Event Recap

Please join us on Wednesday, October 22, 2025 at 6:30pm for "Photographers in Conversation: Vernacular Images." This panel discussion features the artists of Escenas--Andina Marie Osorio, Ashley Peña, Damon Casarez, Diana Guerra, José Ibarra Rizo, and Steven Molina Contreras--and will be moderated by the co-curators Orlando Ochoa, Jr. and Xavier Robles Armas.

"Photographers in Conversation" will take place online via Zoom and will explore the making of vernacular contemporary photography.

Escenas is made possible with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, and the New York University Office of the Provost.

The Latinx Project is excited to launch a brown-bag luncheon series to continue building the Latinx Studies community here at NYU. Join us October 15 at noon at 20 Cooper Square Room 101 for the first presentation: "Taíno Timbres: Dreaming Afrofutures, Sounding Indigenous Presence in La Sista's 'Anacaona'" by Dr. Cloe Gentile Reyes (Faculty Fellow, CAS Music).

This event is open only to NYU faculty, students, and staff. Please use your NYU ID to enter the building.

Please RSVP via Google Form

Abstract

La Sista's music video for her song "Anacaona" acts as an entry point to recall the often-forgotten history of Boricuas in U.S. Indian Boarding Schools, as well as the implementation of these genocidal assimilationist educational models on the island through U.S. colonial rule. My paper ruminates on how this living history impacts Indigenous modes of sounding, as well as how, in La Sista's case, rap and drums act as modes of language and music revitalization that open portals to the Dreamspace and in effect queer time. Through a decolonial and ancestral listening praxis, I hear La Sista's voice undoing what Maria Lugones calls "the coloniality of gender," ultimately enabling the reggaetónera to engage in resuscitative labor that conjures the Taíno Kasika, Anacaona, in the present moment. 

About

Dr. Cloe Gentile Reyes is a Boricua writer, educator, and songkeeper. She is currently a Faculty Fellow in the CAS Department of Music at NYU. Her writing and teaching center Indigenous epistemologies of sound and embodiment at the intersections of race, gender, and disability. Her first book project, Sounding Sucia: Disabling Coloniality through Rap & Reggaetón, navigates how queer Indigenous peoples are disabled by coloniality but engage with rap and reggaetón as forms of ancestral memory to disarm coloniality in return. 

Join the NYU Migration Network for a full-day conference exploring detention and deportation from multiple angles—past, present, and future. Through four panels with scholars, journalists, policy experts, and activists, we’ll examine how these practices shape US politics and immigration policy, from the historical roots of detention to the latest technologies of enforcement, and the on-the-ground organizing happening in New York City today. This event is co-sponsored in part by The Latinx Project and other centers and institutes.

NYU campus access guidelines: This is an in-person event, open to the public. Registration is required.

Accessibility note: If you have any access needs, please email migration-network@nyu.edu.

Panel 1: The politics and policy of detention and deportation under Trump 2
10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. EDT

This panel sets the stage for a discussion of detention and deportation in the context of today’s politics and policies. Together, the panelists will help us make sense of the impact of this administration’s policies on the lives of immigrants and the way that a politics of detention and deportation is reshaping the United States of America.

Featured Panelists:
Adam Cox (New York University)
Muzaffar Chishti (Migration Policy Institute)
Tanya Greene (Human Rights Watch)
Miriam Jordan (New York Times)
Moderated by Natasha Iskander

Panel 2: History of detention and deportation
12:15 p.m.-1:15 p.m.

This keynote discussion will situate this unprecedented moment in the context of the contemporary history and geography of detention and deportation in immigration enforcement.

Featured Keynote Speaker:
Alison Mountz (University of Toronto)
Moderated by Radha S. Hegde

Panel 3: Technologies of detention and deportation
1:30pm-3:00pm

This panel focuses on the technologies and infrastructure of detention and deportation, from digital surveillance to the bureaucratic structure of ICE, to the financial institutions embedded in the business of detention.

