CLLAS Notes
Spring 2020 CLLAS Notes, Part 3
Climate change effects on tropical cloud forests and coffee farms: a social-ecological study
By Adriana Uscanga Castillo
My field research centers on the Chinantec region in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. This region harbors one of the most biodiverse tropical forests in the country. This landscape is a mosaic of large patches of cloud forest embedded in a matrix of coffee plantations and maize plots which, along with the capricious topography and the cultural and socioeconomic history, create a complex socioecological system. Four communities of the Chinantec region are organized collectively in a forest conservation project known as Comité de Recursos Naturales de la Chinantla Alta (CORENCHI), which has carried out actions that over time have resulted in greater forest cover in the area.
I conducted initial fieldwork in this region in September 2019. My main objective was to establish connections with Chinantec community members and CORENCHI, as well as to evaluate the feasibility of my project and the interest or lack thereof that local people could have on the effects of climate change. The Tinker Field Research Grant helped me to accomplish the following particular objectives: (1) visit three communities in the Chinantec region that are involved in CORENCHI: Santa Cruz Tepetotutla, San Antonio del Barrio, and San Pedro Tlatepusco; (2) Introduce myself to CORENCHI’s president and to other members of CORENCHI; (3) document information about smallholders’ experiences in relation to agricultural production, especially concerning coffee, forest conservation, and climatic changes; (4) determine the most convenient ways of transportation, lodging, and eating in the area for future research stays.
Arriving to the Chinantec region all the way from Eugene involved several flights, buses, and a local special transport that runs among towns in the mountain range and must be booked in advance. I was lucky to be accompanied by a local guide that has worked in the region for several years now and knows people from the community, as well as the best means of transportation. During my stay in the region I met the president of CORENCHI, went to the main office in each community to introduce myself, and talked about my intention of doing research in the region.
Besides talking to the local authorities and asking for permission to conduct my research, I had the opportunity to visit some of the coffee farms, the patches of conserved forests, and maize plots. I was surprised to see how people manage to grow coffee and annual crops in such steep slopes. Although one of my objectives was to talk to coffee producers about their perspectives on climate change and their strategies for climate change adaptation, other topics seemed more important to them which drew our conversations into other matters.
Some topics that came out recurrently were, for instance, problems with the coffee rust and the international price of coffee. This finding resonates with research showing that small-scale coffee farmers are usually more concerned about problems directly related to yield and price, and less so about medium- to long-term problems, as climate change is currently considered. I also found that local people are interested in knowing about the carbon stocks and biodiversity present in their coffee farms, and realized that data about temperature, precipitation, or streamflow is not available at local scales.
These findings have shaped my work moving forward. First, the fact that climatic data is not available closed the possibility of assessing climatic changes at local scales. However, other interesting options arose, like assessing changes in carbon stocks. Furthermore, I realized that learning about the current effects of anthropogenic climate change will probably require a different approach than simply asking whether temperature and precipitation have been changing and affecting people’s lives.
Understanding climate change effects and people’s adaptation strategies requires an approach rooted in daily living experiences. Regardless of whether I will be able to assess this last point, doing fieldwork last summer was fundamental for clarifying the feasibility and scope of my project and to broaden my understanding of the small-scale coffee farmers’ reality in the Chinantec region.
————————————————————————————————————–
About the author
Adriana Uscanga is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography working in the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere research lab. She’s interested in the ecology of tropical landscapes and her research focuses on the interaction between land-use change and climate change and their effects on tropical montane forests. Adriana is currently studying carbon and water relations in cloud forests and coffee farms in Mexico.
Winter-spring Events Recap
By Feather Crawford, CLLAS Events Coordinator
While 2020 started with a full event calendar for CLLAS, unpredictable and unprecedented conditions brought dramatic changes for all of us. Here are some highlights.
On January 21, we hosted the CLLAS Winter graduate student colloquium, Gender and Sexuality in Latin America in the Knight Library Browsing Room. Jon Jaramillo, from Romance Languages, spoke about gendered minority community formation in Chile and Argentina, Polet Campos-Melchor, from Anthropology, spoke about LGBTQ+ migrants on the U.S.-Mexico Border and their strategies of love and survival, and Emily Masucci, also from Anthropology, spoke about gender-based violence and justice in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In mid-February, CLLAS collaborated with the College of Education to host Bilingualism: Myths Abound! At this exciting event, students, community members, and educators packed the Gumwood Room in the EMU to share in the expertise of faculty researchers from the College of Education and the Department of Linguistics. Check out the PDFs of their presentations at https://cllas.uoregon.edu/bilingualism-myths-abound/and learn more about their research related to bilingualism at all stages of the lifespan.
