Lehman Celebrates National Hispanic Heritage Month

Lehman College is marking Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15) with an array of cultural activities, thought-provoking panel discussions, and exciting performances that highlight the many contributions Hispanic and Latinx communities have made to U.S. history. Mark your calendar and RSVP for the events below.

2021 Staten Island Mexican Independence Day Parade, Co-Hosted by La Colmena and the CUNY Mexican Studies Institute

Saturday, Sept. 18
3 p.m. - 7 p.m. 

La Colmena, a community-based organization that works with day laborers, domestic workers, and other low-wage immigrant workers in Staten Island, and the CUNY Mexican Studies Institute, housed at Lehman College, present the 2021 Staten Island Mexican Independence Day Parade. The parade, which will feature mariachis and dancers in traditional costumes, takes off from 54 Port Richmond Avenue, marches southbound on Port Richmond Avenue, and concludes at La Colmena’s headquarters at 774 Port Richmond Avenue.

CUNY Institute for Health Equity Speaker Series

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, the CUNY Institute for Health Equity will hold panel discussions highlighting scientists, scholars, and leaders from a Hispanic or Latino background conducting important research and helming key organizations.

Health, Health Care, and Health Disparities Among Latinx Populations
Tuesday, Sept. 28
11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Register

Panel Chairs: Judith Aponte, associate professor at Hunter College’s School of Nursing, and Maria Isabel Roldós, director of the CUNY Institute for Health Equity and an associate professor of Health Sciences at Lehman College

Join this discussion about health inequalities and how research and the health care system are addressing disparities. The panel includes Cristina Contreras, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan; Paule Joseph, Ph.D., chief of the Section of Sensory Science and Metabolism at the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Institute of Nursing Research; Omar Martinez, an associate professor at Temple University's School of Social Work who also leads Temple's Disparities and Inequities in HIV/AIDS Research Lab; and Karen Tejada, a community/public health nursing graduate student.

Latinx Scholars and Research
Tuesday, Oct. 12
Día de la Raza
11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Register

Panel Chairs: Dr. Juan DelaCruz, associate professor of economics and business and director of the CUNY Mexican Studies Institute and Tailisha Gonzalez, Ph.D. (c), co-director, Health Services Administration program, Lehman College

The discussion will explore Latinx scholars' professional trajectories and how their scholarship impacts communities and populations. The panel will include Dr. Fernando Delgado, Ph.D., Lehman College president; Hugo Tejeda, Ph.D., an investigator and chief of the Unit on Neuromodulation and Synaptic Integration at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH); and Diana Hernandez, Ph.D., an associate professor of sociomedical sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. 

Feria Internacional del Libro NYC | New York City International Book Fair 

First launched in 2019, this initiative of the CUNY Mexican Studies Institute aims to disseminate academic and literary work published in Spanish—whether in Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain, or the United States—and, at the same time, promote better reading habits within Hispanic communities in New York.

This year’s virtual panels and events—which take place Oct. 1 to Oct. 3—will be streamed on Facebook Live through the @FILNYC account. Last year, FIL Ciudad de Nueva York brought together scholars and authors from more than a dozen countries, with over 48,000 people attending the virtual conferences, panels, and workshops. The 2021 schedule includes the following event highlights, with many more to be added. 

Conversation with Cristina Rivera-Garza
Friday, Oct. 1
1:15 p.m. (EST)

Marco Ramírez Rojas, an assistant Spanish professor at Lehman, will moderate a talk with Rivera-Garza, a prolific and award-winning Mexican writer. Rivera-Garza is the author of six novels, three short story collections, five poetry collections, and three non-fiction books. Originally penned in Spanish, her work has been translated into several languages, including English, Portuguese, and Korean.

How the New York Times Reports to Diverse Audiences
Saturday, Oct. 2
10:00 a.m. (EST)

The New York Times is the third most read newspaper in the United States. In this panel, four Spanish-speaking journalists—Elda Cantú, Annie Correal, Andrés R. Martínez, and José Enrique Arrioja—discuss the challenges faced and the strategies followed by the Times to reach out to an increasingly diverse audience, both in the United States and abroad.

Racism and Marginalization
Saturday, Oct. 2
12:00 p.m. (EST)

Araceli Tinajero teaches at the Graduate Center (Hispanic Literatures) and is the co-founder of the Mexico Study Group at the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies where she has been a fellow for more than a decade. In this panel, voices from Argentina, Mexico, Peru, and Spain will dialogue on the role that racism, identity, representation, and marginalization play in contemporary literature, and how literature can contribute to addressing them.

Describing the Border, Writing on the Border
Saturday, Oct. 2
1:00 p.m. (EST)

Daniel R. Fernández is an associate professor at Lehman College and chair of the Department of Languages and Literature. He will be joined by Sonia Robles, Norma Iglesias Prieto, and Daniel Salinas Basave to analyze the meaning and scope of the border between Mexico and the United States as an environment of struggles and challenges as well as creative and audacious proposals in a continuous battle to defend human dignity.

Will We Surpass the Time Barrier in the USA?
Saturday, Oct. 2
2:00 p.m. (EST)

Adriana Pacheco is a Mexican affiliated researcher at LLILAS Benson and a member of the International Board of Advisors at the University of Texas at Austin. She will guide the conversation with Fernando Olszanski (Argentina), Pedro Medina (Peru), and María Angélica García (Venezuela) regarding the boom of Hispanic literature in the world, as well as new strategies to sell books and get to know the reader.

