In a community discussion March 4, Buffs One Read author Javier Zamora shared his immigration story, emphasizing the importance of representation

El Cadejo is a spirit figure in Central American folklore that takes the shape of a dog and can either help or harm travelers depending on whether their Cadejo is good or bad.

Salvadoran author and poet sees his Cadejo as an embodiment of his ancestors, protecting and sheltering him through his arduous childhood immigration journey. He credits those who came before him with his survival against the odds.

Zamora shared this and other perspectives March 4 during the CU author discussion. This academic year, the program chose Zamora’s memoir, Solito, as its Common Read selection.

Solito details Zamora’s experience as a child immigrating from El Salvador to the United States, a journey that took him over land and sea, through dense urban settings and desolate deserts. In the memoir, he tells the story of his journey through his 9-year-old self’s eyes—a story that encapsulates the themes of courage that the Buffs One Read program aimed to highlight.

Zamora began the program by answering a few questions about his first book of poems, Unaccompanied, published in 2017. Addressing the book’s tone of urgency, Zamora noted that the purpose of this book was mainly to answer the question, “Why am I here?” Written right before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, he said he knew immigration was heavy on the minds of the nation, and he felt it was urgent to tell his story about migration, as well as his parents’ stories.

His family, part of the 2% of Salvadoran immigrants granted refugee status by the U.S. government, didn’t discuss with Zamora why they left El Salvador until he was much older. He recalled learning about his country through the ominous, ever-present headlines about the violence and cartel wars raging there.

The images of Salvadoran migrants were mostly “unaccompanied minors,” something Zamora both identified with and rebelled against, knowing that there was more to the migrants’ stories than what was being shown on the news.

This was partially why Solito had such a heavy change in tone, he said. He wanted to show the journey the way he experienced it as a boy—exploring the confusion, half-truths and even pockets of joy that he experienced on the journey. This was something that he only felt capable of doing after he had been employed at Harvard as a fellow, he said.

“Time is a privilege,” he said, adding that he recognized that the benefits his higher education, and thus employment, gave him the ability to process his childhood trauma enough to write his memoir well and authentically.

He credits therapy with his success in this and remarked that therapy is a lifelong journey from which everyone could benefit. Through his therapy, Zamora said he was able to explore his feelings about the “unaccompanied minor” stereotype associated with Salvadoran migration—imagery that was widely circulated around the United States in the early 2000s of El Salvadoran parents sending their children across the border unaccompanied, which furthered racism and anti-immigration rhetoric by painting Salvadoran parents as irresponsible. He questioned where he fit into that narrative and how to reckon with the overwhelming sense of survivor’s guilt that he still feels to this day.

His way of coping with the questions “Why me? Why did I survive when so many did not?” is through traditional Salvadoran folklore, which he mentions frequently in the memoir in the form of the spirit El Cadejo.

Feeling safe

Zamora also discussed his experience after migrating to the United States, specifically in schools. He said that he experienced bullying even in his predominantly immigrant community and oftentimes used “assimilation as a coping mechanism.” He tried to turn himself into an “American-born Salvadoran” to fit in, he said, by doing things like only speaking English and not having a strong attachment to El Salvador, and didn’t fully embrace his identity as an immigrant until much later in life, after years of therapy.

"Everyone should be allowed to exist as humans. Not just the children and not just the ‘good students,’ but everyone. My role is to remind you that we are all humans."

It wasn’t until late high school that he even considered writing poetry, he said. He recalled how looking up “Salvadoran poets” and seeing that representation was the catalyst for his interest in writing: “All of the sudden,” he said, “writing was something I could do, if I wanted to.”

He said that one of the most important discoveries he made within Salvadoran poetry was the coexistence of Spanish and English on the page, a reflection of how his parents and grandparents spoke, as well as English and academic language. “Representation fuscking matters,” he said.