On February 20, David J. Vázquez, UO Associate Professor and Head of Department of English and recipient of the CLLAS Latinx Studies Seed grant, gave a presentation of his research, entitled Decolonial Environmentalisms: Race, Genre and Latinx Culture. Professor Vázquez analyzed environmental representations in contemporary Latinx literature and culture that include decolonial and anti-racist forms of thought as well as environmentalism. But then our programming suddenly ceased for two months as we all adapted to the COVID-19 crisis.
By late-April, CLLAS began hosting virtual events on Zoom; this new medium has worked especially well for our final two graduate research colloquia. On April 30, 2020, faculty and graduate students from across campus attended Gender and Climate Crisis in the Americas. Holly Moulton, from Environmental Studies, spoke about the way women in the Peruvian Cordillera Blanca experience their proximity to dramatic ice-loss in that region of the Andes and Adriana Uscanga Castillo shared her research on small-scale farmer’s vulnerability to climate changes in the Chinantec Region, Mexico.
On May 26, in the final colloquium, entitled Politics and Justice in the Caribbean and Central America, Alberto Lioy, in Political Science, spoke about rapid political change and the 1994-1998 story of political collapse in Costa Rica and Carla Macal Montenegro discusses mourning and the search for justice for the 56 Guatemalan girls who were lost in the fire at Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción. All four graduate students who shared their research over Zoom gave powerful presentations and benefited from robust Q & A and discussion with their virtual audiences!
CLLAS rounded out the academic year with two more successful virtual events. The Latino Roots Celebration drew almost one hundred guests on June 3 (more below) and showcased exceptional student work. Our final event on June 9, Remote Research: Sharing Ideas for Domestic and International Research During the Pandemic, was moderated by Professors Erin Beck (Political Science), Audrey Lucero (College of Education), and Lynn Stephen (Anthropology) and graduate student Emily Masucci (Anthropology) and featured important resources and ideas for carrying out research in the era of COVID19. The Zoom video and chat for this event can be accessed from the CLLAS website at https://cllas.uoregon.edu/remote-research-sharing-ideas-for-domestic-and-international-research-during-the-pandemic-2/.
Latino Roots
The fifth Latino Roots Celebration took place through Zoom on June 3, 2020. Students of the Latino Roots I & II courses presented their ethnographic documentaries to peers, faculty, staff, and community members.
The virtual events included:
- Guitar music by Ricardo Cárdenas
- Remarks by UO President Michael Schill, PCUN Executive Director Reyna López and Latino Roots students Emily Chávez Romero and Jackson McCormick
- Symbolic deposit of work in the library with Mark Watson-Interim Dean of Libraries
- Screening of documentaries and websites in Zoom breakout rooms
Professors Gabriela Martínez (SOJC) and Lynn Stephen (Anthropology) developed the courses Latino Roots I and Latino Roots II a decade ago. Latino Roots I focuses on giving a theoretical, documentary, and ethnographic understanding of the processes of Latino immigration and settlement in Oregon during the past 150 years. Latino Roots II teaches students how to produce a short video documentary from oral history interviews.
To view student documentaries and learn more about the Latino Roots courses and the traveling educational Latino Roots exhibit, please visit https://latinoroots.uoregon.edu/
CLLAS to Host Symposium on Languages and Diaspora in Spring 2021
CLLAS will be hosting its third symposium during spring 2021. The tentative title of the symposium is “Languages on the Move.” The focus will be on linguistic diaspora, indigenous languages, other forms of language (i.e music, audiovisal-films/TV/other), and the politics of language in the Americas. The symposium will be a 1-2 day event during week 4 or 5 of spring term next year.
CLLAS is still working on the details but panel topics may include:
- Languages in the Pacific Northwest
- Encountering linguistic diasporas in Latin America
- Other types of language – music, visuals
- Political discourse
- Borders
- Education
CLLAS would also like the event to have a space for student research and engagement. Other potential activities include music and connections to art. The coordinating committee is Audrey Lucero from the College of Education, Monique Balbuena from the Honors College, and Gabriela Pérez Báez from the department of Linguistics. Please check back on our website at cllas.uoregon.edu for updates as next spring approaches.
2020-21 CLLAS Grant Recipients
CLLAS congratulates its graduate and faculty 2020-21 grant recipients, listed below.
Summer Graduate Research Grant Awards:
- Polet Campos-Melchor, Anthropology: “LGBTQ+ Migrants: Demystifying Love and Survival in Ciudad Juárez.”
- Lola Loustaunau, Sociology: “The hands that feed us: analyzing the experiences of migrant Latinas in food processing.”
