Browse Items (45 total)

Antonio Alanis serves as a community specialist and AmeriCorps member at El Centro Hispano, a non-profit organization based in Durham, North Carolina. Alanis discusses his role at El Centro Hispano and the work of the organization overall. He talks about his personal experience with El Centro Hispano as an immigrant growing up in Durham, North…

Brian Riefler shares experiences from his life while growing up in Buffalo, New York, and how his family helped shape him into the man he is today. After high school graduation Brian took a gap year in order to complete a community service program in Ecuador. He shares how his experience abroad sparked his interest in immigration and on how it…

Selina Lopez is a third-year student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Throughout her time at UNC, she has been involved with an organization titled Scholar’s Latino Initiative (SLI) as a mentor and co-leader of the parental involvement program, SLI-Familia. Lopez shares insights about her current role with parents as well…

Elaine Townsend talks about the cultural differences that exist between her mother’s Peruvian family and father’s American family. She discusses her childhood and what it was like to live in an extremely conservative religious community. Townsend was homeschooled for much of her life. Making the transition into the public school system and…

Vidal discusses his immigration experience as a native of Oaxaca, Mexico coming to the United States with his family in 2001. He talks about his father’s experience and how he became legalized through the immigration reform under President Reagan. He discusses some of the racial, cultural, and linguistic barriers he encountered during the first…

Julia Mack is a Spanish professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mack was born in Puerto Rico and moved to the United States to study for her Masters degree. She has taught at three colleges and universities in North Carolina, including UNC where she has taught for the past twenty years. Mack discusses her choice to become a…

Maria Salgado is a retired professor emeritus of Latin American literature. She retired in 2006, after teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for almost 40 years. Salgado was born in the Canary Islands of Spain and moved to the United States when she was in high school. In this interview, Salgado says that she identifies as…

Irene Cabrera is a visiting professor of Latin American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the 2014-2015 academic year. Cabrera was born in Bogotá, Colombia and has lived in the United States for the past three years to study for her second Masters and to teach at the university level. In this interview, Cabrera…

Alma Islas discusses her experience coming to North Carolina from Mexico City at the age of six. She discusses her family’s work in Mexico and the motives behind migrating to the United States. She speaks about the identity struggle she felt since arriving and her conflicts about being Mexican on paper, but feeling more American in practice. She…

Laura Halperin is an assistant professor of English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she researches contemporary Latina/o literatures and cultures. She is currently working on a book project, which focuses on representations of harm in late twentieth century Latina novels and memoirs. Her other…