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On Wednesday night, a few UNM students will celebrate their identities through art.
About 80 students taking a Freshman Learning Community course will present their poetry, posters and digital artwork at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, said Chicano and Chicana Studies Department Director Irene Vasquez.
Vasquez said that although words are the focus of the event, it will feature various student styles and stories.
“This will be a celebration of student writing,” she said. “What we’re going to see is a diversity of experiences and expressions from a very diverse group of students. I think the important point that one can walk away with is that when an individual knows who they are … they’re better prepared to interact with people in any setting.”
The idea for the exhibit came about in the spring semester, and the department started organizing the event during the summer, Vasquez said. Participating students take a course titled “Intro to Chicano Studies” along with an English course or communications and journalism course as part of the FLC.
Vasquez, who teaches the Chicano studies component of the FLC, said her students have improved critically over the duration of the project.
“I’ve seen these students blossom,” she said. “First-time freshmen who were very introverted (changed) to students who are really owning their learning. It’s very exciting.”
Levi Romero, associate director of the department, said attendees should expect a multimedia environment at the exhibit. He said the event encourages students to be proud of their origins.
“Primarily what they’re working on in the class is the concept of personal identity and communal identity,” he said. “Often, it’s difficult for people to talk about themselves. If you ask somebody, ‘Tell me who you are,’ people are at a loss for words. If you ask them about where they’re from, they can begin to describe where they come from.”
Romero said the event is a celebration of students’ identities through artistic expression. He said this aspect will also affect the academic success of participating students.
“With these exercises, you instill to students that they are here, and they can also bring what it is that makes them who they are into the academic discourse,” he said. “If you can get students to get comfortable about that early on, I think it’s going to be easier for them to be successful in the future.”
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Encouraging artistic expression can also enhance students’ campus involvement, Romero said.
Claudia Mitchell, a Chicana/Chicano Studies major who is a student instructor for the FLC, said the event also encourages an aspect of community. She said that through the project, she discovered deeper aspects of her identity.
“I’m going to graduate, and I just realized that I have so much history and so much in my family that I never grasped onto,” she said. “I’m just learning this stuff, but it’s never too late. I think learning from each other is really important.”
Vasquez said that though delving into participating students’ identities can be confusing for them because of popular ethnic stereotypes, the event aims to propagate acceptance among the community.
“What the majority of the Latino students in the class learn is that they have origins from Italy, from Greece, from Mexico, among Native American populations,” she said. “They’re actually learning something outside of the stereotype, which, unfortunately … can have a negative impact on underrepresented students. But students in the class learn that our differences don’t make divisions. We can celebrate differences as human beings.”
As students see themselves as creators, they will be motivated to continue their art in the future, Vasquez said.
And Romero said the event will celebrate diversity in the Albuquerque community in general.
“We’re all working together,” he said. “The support systems that we have outside the University are important as well. This is a night that will celebrate all of that.”
Chicana and Chicano Studies Literacy Project Symposium
Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30
National Hispanic Cultural Center
1701 4th Street SW
Free to attend