One theme that Zamora strongly emphasized was the importance of teachers in the American school system, who make young immigrants feel a little bit safer. He mentioned how important it is for teachers to signal to students that they are safe. Even something as simple as speaking to him in Spanish was enough to signal to a young Zamora that his teachers were trustworthy; even if he chose not to talk with them about his trauma and experiences, he knew that he could, and that was what was important, he said.

Especially in a time where immigrants and children of immigrants may feel unsafe in school settings, he added, signaling to students that their teachers are there for them and that they are all on the same team is critical in making sure that children feel supported in the education system.

Explaining what he wanted people to take away from the Buffs One Read discussion, and from Solito as a whole, Zamora said, “Everyone should be allowed to exist as humans. Not just the children and not just the ‘good students,’ but everyone. My role is to remind you that we are all humans.”

He said he wanted the audience Tuesday to leave the conversation with the knowledge that borders and citizenship are new concepts and that being human is what binds us together: “We need to remember the past as actively as we are trying to erase it.”

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Henry Luce Foundation funds a three-year partnership between the Program in Jewish Studies and University Libraries to ‘recover, study and elevate’ voices of Jews of color

The University of Colorado Boulder will launch a new initiative called “Jews of Color: Histories and Futures,” thanks to a three-year, $250,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.

“Jews of Color” will be a partnership between the Program in Jewish Studies and University Libraries and will strive to “recover, study and elevate” the voices and experiences of Jews of color in the United States through four primary areas of activity:

• a working group of scholars, artists, and activists drawn from diverse communities;
• the first digital archive centering the experiences of Jews of color, focused on oral histories and hosted by CU Boulder’s Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections;
• public conversations on topics including Jews of color, racism, white supremacy and American Jewish life; and
• publications, programs and creative projects exploring these issues.

Samira Mehta is the principal investigator of the project.

The grant will also realize the vision of Samira Mehta, assistant professor of Jewish Studies and women and gender studies, said Elias Sacks, director of the Program in Jewish Studies.

“This initiative is a deeply collaborative effort,” Sacks said, noting that Mehta, an award-winning scholar of American Judaism and leading expert on race and Jewish studies, will direct the project and serve as principal investigator.

Mehta is the author of Beyond Chrismukkah: The Jewish-Christian Interfaith Family in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2018), which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, along with numerous publications on race, gender, sexuality and the family in American Jewish life.

Mehta has two co-principal investigators: Kalyani Fernando, teaching assistant professor and collection development archivist in the University Libraries’ Rare and Distinctive Collections, and Sacks. Fernando says that this collaboration between the Program in Jewish Studies and the Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections at the Libraries will create what is believed to be the first-ever oral history archives of Jews of color.

“These oral histories will be accessible to the public through the CU Digital Library, and highlighted in related programming and presentations,” Fernando said. “I’m excited by the ways in which the Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections will expand in the coming years as a result of this project.”

The working group will foster conversations and connections between CU Boulder, other institutions of higher education, artistic communities and activists and communal organizations, and the project’s collecting initiative will “build on the longstanding partnership” between the Jewish Studies and University Libraries.

“Finally, the initiative’s public programming will open up new opportunities for individuals from within and beyond the academy to join together to explore questions relating to race, Jewish life and American society,” Sacks said.

“In the meantime,” he noted, “I wish to express the Program’s gratitude to the Luce Foundation for its support, and to say how honored and humbled I am that we can provide a home for Jews of Color: Histories and Futures. This project exemplifies a commitment—to producing new knowledge, building new connections, and transforming the world—that stands at the heart of what it can and should mean to be part of a public university in the twenty-first century.”

Mehta noted that this has been a collaborative process. Never having applied for a grant like this before, she appreciates the help of colleagues at the CU Boulder Research and Innovation Office (RIO) and the Office of Advancement, particularly Donna Axel in RIO and Andrew Chiacchierini in advancement.

