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UTEP Celebrates Hispanic Heritage with Full Calendar of Events

Last Updated on September 18, 2018 at 12:00 AM

Originally published September 18, 2018

By UC Staff

UTEP Communications

Organizers of this year’s Hispanic Heritage Celebration at The University of Texas at El Paso have compiled more than 40 activities, exhibits, presentations, conferences, screenings and more that should be of interest to academics and the community.

“Barrio Soul” by Jesús “Cimi” Alvarado
“Barrio Soul” by Jesús “Cimi” Alvarado

Dennis Bixler-Márquez, Ph.D., director of UTEP’s Chicano Studies program and the lead organizer of this annual event, said the various activities are a response in part to requests from students and community organizations. Events will touch on art, dance, music, culture, politics, history, literature, leadership and traditions.

“We’ve been doing this for decades,” Bixler-Márquez said. “Most of the activities involve the College of Liberal Arts where there is tremendous diversity, but we also have worked with departments throughout the University.”

Speakers, including academic researchers and experts from around the country, have participated or will participate in events and presentations that started in early September and will continue into early November 2018. Most of the events are free, on campus and open to the public.

Here are a couple of key events from the week of Sept. 17, 2018:

  • Carina Heckert, Ph.D., assistant professor in UTEP’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, will cover the concerns of people falling through the cracks of a health care system in “Fault Lines of Care: Gender, HIV, and Global Health in Bolivia” at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 19, in the Blumberg Auditorium in the University Library. While the subject takes place in another country, a U.S. audience will recognize many of the issues. 
  • “How Social Media has Changed the Political Dynamics of the Bilateral Relations between the U.S. and Mexico” is the topic of Manuel Chávez’s, Ph.D., presentation at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 20, in the Blumberg Auditorium. Chávez directs the Information and Media Ph.D. Program at Michigan State University. The subject is timely, especially among business leaders, because of ongoing trade negotiations and the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement on the El Paso region.  
  • Former UTEP faculty member Vicki Ruiz, Ph.D., will deliver a lecture titled “Carmen Takes Charge: Reflections on Cannery Women, Cannery Lives” at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 20, in the Blumberg Auditorium. Ruiz, who taught history and Chicano Studies at UTEP in the 1990s, is a distinguished professor of history and Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Ruiz focused her research in California, but stories of women in labor-intensive jobs and their treatment will resonate with the female workers who toiled in El Paso’s textile field for decades to include a strike in the 1970s.  
  • Immigration is the subject of the documentary “The Second Cooler” that will be screened at 10 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 22, in the Blumberg Auditorium. The film by Ellin Jimmerson asks why 12 million migrants came to the United States and who benefits. 

Click here for a complete list of Hispanic Heritage Celebration events.