Graduate Field Research Grants in Latin America:
- Lindsey Romero, Counseling Psychology: “Sanando las Heridas del Pasado: An Examination of Trauma Healing among Peruvians Post the 20-Year Period of Violence.”
- Annalise Gardella, Anthropology: “Visibility, Risk, and Violence: Face-to-Face and Online Organizing among El Salvador’s LGBT Organizations.”
- Alejandra García Isaza, Prevention Science: “Parenting through adversity: Barriers and facilitators of parent engagement among Buen Comienzo families.”
Faculty Latinx Studies Seed Grant Award:
- Audrey Lucero, Associate Professor of Critical and Sociocultural Studies in Education: “Languaging While Comprehending.”
Faculty Research Seed Grant Awards:
- Stephanie Wood, Director of the Wired Humanities Project and Research Associate at the Center for Equity Promotion: “Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs.”
- John Arroyo, Assistant Professor in Planning, Public Policy and Management: Book project: “Shadow Suburbanism: Mexican Immigration, Urban Change, and Place in Greater Atlanta.”
Spring 2020 CLLAS Notes, Part 1
Editor’s note: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve moved our newsletter online for this edition. This is the first of three newsletter installments to be published over the next several weeks.
Director’s Letter
by Gabriela Martínez, CLLAS Director
As I write this, I’ve been stranded in the highlands of Peru since mid-March when two days after my arrival the government closed all of the country’s borders, suspending domestic and international commercial flights and inter-departmental land transportation, imposing a curfew, and giving the police and the army control of streets and roads. Peru is one of the countries in the region that began responding early to the crisis; however, for weeks it has been suffering a rapidly rising number of cases. Although COVID-19 has touched all social strata, still the most affected are people living in shantytowns, and in large working class and populous areas where the living conditions tend to be substandard and people subsist by working in the informal economy. Thus, this population doesn’t have a safety net allowing them to shelter in place for weeks or months.
At the beginning of the academic year CLLAS got off to a great start launching its new two-year theme (2019-21): “The Politics of Language in the Americas: Power, Culture, History, and Resistance.” Throughout the fall and winter the line-up of research and creative events filled rooms to capacity, attracting undergraduates and graduate students, faculty, staff and extramural members of our community. You can read more about fall events in our fall newsletter here (insert link). Winter term ended with the arrival of the unprecedented pandemic COVID-19, which has impacted CLLAS operations as well as that of our entire campus, our state, the country and the world. We had to recalibrate everything we do, and change most plans we had in place for the rest of the academic year and beyond.
Although CLLAS has continued its operations remotely, and has successfully held its research grantees presentations via Zoom, our new grantees setting out to do research over this coming summer are going to be limited due to the restrictions caused by the pandemic. Some researchers may not be able to travel abroad to their sites of study, thus most will need to conduct research through virtual platforms instead of in-person. This situation is no doubt causing anxiety, as there are many uncertainties facing the future. CLLAS remains supportive and we have changed some of our policies for grantees given the circumstances, for example, some will be able to defer the use of funds beyond this summer and potentially until the next academic year or next summer. Others will conduct research locally or remotely.
There seems to be no corner in the world unaffected by the pandemic, and millions of people around the world are suffering the multiple consequences of it — illness, death, loss of jobs, serious economic hardship, among others. In Oregon the Latinx population remains disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and its consequences. This is principally due to the structural racism in the state (and the country) where there are systemic disparities. Much of the Latinx population lacks access to healthcare, has no job security (much less jobs that can be done remotely), and many live in small houses or apartments, in some cases, with large families or sharing the space with multiple roommates to cover rent.
The pandemic has made social and economic disparities all over the world more salient. It has shown how broken the public health systems are in a large number of countries, including the United States. Existing social, economic, political, and racial gaps in the US have become exacerbated and deeper due to this health crisis. However, we should always remain hopeful that our societies can change with the will of the people and with citizens claiming changes through voting. Now we need more than ever an ongoing civic participation.
Finally, I want to say how proud I am of all students from the Latino Roots course who have shown resilience and commitment. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, our students were able to produce significant work, adding their documentaries and multimedia work to the Latino Roots digital repository administered by CLLAS and UO Libraries. This new addition raised the number in the collection to 82. This work is more important than ever given the times we live in where open racism and anti-immigrant policies and sentiments are harming our society.
CLLAS rejects racism and the violence that this generates against people of color. We should always remember that the richness and greatness of this nation was (and continues to be) built on the backs of Black people and immigrants of color, mostly Latinx and Latin Americans.
I wish everyone a healthy and restful summer! And may health and life conditions improve for all in the US and around the world regardless of race, religion, and nationality!