 

This project has the potential to really amplify the voices of Jews of color, and scholars dealing critically and carefully with the relationship between Jews and white supremacy within that scholarly conversation.

She also expressed gratitude for the support and time that Sacks has given, and for the “deeply collaborative spirit” of the university libraries.

“As a field, Jewish Studies is in a moment of trying to grapple with race and racism, both as an object of intellectual study and within its professional associations,” Mehta said. “This project has the potential to really amplify the voices of Jews of color, and scholars dealing critically and carefully with the relationship between Jews and white supremacy within that scholarly conversation.”

James W.C. White, acting dean of the College of Arts and sciences, praised the effort: “I’m very glad to see this work being supported; it is an area of study that certainly deserves more scholarly attention, and the scholars’ initiative underscores our commitment to inclusive excellence. The college is very proud that our excellent faculty have won this very prestigious grant.”

The aims to enrich public discourse by promoting innovative scholarship, cultivating new leaders and fostering international understanding.

The Foundation advances its mission through grantmaking and leadership programs in the fields of Asia, higher education, religion and theology, art and public policy.

Established in 1936 by Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time Inc., the Foundation’s earliest work honored his parents, missionary educators in China. The Foundation’s programs today reflect the value Luce placed on learning, leadership and long-term commitment in philanthropy.

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CUnique Stories is seeking volunteers to take part in their storytelling program, which will take place this spring

The University of Colorado Boulder, as it exists today, was founded on the shoulders of those who came before. Many of those stories, however, become lost once those voices leave the university. A new project aims to bring those stories back—for the benefit of those still here.

CUnique Stories, a project co-designed by members of the University Libraries Learning & Engagement team and an arts and sciences alumna and instructor, seeks to bring alumni back to campus so that they can have a conversation with current members of the community, ensuring those stories of the alumni’s experiences survive the passage of time—and shed new light on the CU Boulder from yesterday.

At the top of the page: A group conversing as part of the CU Boulder Libraries' Living Library project. Above: Mary Rippon, the first female professor at CU Boulder and the first at a state university (Museum of Boulder/).

“The aim of this project is to give contemporary members of the community a sense of how CU Boulder is a living, breathing process, that its history is an ongoing, organic thing that we’re all a part of, and that we’re all participating in and contributing to. We’re all benefiting from those who came before and who  forged the path we’re on,” said Giulia Bernardini (MAArtHist), a museum-studies graduate student, humanities instructor and co-organizer of the project.

The idea for CUnique Stories first began as part of a class assignment. For that, Bernardini had to go around campus, discovering CU Boulder’s history through places, from George Norlin taking on the KKK to Mary Rippon, the first female professor at CU—after whom the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre is named—having to give up her child because female educators were not supposed to have families at the time.

“I started to think how can we get the history of CU told by the people who’ve been part of that history? How can we get alumni, perhaps, to share their history of CU Boulder in order to make it a living history?”

Guided by the  project out of Denmark and previous Living Library programs out of the University Libraries at CU Boulder, the collaborators designed CUnique Stories, a project seeking to bring alumni to campus to tell their CU Boulder stories—whatever they may be.

“Our hope is that we’ll have a wide variety of stories that will paint a picture of the range of experiences people have had at CU Boulder, whether someone wants to tell a story about an academic achievement or a moment in a particular class or an extracurricular activity they were involved with or their political activism,” Bernardini explained.

The vision for the project is that these “storytellers” will be paired with three to four “listeners,” who will be current members of the CU Boulder community. The storyteller will tell their tale—which will be honed with the help of the CUnique Stories organizers in a workshop prior to the event—and then the two groups can discuss the story, encouraging a dialogue between the past and the present.

“History and knowledge can be transmitted in a multitude of ways,” Bernardini said. “Often, when we think of history and the past and we think of books, library stacks and whatnot, but history is a living, breathing thing, and how lucky for us if we can tap into some of that history by hearing someone tell us their story.”

