Ramona Arreguín de Rosales Lecture: Somewhere We Are Human
With Reyna Grande & Sonia Guiñansaca
UMN Conversations at Northrop
Free Event, Registration Required
Wed, Sep 24, 6:00–7:30 pm
Reception to Follow
Join the Department of Chicano & Latino Studies for the fifth annual Ramona Arreguín de Rosales Lecture, given by Reyna Grande and Sonia Guiñansaca. This lecture focuses on their recent publication Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings (HarperCollins 2023). A reception, open to the public and featuring food from Brasa restaurant, will follow.
Somewhere We Are Human is a unique collection of groundbreaking essays, poems, and artwork by 41 migrants, refugees, and Dreamers, including award-winning writers, artists, and activists, that illuminate what it is like living undocumented today. This anthology of essays, poetry, and art seeks to shift the immigration debate—now shaped by rancorous stereotypes and xenophobia—towards one rooted in humanity and justice. Through their storytelling and art, the contributors to this thought-provoking book remind us that they are human still. Transcending their current immigration status, they offer nuanced portraits of their existence before and after migration, the factors behind their choices, the pain of leaving their homeland and beginning anew in a strange country, and their collective hunger for a future not defined by borders (shared courtesy of HarperCollins).
For accessibility accommodations, please contact Tamara Hageman at hageman@umn.edu.
Reyna Grande is a bestselling author known for her powerful explorations of immigration, family separation, and the cost of the American Dream. Born in Mexico, her early childhood experience of crossing the border to be reunited with her father in California profoundly shapes her writing. The first in her family to attend university, Grande earned a BA in creative writing from UC, Santa Cruz, and an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles. She is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Across a Hundred Mountains, Dancing with Butterflies, and A Ballad of Love and Glory, as well as the memoirs The Distance Between Us and A Dream Called Home. Her work has garnered significant recognition and awards, such as the American Book Award and a Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature. Through her compelling storytelling, Grande illuminates the often-ignored struggles of immigrant families and centers the experiences of undocumented youth.
Sonia Guiñansaca is an international award-winning queer migrant Indigenous Kichwa-Kañari poet, cultural strategist, and social justice activist. Guiñansaca has over 17 years of movement and cultural organizing experience that began when they were among the first waves of young people to publicly come out as undocumented. They emerged as a national leader in the migrant artistic and political communities, where they coordinated and participated in groundbreaking civil disobedience actions. Guiñansaca helped build some of the largest undocumented organizations in the U.S, including co-founding some of the first artistic projects by and for undocumented writers. As a writer and performer, Guiñansaca creates narrative poems and essays on migration, queerness, and nostalgia, often collaborating with filmmakers and visual artists. They have been awarded residencies and fellowships from Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation, Poetry Foundation, and the British Council. Guiñansaca has performed at the Met, the NYC Public Theater, Lehmann Maupin Gallery, Lincoln Center, toured campuses across the country, and has been featured on Interview Magazine, Ms. Magazine, Teen Vogue, Diva Magazine UK, CNN, NBC, and PBS, to name a few. Their writing appears in many anthologies, such as Daughter of Latin America: An International Anthology of Writing by Latine Women (2023). They co-edited the highly anticipated anthology Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices On Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings (2022). They self-published their debut poetry book Nostalgia & Borders (2016), and in 2023 it was translated to Kichwa and Spanish by Severo Editorial under Nostalgia Y Fronteras.
Blanca Caldas Chumbes is a transnational Latina scholar of Quechua descent and an associate professor in Multilingual and Elementary Education programs at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She holds a faculty affiliate status at the Chicano and Latino Studies Department and the Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality Studies. Her research interests focus on working-class bilingual education, bilingual teacher education (pre & in service teachers), minoritized language practices, language ideologies/identities, and critical pedagogies. She is the co-editor of the book Critical Ethnography: Bi/Multilingualism, Race(ism) and Education (Multilingual Matters), and her work has been published multilingually.
UMN Conversations at Northrop is a collection of lectures, panel discussions, and other conversations focused on important and timely issues presented in collaboration among numerous University of Minnesota departments and held at Northrop.
