By Evelyn Hernandez, Program Assistant, Center for the Humanities, UC Merced
In The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance, Robin Wall Kimmerer delivers a thought-provoking essay that challenges the capitalist mindset of scarcity and competition. After looking up what an actual serviceberry was, I found that serviceberries grow in abundance, are low maintenance, and have many purposes in baking. It even has medicinal purposes, but it is often overlooked because it is so common.
Kimmer uses the serviceberry as a metaphor: she explores the concept of a gift economy rooted in reciprocity, abundance, and interconnectedness. Kimmerer’s ability to blend scientific knowledge with Indigenous wisdom is what makes this essay truly shine. Her dual perspective as a botanist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation adds depth, offering both ecological insight and cultural reflection that feels both grounded and poetic.
Evelyn Hernandez reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.
What I appreciated was Kimmerer’s hopeful, optimistic tone. Instead of focusing on gloominess of the narratives about environmental degradation, she highlights the abundance already present in nature and how communities can thrive when relationships are prioritized. Her reflections made me reconsider how a deeply ingrained capitalist mindset shapes not just our economy but our everyday lives.
This book takes more of a philosophical path than a practical one. If you’re looking for concrete economic models or policy suggestions, you won’t find them here. The Serviceberry is meant to plant a seed, to shift your thinking, rather than hand you solutions.
Overall, The Serviceberry is a compelling, reflective read that left me inspired to think differently about value, wealth, and community. It’s not a perfect blueprint for systemic change or what we are supposed to do, but it’s a jumpstart for reimagining what an economy of abundance could look like.
By Shiraz Noorani, Graduate Student Researcher, Center for the Humanities, UC Merced
The Serviceberry, written by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a Potawatomi botanist, is a short but profound book on the interconnectedness of nature, reciprocity, and the gift economy. It offers a deeply insightful perspective on our relationships with each other and with nature. In her work, Kimmerer bridges Western scientific approaches with Indigenous ecological knowledge and advocates for an environmental ethic rooted in Indigenous wisdom.
Kimmerer argues that the market economy has contributed to climate catastrophe. She explores the possibility of moving away from the market economy, which is more concentrated on competing, buying, and selling goods for personal profit, toward a gift economy, a concept based on reciprocity and mutual care.
Shiraz Noorani, Graduate Student Researcher at the Center for the Humanities, UC Merced, showcases this year’s Common Read, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Kimmerer draws inspiration from the serviceberry tree. She explains that nature shares its produce freely with the whole ecosystem without any expectation in return. In exchange, those who receive this produce can contribute back in various ways, such as spreading seeds, planting trees, or watering them.
Furthermore, since climate change, global warming, pollution, deforestation, and rising sea levels threaten human existence on the planet, it is a crucial time to think about alternatives to the current market economy. Kimmerer says, “In times of crisis, the gift economy surges up through the rubble of an earthquake or the wreckage of a hurricane” (Kimmerer 43).
Kimmerer weaves personal narrative, indigenous knowledge, and ecological insights throughout the book in a poetic way. This approach to describing the gift economy may seem overly idealistic to some. However, she offers concrete examples to explain how a gift economy operates on principle of reciprocity and abundance within Indigenous communities and natural systems over time.
Participants from one of our book club discussion sessions at Merced County Library holding copies of The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Kimmerer explains how communities operated within the gift economy in the past; they shared their resources, and their relationships were a measure of how wealthy they were rather than how much money they had. For example, she says, “In a traditional Anishinaabe economy, the land is the source of all goods and services, which are distributed in a kind of gift exchange: one life is given in support of another. The focus is on supporting the food of the people, not only the individual” (Kimmerer 8). Her argument makes readers reconsider how they view wealth and community.
To sum up, The Serviceberry is a thought-provoking piece that explores the relationship between nature, economy, and community. Through poetic narration and deep ecological insight, the author invites readers to reconsider their connection with the world and envision a future where relationships are centered around sharing resources. This book also encourages readers to rethink their definitions of wealth, abundance, and responsibility for the planet and each other.
By Karla Seijas, Graduate Student Researcher, “Our Interwoven Futures” Mellon Foundation Grant, UC Merced
With her book The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer shares methods that are important for a community to thrive. Communities can thrive when neighbors gather together to create unity, support one another and create lasting relationships. The book travels through topics of nature, gardening, economy, values and love.