“Fue el Estado!:” Justice for the Guatemalan Fifty-Six Girls and Embodying Emotional Geographies
By Carla Macal Montenegro, PhD Candidate in Geography
Guatemala is home to the Maya, Garifuna, and Xinca people, as well as Ladino and European settlers. It thrives with cultural traditions, delicious cuisine, and beautiful landscapes. Guatemala is also a colonized territory and experiences ongoing land dispossessions and exploitations by imperialist powers such as the United States and Canada. Colonization in Guatemala has generated race, class, and gender inequalities, from structuring a system of patriarchy that normalized gender roles based on power dynamics and domination. Due to this system, indigenous women are still rendered invisible and subjugated to domestic care roles. A tragic component of this inequality is the high number of femicides in the country. From 2001 to 2011, 5,000 women and young girls were murdered in Guatemala with less than four of the cases resulting in a conviction (Stephen, 2015).
As a Guatemalan woman living in the Global North, I feel a deep sense of responsibility to share the stories of Central Americans experiencing the ongoing violence of colonial imperialism (Speed 2019). On March 8, 2017 Guatemalan people responded to state oppression and demanded justice for the fifty-six girls. Forty-one were burned to death at Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción, and fifteen survivors are physically and emotionally injured. Hogar Seguro Virgen de la Asunción located in San José Pinula, Guatemala is a state-operated shelter for adolescents identified as “troubled youth.” Families trust this shelter as it promises good caring conditions for their children.
However, on March 7, 2017, a day before the fire, a group of girls ran away from the shelter due to cases of rape, sex-trafficking, inadequate food, and physical abuse. The shelter authorities punished the girls by locking them into a room to the point of causing the death of forty-one girls ages twelve to seventeen. This tragic story enabled me to ask the following question:
How are feminist organizations in Guatemala responding to state level gender-based violence?
With the support of a graduate student research grant from the Center for Latina/o and Latin American Studies (CLLAS) I embarked on my first ethnographic field work during the summer of 2019 to conduct preliminary research for my studies. I identified 8 Tijax and MuJER, two organizations that are entrenched in the work against gender-based violence leading me to do a comparative study.
8 Tijax is a small volunteer collective that began providing support to the families of the fifty-six girls. They support the families with different roles such as hospital accompaniment, social work, journalism, and advocates of justice for the girls. I was able to interview all of the collectives’ participants in addition to one of the mothers of one of the girls. They shared how their work is to humanize and highlight each of the girls’ stories. As one of the participants’ shared, “Within deep pain, love is born.” She mentioned how they do this labor of love to amplify the truth and to valorize each of the stories. 8 Tijax has created commemorative altars to aid in the perseverance of public memory and even an international campaign #NosDuelen56 as a tribute to all the girls who were inside the shelter.
MuJER is the second organization I approached to interview and compare the work on gender-based violence in a formal setting. The director of the organization shared that they identify as a community-based organization providing services to women facing domestic and sexual violence. The organization’s main campaign is to provide a safe space for sex workers by providing skillsets they can use to generate different sources of income. MuJER is one of the organizations in Guatemala helping to advance gender equity and is part of a feminist network. One of the best moments during my field work was when they invited me to provide a natural deodorant-making workshop for the women in the organization. I provided the materials and shared with them a step-by-step natural deodorant recipe. We were building community as well as reciprocity.
From the interviews I made the connection that MuJER could potentially provide emotional support to the mothers of the girls. In addition, both organizations were deeply connected emotionally with the people they were supporting. Compassion was demonstrated by eating a meal together or applying on each other a calming essential oil during the interviews. Embodying emotional geographies throughout the interactions with the participants abolished the feeling of being an outsider. Instead we were weaving feelings of solidarity and sisterhood.
References
Speed, S. (2019). Incarcerated Stories: Indigenous Women Migrants and Violence in the Settler-Capitalist State. The University of North Carolina Press
Stephen, L. (2015). Gender violence and female indigenous Guatemalan refugees. Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon. Pp. 1-27
About the author
Carla Macal Montenegro is a PhD student in Geography at the University of Oregon. She is studying the interconnections between borders, migrations, and feminist geographies. She is an educator involved in a pedagogy of liberation. She enjoys reciting social justice poetry with 3 Generaciones and Sin Fronteras group. Carla is also the creator of Ixoq Arte, an herbalist self-preservation project to reclaim ancestral indigenous knowledge. She was raised in East Los Angeles and was born in Guatemala.
Winter 2020 CLLAS Notes
The 2020 winter edition of CLLAS Notes, our twice-yearly newsletter, is now available online. Print edition will be available after January 1.
