2021-2022 Latino Studies Speaker Series

Harvest of Empire provides a rare and powerful glimpse into the enormous sacrifices and rarely-noted triumphs of our nation’s growing Latino community. The film features present day immigrant stories, rarely seen archival material, as well as interviews with such respected figures as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchú, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Junot Díaz, Mexican historian Dr. Lorenzo Meyer, journalists María Hinojosa and Geraldo Rivera, Grammy award-winning singer Luis Enrique, and poet Martín Espada.

Session Resources

• • Harvest of Empire Note Catcher

  • Harvest of Empire Study Guide

  • Harvest of Empire - A Teacher's Guide for Middle and High School Classrooms

  • Stanford Study Suggests Academic Benefits to Ethnic Studies Courses

  • The Causal Effects of Cultural Relevance: Evidence from an Ethnic Studies Curriculum (2017) by Thomas S. Dee & Emily K. Penner

  • Session Slides

Presenter: 

• • Isabel Cordova - Professor in History & Political Science, Nazareth College

Session Resources: 

• • Session 2 Takeaways and Presentation Outline

  • Source Activity: 1560 Letter from Fray Alonso, and Maya/Yucatec Packet

  • Atlantic World in the Age of Empire - Benjamin and Crosby

  • Colonial Latin America - The Age of Conquest - Burkholder & Johnson

  • Latin America in Colonial Times - Restall & Lane Part1

  • Latin America in Colonial Times - Restall & Lane Part2

  • Men of Maize - Leon Portilla - Men of Maize

  • Columbus Primary Sources

  • Bibliography for Teaching Latin American History - 16th-18th Centuries

Presenters: 

• • Ruben Flores - Associate Professor, University of Rochester

  • Anne Macpherson - Chair of the Department of History, Professor, SUNY Brockport

Session Resources: 

• • Session 3 Takeaways, Mexico Presentation, Caribbean Presentation

  • Session 3 - Document Set 1

  • Session Outline/ Guided Notes

  • Nationalism and Capitalism in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Mexico Presentation

  • The Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Caribbean Presentation

Presenters: 

• Anne Macpherson - Chair of the Department of History, Professor, SUNY Brockport

• Isabel Cordova - Professor in History & Political Science, Nazareth College

Session Resources:

• Cordova Outline and Macpherson Presentation

• Session recap

• 1955 D&C Article

• Puerto Rico in the New York Social Studies Framework

• Lamento Borincano by Rafael Hernández, 1929 Lyrics

Additional Resources:

• Puerto Rico Syllabus is a great resource.  Be sure to explore the different subject headings at bottom of page.

• Hijos del Cañaveral Music Video and Lyrics

• Puerto Rico in the American Century

• The Decline of the Plantation Economy and the Puerto Rican Migration of the 1950s

• Beyond blanqueamiento: Black affirmation in contemporary Puerto Rico

• Annotated Bibliography of Published Materials on Puerto Ricans

• Building the Barrio: A Story of Rochester's Puerto Rican Pioneers

• The Lessons of Slavery: Discourses of Slavery, Mestizaje, and Blanqueamiento in an Elementary School in Puerto Rico

• Enter the New York Ricans

• Ruben Flores - Associate Professor, University of Rochester

• Henry Padron - Owner and Operator of Hipocampo Children's Books

Session Resources:

Session Takeaways, Mr. Padron's Presentation, and Dr. Flores' Presentation

• Alexci Reyes - Latino Studies and Supports Coach, Rochester City School District

Session Resources: 

• • Session 7 Takeaways / Latino Achievement in RCSD: Taking a Closer Look at Culturally Responsive Content Presentation

  • Altering the Trajectory for the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

  • Latino American Studies US History Information Sheet

  • RCSD Latino Studies Page

  • Puerto Rico Syllabus (Not the same resource as Session 5) This resource is an ongoing public dialogue and brings to light the context of social activism on the island and mainland. This source provides historical and sociological tools to assess the roots of the debt crisis and its repercussions. It provides context to the Two court cases relevant to the autonomy of the Island, Puerto Rico v. Sánchez Valle case, and the Puerto Rico v. Franklin California Tax-Free Trust case. This source begins to provide an opportunity for our students to begin engaging in meaningful content that as history professor, Dr. Flores articulated nicely, "history of this nature begins to have students make sense of the weight of the past" in context to their identity today.

  • Historical Resources

• • Tainos: Moin Llama

  • Who is Afro-Latin@?  Examining the Social Construction of Race and Négritude in Latin America and the Caribbean