CURRENTS: Abya Yala

The Dresher Center’s CURRENTS: Humanities Work Now lunchtime series showcases exciting new work in the humanities in a dynamic and inter-disciplinary setting.

Abya Yala Casa Virtual: A Community Engaged Digital Collaboration

María Célleri, Assistant Professor, Gender, Women’s + Sexuality Studies; Tania Lizarazo, Associate Professor, Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication; Thania Muñoz D., Associate Professor, Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication; and Yolanda Valencia, Assistant Professor, Geography and Environmental Systems

The co-leads of the Latin American Feminisms Faculty Working Group (Dr. Tania Lizarazo, Dr. Thania Muñoz, Dr. Yolanda Valencia, and Dr. María Célleri), sponsored through the Dresher Center for the Humanities and the CAHSS Dean’s Office, have launched a community-engaged multi-step and mixed-media project that will name, archive, and highlight the efforts and varied lived experiences of the Latine/x community in the larger DMV region. Designed as an interactive website, it will feature contributions from students, faculty, artists, and community members, emphasizing the diversity of Latinx/e experiences beyond traditional migration hubs like New York and Los Angeles. The DMV area’s unique blend of Central American and Caribbean migrations is often overlooked, and this website will center these communities’ voices through various mediums, such as academic essays, creative writing, stories, art, and multimedia. This interactive website will serve as our first step towards creating the Abya Yala Center at UMBC in the years to come. That is, we are starting with this - our Abya Yala virtual home - as a foundation for a comprehensive space and program dedicated to serving Latina/o/x students and the broader community at UMBC and in the area.

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