrest) Kennedy 1969 acclaimed Colombian opera singer Mar- Sandra M. Wegmann 2006 tha Senn to Austin and held the Lozano Liz Wiley 1989 Long Conference on the subject of race in the Americas. Luis F. A. Zapata 1994 We have begun to raise funds for a new student scholarship to honor former ILAS director William Glade, who helped guide a generation of our students during his tenure. Dr. Glade will be at our second annual alumni reunion. Please mark Friday, April 26, on your calen- dar for this event. Former Benson librarian Ann Hartness, featured in this issue, Vistas Editor Mayra Marquez has created a permanent fund for Brazilian acquisitions. We are delighted to www.utexas.edu/cola/insts/llilas honor their contributions to this institute. Last year we raised support for graduate students through the Anne Dibble Scholarship, thanks to the wonderful generosity of our alumni. We are happy to Cover photo by Itzel Martínez report that we’ve met our goal and awarded the first Anne Dibble Scholarship Itzel studied abroad in Guatemala last to first-year master’s student Joseph Woodard. Joseph is focusing his studies on summer, where she took this photo of a U.S.–Latin American relations and politics, with a special emphasis on Brazil. girl in Cañón del Río Dulce transporting Thank you for your support of students like Joseph. her wares to market. During her time there, Itzel interned at a public school We hope you’ll stay connected with us by visiting us on campus, sponsoring and volunteered at Casa de Luis de Lión, an internship at your organization for a LLILAS student, attending a LLILAS a community center, where she learned alumni happy hour, or joining our alumni Facebook and LinkedIn groups. Our the history of Guatemala, including the doors are always open to you. Guerra Civil (Civil War), which occurred from 1960 to 1996. She visited small Saludos cordiales, pueblos and heard accounts of the war’s undeniable impact on the indigenous population and country as a whole. Itzel is majoring in Mexican American Studies Director and Radio-Television-Film at UT. Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies and the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection Historian, Latin America and Human Rights Ann Schneider U.S. Government; LLILAS MA, 2002 What led you to study at LLILAS? The short answer is: the 1998 arrest in London of former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet. The story fascinated me. It had been unthinkable that he could be held accountable for the human rights abuses of the Dirty War, but there he was, facing possible extradition to Spain on human rights charges! When it happened, I was a high school Spanish teacher. The first thing that I did in response was to redesign parts of my courses for that year so that we could dis- cuss Pinochet and human rights trials. The second thing (more or less) was to decide to go to graduate school. I wanted to learn more about the Spanish case against Pinochet and study everything that went into it and evolved from it. I had a vague notion at that time that I might be able to work in similar efforts for accountability. I wanted to work on human rights—I take and am now a practitioner in the field of What are your most memorable LLILAS a look at law school or public policy or accountability for human rights viola- experiences? journalism, but I only seriously entertained tions, although not in a way that I could I was immediately, and remain, very the idea of becoming a historian. It was imagine—or that even existed—when impressed by my classmates. They came the graduate seminars in history that did Pinochet was arrested. I work as a histo- from all over the Americas and they were it, especially those taught by Seth Garfield, rian of Latin America in a relatively new (and are) very bright and deeply commit- Mark Lawrence, and Susan Deans-Smith. (and small) unit of the federal govern- ted scholars, activists, artists, educators, I also had no idea that LLILAS would ment, the Human Rights Violators and journalists, policy makers, and the like. point me toward Brazil, a turn that made War Crimes Center of Immigration and Some then (and now many more) were all the difference. I went on to complete a Customs Enforcement. My work assists in wonderful partners and parents, too. doctorate in history at the University of Chi- the investigation and prosecution in U.S. cago. During my fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro, district and immigration courts of indi- How did studying at LLILAS contribute I stumbled upon one very critical “finding” viduals implicated in torture, extrajudicial to your career choices and path after that had nothing to do with my research killing, and other human rights violations graduation? project but everything to do with my life that occurred in Latin America. Much has What I did not know when I started since that moment. He is now my husband happened to counter impunity in Latin LLILAS is that I would find an affinity for and a doting dad to our two little ones. America and elsewhere in the years since the discipline of history. I actually became that dramatic arrest in London in 1998; What are you doing in your professional life? a bit stubborn about it. I remember hear- this work is a part of it. ing a few very good suggestions that—if In broad strokes, I have come full circle BA Candidate, LLILAS and Travis Knoll Plan I For Travis Knoll, the path to Latin American Studies at LLILAS started as a high school exchange student in Argentina. During his senior year, Travis studied at the Colegio Nacional de La Plata, a prestigious high school where young activ- ists were often kidnapped and disappeared during the military dictatorship. While abroad, Travis asked the faculty at the school for a list of Argentinian literature translated into English. The list he received contained twenty books and all twenty could be found at the Benson Latin American Collection. “They told me that it’s the largest library in the world of Latin American literature. That was the moment that I thought, if I’m going to UT, I better study Latin America,” he said. Travis returned to Texas and enrolled at UT but was determined to get back to Argentina. He not only made it back there, participating in UT’s study abroad program in Córdoba, but also spent a semester in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where LLILAS has led me to seek he studied Portuguese and interned with the mayor’s office of Belo Horizonte. He opportunities to get hands-on also worked with the Centro Cultural São Bernardo, which was created to help strengthen the identities of marginalized communities in the region through art and experience and research abroad. literature. At the foundation, he wrote an article about historical memory in the region. This department promotes “There were residents who were being removed from a village and we interviewed about 100 community leaders. We came to the conclusion that there wasn’t enough academic diversity and exchange. psychological help for residents living there. It was my first article in Portuguese and it —trAVIS KNOLL was a great experience,” Travis said of his internship. Back at LLILAS, Travis took courses from Profs. Virginia Garrard-Burnett and Henry Dietz. Dr. Garrard-Burnett’s class led Travis to a thesis proposal on histori- cal memory in Argentina, which he researched while studying in Córdoba. Although he spent a significant amount of time abroad, Travis also has been involved in the UT and Austin communities. He has worked with the Texas Civil Rights Project on prisoners’ rights issues and has written for the Daily Texan. As far as next steps, Travis has applied to graduate programs at UT and at Brazilian universities in São Paulo and Belo Horizonte. “I am optimistic. The old knock against area studies doesn’t apply to me. It is a concrete course of study. If you choose relevant topics, you can apply it to business, academic, government, or nonprofit settings. If you think that you can’t get a job with area studies, you aren’t being creative enough.” Travis hiking in the mountains near Cuesta Blanca in Córdoba RICARDO AINSLIE Professor, Dept. of Educational Psychology University of Texas at Austin Please describe your background. in marginalized communities, I was born in Mexico to a Mexican father the mayor during that period, and an American mother and came to the human rights activists, teachers, United States when I was seventeen years journalists, and people related old. I am a psychologist by training, but to the Juárez Cartel, among oth- since the 1990s my work has been more ers. The four main characters in ethnographic and community based. I use the book are the then mayor, José a variety of media, such as books, docu- Reyes Ferriz; Gustavo de la Rosa mentary films, and photographic exhibits Hickerson, a human rights activist; to explore topics that are of interest to me. Raymundo, a Juárez journalist; and “Elena,” whose partner was a mid- What have been your areas of research level Juárez Cartel operative (he during your time here? was assassinated in 2009).