Featured Panelists:
Kimberly Morgan (George Washington University)
Matthew Guariglia (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Nancy Hiemstra (Stony Brook University)
William Turton (Propublica)
Moderated by Aisha Khan

Panel 4: Activists in NYC
3:15pm-4:00pm

This panel brings together activist organizations and student groups to discuss the work that they are doing on the ground to support New Yorkers who are vulnerable to detention and deportation. The discussion will include a know-your-rights training.

Photograph source: Library of Congress, photograph by Dorothea Lange

On Friday, October 10, The Latinx Project hosted a full-day interdisciplinary conference titled Aesthetics of Joy and Refuge in Contemporary Culture. The gathering featured presentations by a range of scholars and cultural producers, each transforming contemporary visual culture, creative industries, and scholarship. 

This event was made possible with support from the Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Tisch Illumination Fund.

Event Recap

9:00am Breakfast & Registration

9:50am Welcome

10:00am-11:40am Panel: Media and New Technologies

• Arcelia Gutiérrez (University of California, Irvine): The Case for Media Reparations

• Harold J. Leonard Navarro (Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras): Beyond Recognition: Black Bodies, AI, and the Aesthetics of Recognition

• Michael Anthony Turcios (Northwestern University): Experiments with Burning ICE: Rage as Joy and Refuge

• Nathan Rossi (Northwestern University): Digital Mestizaje, the Datafication of Latinx Identity, and the Political Economy of Brownness on TikTok

• Ramón Resendiz (University of Oregon): Visualizing Archival Resistance: Producing Refuge & Justice through Documentary Media across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

• Moderator: Sharon De La Cruz (New York University)

11:50am-1:30pm Panel: Perspectives on Visual Art

• Armando Perla (University of Montreal): Diasporic Aesthetics of Resistance: Indigenous Mesoamerican Museologies and the Visual Politics of Memory

• Deanna Ledezma (University of Illinois Chicago): Lineages of Labor: Contemporary Latinx Artists at Work

• Debbie M Duarte (Pitzer College): Alien Toy Takes a Joyride: Sensing Borderless Futurities

• Joanne Gil Rivera (La Calle Loíza, Inc.): Somos Cangrejos: Mapa, Arte, Foro

• Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet (Howard University Gallery of Art): Africana Kairibe Malungaje: Futurist Reversed Memories

• Moderator: Robert Hernandez (Fordham University)

2:30pm-4:10pm Panel: Joy and Embodiment

• Andy Rafael Aguilera (Western Washington University): “It Means Good”: Resistance and Refuge in Latinx Streetwear Brands in the Age of Trump

• Gabrielle Vazquez (Curator): Diasporican Queens

• Jose Ferrufino (Industrial designer): Al mal tiempo, buena cara: The Making of Beauty

• Odalis Garcia Gorra (University of Texas at Austin): Dancing at the Threshold: Joy, Resistance, and the Counter-Archives of Diasporican

• Orquidea Morales (University of Arizona): Excess and Monstrosity: The Freedom and Pain of La Gordita

• Moderator: Gabriel Magraner (The Latinx Project)

4:20pm-6:00pm Panel: Migration and Border Culture

• Daniel J. Vázquez Sanabria (University of Texas at Austin): Return is/as Refuge: Crip Narratives of Migration in Contemporary Puerto Rican Cultural Productions

• Jose Alaniz (University of Washington, Seattle): Out of the Chispaverse: Chispa Comics as ‘Militarized Border Visuality’

• Kiri Avelar (University of Utah): Transnational Family Dance Lineages of the U.S./Mexico Bracero Program

• Mikayla Hernandez Guevara (School of the Art Institute of Chicago): What a Border to Cross: Domesticana, Material, and Aesthetics of Migration in Shaping a Transcendent Chicana Identity

• Taylor Seaver De La Fuente (University of Michigan): Lo Que Le Pasó al Valle

• Moderator: Cristina Beltrán (New York University)

6:00pm-7:00pm Community Reception

Join us at La Feria: Print Media Fair for the launch of Intervenxions Vol. 4. The issue will be available for purchase along with dozens of publications and art from independent creators. From 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., we’ll be serving special treats to celebrate the publication. Meet editors Yara Simón and Alex Santana as well as contributors to the publication. We hope to see you there!

