The Bilingual Meetings - Clube de Leitura Ubuntu meets twice a year (once a semester) to discuss books by Black writers. This ongoing project began in October 2020 as a collaboration between the Instituto Federal de São Paulo (IFSP), Campus Matão, and SUNY Albany, organized by Dr. Valquíria Tenório and Dr. Denise Osborne. Since Fall 2021, the partnership has been between IFSP and Cornell University.
Share and construct knowledge together about the Black communities in Brazil and the United States.
Expand participants' knowledge about topics related to race as they revisit their own perceptions and subjectivities.
Provide a safe environment for practices of translanguaging, facilitating negotiations and reflections about ethnic-racial identities.
Promote Black literature within our institutions.
Collaborate to reduce discriminatory practices and create a more inclusive and sensitive educational and literary environment.
Promote motivation and engagement in learning Portuguese.
students and speakers of Portuguese from Cornell University
Instituto Federal de São Paulo - Campus Matão
Instituto Federal de São Paulo - Campus Avaré
Instituto Federal de São Paulo - Campos do Jordão
Projeto PESCA
Escola Estadual Joaquim Pinto Machado Junior (Araraquara, SP)
Escola Estadual José de Anchieta de Queimados (RJ)
Escola Municipal de Jaceruba
Coletivo Mulheres do Ler
"Everyone shared their opinion and experiences and they were highly interested."
"I enjoyed everyone sharing their different experiences and beyond being open and honest, and no one judging anyone else."
"[This is] a bilingual opportunity to engage with those in another nation."
"A troca de experiência [em] diferentes línguas."
"What I like about this meeting is seeing everyone else's perspective on racism and how they deal with it on a daily basis. I always assumed Brasil was a certain way, so it was really educational to hear the guests shared their stories and hear what it is like to live in Brazil as a Black person."
We are grateful to the Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning Grants (2022-2023) and the Language Resource Center (LRC) from Cornell University.
We also would like to thank our partners in this project: Instituto Federal de São Paulo (IFSP) at Campos do Jordão; Escola Estadual Professor Joaquim Pinto Machado Júnior (Araraquara, SP); Projeto PESCAR; Escola Estadual Jaceruba (Nova Iguaçu, RJ); and Cornell University (Romance Studies).
We are very grateful to our students of Portuguese at Cornell University who have helped with the translation during our metings; and the students in Brazil who have helped organized the meetings.