CUnique Stories is scheduled to take place in-person in late March or April in Norlin Library. However, that may change depending on COVID-19 conditions. If you are interested in participating, please send an email to bernardg@colorado.edu, and the organizers will be in touch.

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The Nahuatl Evening features speakers, performances and books on display, and will formally recognize the additions to the University Libraries’ collections.

The University Libraries and the Latin American Studies Center at the University of Colorado Boulder will celebrate the addition of over 100 book titles by indigenous authors and about Andean topics to the libraries’ collections in the Nahuatl Evening on Oct. 28 from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The Nahuatl Evening will feature performances by Mexican Nahuatl poet Fabiola Carrillo Tieco (above), the Boulder Children’s Chorale (at the top of the page, photo by Eugene Yen) and a Quechua musical group.

The Nahuatl Evening features speakers, performances and books on display, and will formally recognize the additions to the University Libraries’ collections including children’s books, adult literature, poetry and more.

The initiative to expand the libraries collection started back in 2019 when a student asked Romance Languages Librarian Kathia Ibacache for help locating books written by Indigenous authors in the libraries. Ibacache found the request eye-opening.

“University libraries are important participants in keeping alive traditions from around the world that are at risk of dying out,” said Ibacache, who worked to expand the collections and . “As librarians, it’s appropriate for us to strengthen library collections by adding works about indigenous languages and cultures, especially those from indigenous authors so that these languages, creators and works continue to be part of the global narrative.”

At the Nahuatl Evening, three speakers, including Ibacache and Director of the Latin American Studies Center Leila Gomez, will talk about the research, courses and conferences at CU Boulder in support of Latin American Indigenous languages and cultures. The event will also feature performances by Mexican Nahuatl poet Fabiola Carrillo Tieco, the Boulder Children’s Chorale and a Quechua musical group. The Boulder Children’s Chorale consists of four ensembles for students from kindergarten through ninth grade. They focus on helping expose children to diverse, quality choral repertoire while building their abilities as musicians and a love for singing! Their two auditioned ensembles, Bel Canto and Volante, will be performing “Koonex” and “Macochi Cochi Pitentzin.”

Dozens of books collected as part of Ibacache’s work to expand the libraries’ indigenous language titles will be available for attendees to browse and check-out.

Discover the role that universities can play in the revitalization of Latin American indigenous languages and cultures Thursday, October 28 from 5 p.m. - 6 p.m. in the Center for British and Irish Studies on the fifth floor of Norlin Library. The event is free and open to the public.

This release was republished with permission from University Libraries.

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The $188k grant will help develop curricula to give undergraduates hands-on experiences in film archiving and preservation.

The University Libraries Rare and Distinctive Collections and the Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts at the University of Colorado Boulder have won a $187,585 grant from the  to create five advanced, “experiential” classes focused on media archiving and preservation for cinema-studies undergraduates.  

It will be one of the only programs of its kind in the country for undergraduates, according to Sabrina Negri, assistant professor in cinema studies and moving image arts, and Jamie Wagner, faculty fellow and moving image archivist for University Libraries, the grant’s principal investigators.

They say programs that teach media archiving and preservation skills are limited to graduate students at private universities in major coastal U.S. cities and that CU Boulder would be the only public university to offer this type of program in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions.

Sabrina Negri, assistant professor in cinema studies and moving image arts, is one of the grant’s principal investigators.

“It’s important to have a preservation program located at a public university that’s not on one of the two coasts,” Negri said. “It gives access to the profession to a broader and more diverse group of students, and it would provide trained media archivists for smaller archives that aren’t located in big cities.”

Negri and Wagner say advances in technology, especially the transition from tape to digital media formats, have introduced a need for more media to be archived and for more archivists and conservators. “So that means there’s a growing need to teach individuals how to care for and preserve historical materials,” Negri said.