Intervenxions is The Latinx Project’s digital publication. Since 2022, Intervenxions has published a printed volume to document the work of our collaborators. This year’s issue features 14 articles on materiality, palimpsests, and regeneration.

Intervenxions Vol. 4. is made possible with support from the Henry Luce Foundation, Ford Foundation, Critical Minded, and the Mellon Foundation.

Wikimedia NYC and The Latinx Project are hosting the Wikipedia NYC 400 Edit-A-Thon: Nueva Yol on Friday, September 19, 2025 from 5pm to 8pm at 20 Cooper Square, New York. 

The program, coinciding with the Wikimedia NYC 400 campaign and Latinx Heritage Month, aims to create a space to uplift Latinx New Yorkers, histories, communities, and themes which should be on Wikipedia or might need a little update. No prior experience with Wikipedia is required to participate! 

Bring a laptop or the editing device of your choice.

For inspiration, you can consult our growing Latinx Studies library which will be on display. Additionally, visit the photography exhibition Escenas. Snacks and refreshments will be served. The event is free and open to the public. 

Wikipedia edit-a-thons have emerged as a powerful tool for communities that are underserved by the lack of diversity among Wikipedia content editors.

All attendees are subject to Wikimedia NYC’s Code of Conduct.

20 Cooper Live!
Centers & Institutes’ Open House

NYU students, faculty and staff are invited to join The Latinx Project and our colleagues for a dynamic open house! Meet the curators of Escenas and tour the exhibition, Escenas, on September 10 from 3-6pm.

Did you know that 20 Cooper Square is home to over a dozen Provostial Centers and Institutes at NYU? We invite all NYU students, staff, and faculty to visit our current exhibitions, and learn more about the Centers and Institutes' and groundbreaking research and programming. There will be snacks and refreshments for all!

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 at 20 Cooper Square
3:00 - 6:00 pm

First Floor:

• Center for Black Visual Culture’s exhibition Reflections in Black: A Reframing, on view until 6:00pm.

• The Grey Art Museum’s exhibition June Leaf: Shooting from the Heart will be on view. The Grey will also offer a curator tour of Handle with Care: Robert Rauschenberg's Ecological Conscience, featuring artworks from the NYU Art Collection, between 4:00 and 5:00 pm. The museum entrance is at 18 Cooper Square.

• Meet leaders from the Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Remarque Institute, Scholars at Risk, and NYU Production Lab in Room 101.

Second Floor:

• The Center for Ballet and the Arts

• The Grey Art Museum will have a table with student interns and Student Friends Committee representatives.

• Rebuild by Design

• Center for Disability Studies

Third Floor:

• Make buttons using images from the Asian/Pacific/American Institute (A/P/A) special collections, which document A/P/A history, art, and communities. Learn about our programs and initiatives for undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty.

• Enjoy apple cider and snag signature merch with team members of the Center for Collaborative Indigenous Research with Communities and Lands (Center CIRCL). Learn more about our upcoming programs, including the Indigenous Equinox Gatherings NYC and our book club series.

• Visit the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality (CSGS) table to meet our staff and graduate students, pick up a free tote bag, explore our Fall 2025 event calendar, and more!

• Tour The Latinx Project’s new photography exhibition Escenas with curators Orlando Ochoa and Xavier Robles-Armas until 6:00pm and meet student leaders.

• The Center for the Study of Africa and African Diaspora (CSAAD) will have a table with event flyers/brochures printed for the fall events; Spring research opportunities (pre doc & post doc fellowships); as well as merch and events information.

Fourth Floor: 

• Come meet with SCA staff to discuss classes and opportunities within the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.

Fifth Floor: 

• Meet with members from the Center for the Humanities to learn about our fellowship programs and opportunities for research and collaboration across NYU.

• Meet Hemispheric Institute staff and visit the Institute’s exhibition Huracán Architectures, with photographs by Ruben Natal-San Miguel.

• The Institute for Public Knowledge (IPK) hosts a book talk at 5:30pm discussing Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism.

• Come meet with staff from The Center on Violence and Recovery to learn about our research and programs.