Gabriela Martínez, CLLAS director and SOJC professor, revisits our fall events. Fall saw the kick-off of a new two-year theme, “The Politics of Language in the Americas: Power, Culture, History, and Resistance.” CLLAS organized several fall events, including partnering with the UO Common Reading program and Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art this fall to host a brunch with Helena María Viramontes, author of Under the Feet of Jesus.
Read about award-winning poet Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s visit to UO on October 9, which included a poetry slam and a teach-in where guests teamed up to compose original poems. Learn about CLLAS-funded faculty and graduate research on topics ranging from agricultural practices in Amazonian Ecuador to gender-based violence in Brazil.
The 2020 winter edition of CLLAS Notes, Volume 11, Issue 1, includes:
- Letter from Director, Gabriela Martínez
- “Poet Melissa Lozada-Oliva a Big Hit with UO Students”
- Graduate Research—“Transmission of Traditional Botanical Knowledge among the Shuar of Amazonian Ecuador”
- Graduate Research—“Recalling Runaways: Studies of Slavery and Absenteeism in Cuba”
- Graduate Research—“The Struggle Continues: Gender-based Violence and the Politics of Justice and Care in Urban Brazil”
- Faculty Research—“Decolonial Environmentalisms: Race, Genre, and Latinx Literature”
- News & Book Notes
- Event Reports
Spring 2019 CLLAS Notes
The 2019 spring edition of CLLAS Notes, our twice-yearly newsletter, is now available online and in print.
History professor Carlos Aguirre reviews his tenure as CLLAS interim director and takes us on a look ahead at the new two-year plan for CLLAS, a series of initiatives and events under the theme “The Politics of Language in the Americas.”
Learn about Judge Yassmin Barrios’s visit to the UO campus in March and her lecture on “Justice and Reparation in Guatemala,” where she talked about her experience with the High Risk Crime Tribunal over which she presides. Check out the accounts of graduate student research in Peru and Guatemala and faculty research in Bolivia. Read about CLLAS founding director Lynn Stephen’s experience as the president of the Latin American Studies Association.
CLLAS event planner & project manager Feather Crawford fills us in on the January CLLAS Town Hall with Mae Ngai, the 2018-19 Wayne Morse Center Chair. And thanks to Crawford’s excellent reporting, you can find out more about why migrants are fleeing Honduras when you read her account of historian Dana Frank’s detailed talk held in April.
The 2019 Spring edition of CLLAS Notes, Volume 10, Issue 2 includes:
- Letter from Interim Director Carlos Aguirre
- “Justice and Reparation in Guatemala”—Judge Yassmin Barrios’s lecture about justice & human rights in Guatemala
- “Lynn Stephen Completes Her Tenure as LASA President”
- Faculty Research—“Strugging with Sustainability: Guarayo Cultural and Environmental Management Challenges”
- Graduate Research—“Responses to Gendered Violence in Costa Rica and Guatemala”
- Graduate Research—“Sounds of Power: Peruvian colonial pipe organs in the interplay of cultures”
- Graduate Research—“Environmental Justice and the Local Effects of Glacier Melt in the Peruvian Cordillera Huayhuash”
- News & Book Notes
- Event Reports
- 2019-20 Grant Recipients
Spring 2018 CLLAS Notes now available
In the latest edition of CLLAS Notes, you can read about field research in Oaxaca carried out by 2017 Tinker grantee Timothy Herrera and learn about dissertation research focused on the intersection of gender, race, and disability conducted by CLLAS graduate student research grantee Katie Warden.
Kristin Yarris, Brenda Garcia Millan, and Karla Schmidt-Murillo write about the collaborative research they are carrying out that investigates how local communities are responding to the current hostile climate toward immigrants and refugees.
This spring issue of CLLAS Notes includes an article about the CLLAS 2018 symposium “Justice Across Borders: Gender, Race, and Migration in the Americas.” A report on the “UO Puerto Rico Project: Hurricane Maria and Its Aftermath,” written by CLLAS executive board member Alaí Reyes-Santos and one of her ethnic studies students, provides an excellent look at teaching through action.
CLLAS director Gabriela Martínez highlights the many events sponsored throughout the 2017-18 academic year by CLLAS. A report from Feather Crawford on the Dreamers Working Group provides insight into how UO is creating a community of welcome through allyship trainings and other advocacy efforts.
You can also learn about recently published books and journal articles, as well as news and updates on the achievements of faculty and graduate students.
All this and more are included in this Spring 2018 edition of CLLAS Notes, the twice-yearly newsletter for the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies. Watch for yours soon in your campus or home mailbox, or view it now online.
. . 
. . 