UIS Speaker Series explores "Afro-Latinos: Status and Struggle"

WHAT: The University of Illinois Springfield Engaged Citizenship Common Experience (ECCE) Speaker Series will explore “Afro-Latinos: Status and Struggle” with Hinda Seif, UIS associate professor of Sociology/Anthropology & Women and Gender Studies, and Dexter Burns, a 2014 UIS graduate now earning his master’s degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

WHEN: Thursday, February 25, 2016 at 4:00 p.m.

WHERE: UIS Brookens Auditorium, located on the lower level of Brookens Library

DETAILS: More Africans were transported as slaves to Latin America and the Caribbean than what is now the United States, yet few depictions of Afro-Latinos appear as representative images in popular culture and media in the U.S. or Latin America. To some observers, this relative absence is the result of a preference for European or multi-racial representations rather than African or indigenous depictions.

This presentation will examine the complex intersections of race, culture, and country through an excerpt of the PBS documentary film "Mirrors of the Heart" that focuses on questions of identity in Hispaniola after Spain and France brought Africans as slaves to this island after wiping out its indigenous peoples. The presentation will also discuss racialization in the Dominican Republic as it relates to Latinos in Haiti and the U.S., including their distancing from African and Black identity in dominant culture, as well as activists' reclaiming of African and Black identity. The status and struggles of Afro-Latinos in Bolivia will also be presented.

 This event is co-sponsored by the UIS Diversity Center, UIS Office of the Associate Chancellor for Access and Equal Opportunity, UIS Sociology and Anthropology Department, UIS Black Student Union, and the UIS Organization of Latin American Students.

For a list of other upcoming ECCE Speaker Series events and more information, visit www.uis.edu/speakerseries/. All events are free and open to the public.