América Fantástica
Saturday, Oct. 2
3:00 p.m. (EST)

Mariano Villareal, administrator of “Literatura Fantástica,” a website that specializes in novelties about fantasy literature and Sci-Fi in Spain, and a renowned anthologist will guide a panel about the relevance, trends, and interests around fantasy and Sci-Fi literature in Latin American. Mariano is joined by a great constellation of authors, namely Edmundo Paz Soldán (Bolivia), Daína Chaviano (Cuba), Martín Felipe Castagnet (Argentina) and Teresa López-Pellisa (Spain).

Between the Breath and the Abyss
Saturday, Oct. 2
4:00 p.m. (EST)

Between the Breath and the Abyss: Poetics on Beauty (Entre el aliento y el precipicio: poéticas sobre la belleza) is a bilingual anthology that collects the ideas of a select group of authors about the presence of beauty in poetry and life. For this panel, Nuria Morgado, an associate professor of contemporary Spanish literature at the College of Staten Island and The Graduate Center, will direct a quartet of talented voices consisting of Raquel Abend (Venezuela), Odette Alonso (Cuba), Keila Vall de la Valle (Venezuela) and Silvia Guerra (Uruguay).

Documentary Screening: Change the Subject
Saturday, Oct. 2
5 p.m. (EST)

Change the Subject presents the story of a group of university students committed to advancing and promoting the rights and dignity of undocumented people from their first days at Dartmouth College. Sparked by an instance of anti-immigrant sentiment in their library catalog, these students carried their advocacy from Dartmouth Library to the halls of Congress. The film shows how an instance of campus activism entered the national spotlight and how a cataloging term became a flashpoint in the immigration debate on Capitol Hill. Melissa Castillo Planas, an assistant professor in Lehman’s Department of English, served as a film producer.

Conversation with Liliana Colanzi
Sunday, Oct. 3
1 p.m. (EST)

Antonio Córdoba Cornejo, an associate professor at Manhattan College who specializes in Spanish-language science fiction, moderates a conversation with Colanzi, a Bolivian writer, editor, and journalist whose research focuses on genres such as science fiction, horror, and the fantastic in modern and contemporary Latin American literature.

 

The Office of Campus Life Hispanic Heritage Month Speaker Series 

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Office of Campus Life will host several seminars themed around strategic leadership, entrepreneurship, and food justice, featuring the following speakers: 

Katina Rojas Joy 
Wednesday, Sept. 22
6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m.  

Join us for a conversation about improving the COVID vaccination rate, particularly in underrepresented communities, with Katina Rojas Nazario-Joy, senior advisor to the secretary of health at the Maryland Department of Health.

Click here to register and submit questions
Click here to join the seminar

Hector Castillo Carvajal 
Tuesday, Sept. 28
6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Carvajal is the 24-year-old founder and CEO of Don Carvajal Café, a specialty coffee roaster based in the South Bronx. He launched the start-up as a student at the University of Rochester, naming the company for his late grandfather, a farmer in the Dominican Republic. Join the talk to learn more about his path as a young entrepreneur. 

Click here to register and submit questions
Click here to join the seminar

Henry Obispo 
Thursday, Oct. 7 
7 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. 

The series ends with this keynote from Henry Obispo, the founder and CEO of Born Juice, the first cold-pressed juice bar and plant-based eatery in the Bronx, and ReBorn Farms, an urban farm right here in the borough. He’s also president of the Bronx Restaurant Cooperative. Born in the Dominican Republic, Obispo is a community activist passionate about sustainability, bringing nutritious food options to underrepresented communities, and advocating for their overall health and wellness.

Click here to register and submit questions
Click here to join the seminar

 

The Lehman Center for the Performing Arts

Lehman’s Performing Arts Center hosts popular Hispanic and Latino acts throughout the fall and winter. As a special treat for Hispanic Heritage Month, consider buying a ticket for the following shows:

Andy Montañez with the Mambo Legends and Patty Padilla
Saturday, Oct. 2
8 p.m.

A don’t-miss-event, the show will feature one of the most popular big bands in Latin music, the incredible Mambo Legends Orchestra, accompanying Colombian singer Patty Padilla in a tribute to Celia Cruz. The second part of the show will feature the iconic Puerto Rican singer and songwriter Andy Montañez, accompanied by the Mambo Legends.

Una Noche con el Merengue
Saturday, Oct. 9
8 p.m.

Merengue musician and actress Miriam Cruz, Dominican singer Alex Bueno, and Bonny Cepeda, the first merengue artist to be nominated for a Grammy, come together for a night dedicated to the beauty of the merengue musical genre.

The Brazilian All Stars
Sunday, Oct. 10
4 p.m.

Join The Brazilian All Stars for a uniquely memorable and spectacular musical journey through Brazil’s most famous songs, Sambas, Bossa Novas, Ballads, Choro, Fado, virtuoso instrumental tracks, and more. Tickets for the show are free.

Tito Nieves, Domingo Quiñones, Charlie Aponte, Raulin Rosendo, and more
Saturday, Oct. 16
8 p.m.

Salsa icon Nieves invites his friends and fellow musicians for an unforgettable night of music.