�鶹��Ժ will learn the theory and practice of film archiving, restoration, preservation and how to preserve analog tapes—which are actually more endangered than film, Negri said. In addition, students will learn how to archive and preserve digital files and how to manage a media collection.

The program will also include paid fellowships in media preservation for undergraduate students working with the libraries’ moving-image archival collections and digital-media lab. 

Wagner adds that the program will also feature a community-oriented internship program that pairs undergrads with under-resourced institutions and organizations that have media preservation needs for their own historical materials.

“�鶹��Ժ will use the skills they learn to directly benefit at-risk cultural heritage material throughout the Front Range area,” said Wagner.

Wagner said what CU Boulder is doing with the curricula, fellowship and internship could serve as a model for other universities around the country.

The director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Crosby Kemper, said the 2021 grant awardees are “responding to the gaps in our society, under-resourced communities, professional development for underrepresented members of our communities, and the programs and services with impact on the daily lives of … people.”

 

�鶹��Ժ will use the skills they learn to directly benefit at-risk cultural heritage material throughout the Front Range area."

Wagner will teach the first class, which is on collection management, in spring 2022. All the other classes are scheduled to be taught in academic years 2022-23 and 2023-24.

The idea to create the curricula came to Negri when cinema studies and moving image arts received a gift of preservation equipment from GW Hannaway and Associates, a Boulder-based imaging and video company.

“Given that a lot of media are in need of preservation, it made sense to think to use that equipment to train new media archivists,” Negri said.

Negri taught seminars in film archiving and preservation in 2018 and 2020 and said they were well received.

“Now with the collaboration of the University Libraries and the grant, cinema studies and moving image arts can expand the project to include the five different classes,” Negri said.

Wagner adds, “We hope we can build a model for a curriculum or a certificate that has demonstrated success and data to inform next steps for the program.”

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Geospatial data services postdoctoral fellow to provide better mapping support for all faculty and students

Mapping can be one of those skills that flummoxes researchers—but Alicia Cowart, a new postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder, wants to help.

As the Geospatial Data Services Postdoctoral Fellow, a first-of-its-kind position at CU Boulder created as part of the , Cowart hopes to provide faculty and students better support when it comes to incorporating geospatial data—or maps—into their research and teaching.

“Geospatial tools are not always easily approachable, and there’s not a ton of information out there about best practices in terms of visualizations, what works, and what doesn’t work,” says Cowart. “I see my role as making geospatial methods available to people on campus.”

Alicia Cowart is the first Geospatial Data Services Postdoctoral Fellow at CU Boulder. Top map of Huldufólk (elf-like creatures) Homes in Iceland is courtesy of Susannah Lee, one of Cowart's previous students.

While the natural sciences—and the geosciences in particular—have long utilized mapping techniques like geographic information systems (GIS), this approach is newer to some of the disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. Cowart hopes to fill that gap by making it accessible to all.

And for Cowart, who was formerly the staff cartographer—or map maker—at the University of California, Berkeley, the position is a natural fit.

Cowart received her PhD in geography from University of California, Berkeley. Prior to that, however, she earned a degree in art history and anthropology and worked in museums.

“Alicia brings the perspective of a researcher and instructor, as well as an interdisciplinary background combining the humanities, social sciences, and geosciences to all of her interactions,” says Thea Lindquist, a professor with the libraries as well as the director of Open and Digital Scholarship Services.

“I fully expect that our students and faculty will gain new insights into their work when Alicia helps them view it through a geospatial lens.”

As part of the position, which is two years, Cowart plans to host several workshops in the Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship, teach graduate courses through Interdisciplinary Training in the Social Sciences and provide consulting to any faculty member or student interested in gaining geographic insights into their work, learning more about mapping or in need of some general support.

Cowart will also work on her own projects, which include developing new geospatial resources and conducting research on how geospatial concepts are used in research and education.

