"For the majority of our human history, we have had a very small group of people who have been in power. And the majority of the people have been denied basic access, basic rights. And the way in which that has shaped our humanity is devastating. How many times are we going to have to do this? How many times are we going to have to ask that our lives matter?"
Lorgia García Peña is the Chair of Tufts University’s Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora where she focuses on Latinx studies, global Blackness, and Dominican diaspora studies.
She is the author of The Borders of Dominicanidad: Race, Nations, and Archives of Contradictions, which reveals, through the Dominican experience, how marginality is created through acts of exclusion. The Borders of Dominicanidad has won multiple awards, including the 2016 LASA Latino/a Studies Book Award and the 2016 Isis Duarte Book Prize in Haiti and Dominican Studies. Peña is currently working on an on-going book-length project titled Translating Blackness: Migrations and Detours of Latinx Colonialities in Global Perspectives.
In Translating Blackness Lorgia García Peña considers Black Latinidad in a global perspective in order to chart colonialism as an ongoing sociopolitical force.
In partnership with Seattle Arts & Lectures, Marguerite Casey Foundation is proud to host a conversation with author Lorgia García-Peña, political strategist Charlene Carruthers, and our President and CEO Dr. Carmen Rojas.
What to learn more about the Freedom Scholars?
Questions about the Freedom Scholar awards can be sent to freedomscholars@caseygrants.org.
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR THE FREEDOM SCHOLAR AWARDS HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY THE INATAI FOUNDATION.
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR THE FREEDOM SCHOLAR AWARDS HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY THE GROUP HEALTH FOUNDATION.