This semester, Cowart will participate in interdisciplinary data consultation hours, which are on Tuesdays between noon and 2 p.m. in the Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship in Norlin E206. She encourages researchers to stop in and discuss mapping tools and techniques or how best to find and use geospatial data.

“If you’re feeling daunted by the prospect, just ask me anything, even if it’s ‘I don’t even know where to get started,’ and I can help with that,” says Cowart.

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The library archives were established a century ago at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Friends of the Libraries is having a celebration.

The event is scheduled for Wednesday, June 6, from 4-6 p.m. in the British and Irish Studies room on the fifth floor of Norlin Library on campus.

Russell Moore, CU Boulder provost, will give the welcome. Heather Bowden, director of Special Collections, Archives and Preservation, and Megan Friedel, head of archives, will discuss the significance of anniversary and will share information about the archives.   

Also on June 6, the library will conduct tours of the archives at 1, 3 and 5:15 p.m. Participants may meet just outside the archives in Norlin Library, but groups are capped at 12. 

For more information on the celebration, see the event’s .  

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The Jerry Crail Johnson Earth Sciences & Map Library at the University of Colorado Boulder will host a new exhibition highlighting art and maps that addresses the history of Indigenous peoples’ lands in the United States. It is on display  through July 7.

The exhibit centers around Heart Mapping, a series of mixed media works on paper by Melanie Yazzie, CU Boulder professor of art and art history and head of printmaking. Yazzie’s work evokes the American landscape as seen from above, in order to honor the vast breadth of Native homelands lost to Euro-American settlement. She notes, “I hope to inspire others to know that we were here before and are still present on this land we call the United States.”

In addition, the exhibit focuses on the difficulty of accurately mapping lands that were coercively transferred over time, and whose boundaries are still disputed. Maps of Indigenous peoples’ distribution throughout the history of North America, detailed turn-of-the-century reservation maps, educational maps by Native American publishers, and tourist maps, offer a thought-provoking informational complement to Yazzie’s artwork.

Guest essayist Sarah Krakoff, Raphael J. Moses Professor of Law at University of Colorado Law School, offers historical context to government-published maps in the exhibit, as well as commentary on the current state of Indian Land law.

A gallery talk and reception for Yazzie will take place in the Earth Sciences and Map Library. Visiting artist Faith McManus, art teacher at Northtec Education Institute in Northland, New Zealand, will be joining Yazzie in discussing “.”&�Բ�����;&�Բ�����;

This exhibition is held in conjunction with , themed “The Art in Maps.”

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Colorado author Ronald J. Stewart to discuss Then Comes a Wind at CU Boulder

Ronald J. Stewart, author of Then Comes a Wind, will discuss his book, a story about a family’s struggle to homestead in 1900s Nebraska during this year’s Fall Treasures event at CU Boulder.

The event will begin at 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, at the Center for British and Irish Studies in fifth floor. It is sponsored by Friends of the Libraries at the University of Colorado Boulder

Ronald J. Stewart

His debut novel, Then Comes a Wind, was published in 2015. The novel was named a 2016 finalist in the Colorado Authors’ League awards. It was inspired by Stewart’s mother’s family, who homesteaded in the Sand Hills of Nebraska in the early 1900s.

Stewart was born in Denver and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Northern Colorado. He serves on the advisory board for CU Boulder’s Center of the American West, and has also served as board member for the university’s ATLAS program.

He and his partner, Becky Roser, are actively involved with CU Boulder’s College of Music— she as a board member and he as a loyal and enthusiastic listener. They live in Boulder.

Light refreshments will be served at 5 p.m., and the author’s presentation will begin at 5:30 p.m. This event is free and open to the public, and the author will sign copies of his book (which will be for sale at the event) immediately following his presentation.

The Fall Treasures event is one of three hosted by Friends of the Libraries each year—along with Spring Treasures and Summer Just Desserts.

For more information, contact Lisa Kippur at lisa.kippur@colorado.edu or 303-492-7512.

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