Karla Seijas, Graduate Student Researcher at UC Merced’s Center for the Humanities, explores this year’s Common Read selection, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Different types of gift economies are discussed in the book. The earth provides an abundance of natural gifts and in our own communities, we regularly participate in gift economies. Neighbors exchanging fruit is an example of this that Kimmerer provides. Instead of buying fruit at the grocery store for a dessert, one neighbor can bake a blueberry pie with the gift of blueberries they receive from their neighbor. The pie is more than food or a simple dessert. It is a gift that has meaning. It is tied to a relationship and is made with intention and love. The ingredients used are from the earth and have more value than if they were purchased from a store. Such gift economies can generate happiness and a sense of comfort that is priceless.
Kimmerer discusses the web of mutual relationships that exists to ensure that everyone in our communities is supported. I have witnessed similar webs of existence in my community through little free libraries, food sharing sites, community cleanups and free fitness groups. People of all ages can participate. There are many such examples of neighbors helping neighbors in communities across our world.
The Serviceberry is a straight-forward, relatable read that keeps the reader engaged with each turn of the page. This book allows for a deep reflection on our own communities. It will encourage you to evaluate what exists in your community and analyze areas that need more involvement to ensure our communities are thriving. Not only does Kimmerer provide examples of what works but she allows for one to imagine the potential of what could be.
by Karla Seijas, Graduate Student Researcher, “Our Interwoven Futures” Mellon Foundation Grant, UC Merced
The inaugural Merced LitFest held on September 14th was an experience where words carried us on a journey through themes of music, adventure, migration, and a sense of belonging. Four separate locations throughout downtown Merced were populated with individuals who listened to fifty authors of different genres, voices and talents. The rotation of themes and readings complimented each other.
One theme that emerged in nearly every reading was the complex, multifaceted idea of “home.” Whether it was a woman reflecting on the journey of her migrant farmworker family or a mother speaking on the sacrifices made for her children, the stories echoed a shared experience of longing, loss, and discovery. These narratives held a deep sense of rootedness in Central Valley life, where the challenges of immigration, family, and cultural identity are interwoven with the land itself.
The session “Storying Music in the Cali Central Valley” featured music: jarocho fandango played by Julissa Ruiz Ramirez, Cueponcaxochitl Moreno Sandoval, Gregorio Rocha-Tabera & Jennifer Campos Lopez
A unique part of the festival was how each speaker found a rhythm that was uniquely theirs, yet still connected to the others. Helen Sandoval, who was born and raised in the Central Valley, shared a piece about growing up between cultures “ni de aquí, ni de allá” (not from here, nor there). She spoke of friendships, heartbreaks, and finding her own identity, her words reminded us that belonging is not always easy, but it is always worth the search.
Rebecca Antoine, whose work focused on relationships and the definition of home, captured the tension and tenderness of love with her slow, careful cadence. She described the simple act of two people driving on an adventure to live in a new place, Merced. This allowed for reflection of my own connections, to people and to places.
As the festival came to a close, the sounds of soft guitars and song known as Jarocho told a story of immigration, migration, and the start of a new home. Jarocho has been a way for individuals to feel empowered through music.
The Merced LitFest was more than just a celebration of words. It was a reminder of how stories connect us—how they create spaces where we can explore themes of migration, motherhood, and belonging. The rhythms of each reader, from the soft strum of a guitar to the different sounds of voice, mirrored the ebb and flow of life in the Central Valley. These sounds, these words, are the beats of our collective story, guiding us toward understanding and belonging.
Ileisha Sanders and her two daughters shared their creative piece on family, home and lineage during the themed session, Land Ho! Tierra a la Vista.
Fredy Chikangana generously gave me his original manuscripts of nineteen poems written in Quechua, some of which were recently on display at the UC Merced Library, together with more that I share here, accompanied by their Spanish version and my own or other English translations. While some of the poems are about the 2021 social outbreak in Colombia, others are about different topics. I was glad to find among them a few of his iconic poems such as “Quechua es mi corazón” (Quechua is my Heart) and “Espíritu de pájaro” (Bird Spirit).
Figure 1: Photo of the manuscript of the poem “Chunkay chunkayta,” from the author’s personal file
This is the original manuscript of
the poem “Chunkay chunkayta” (Repeating Itself), written in Quechua Runa Shimi
language. However, the words “(repitiéndose),”
and “presidentes” are written in Spanish. In the first line, we can read
“(repitiéndose),” in parentheses, which is the Spanish translation of the title
“Chunkay chunkayta.” The use of the word “presidente” is probably because it
does not have an equivalent in Quechua Runa Shimi language, as there is no such
a figure in their culture. Some of the most common words to refer to a Quechua
chief or chief communal authority are “kuraka” and “Pushak,” but they are not
exactly equivalent to a Western president.
In “Chunkay chunkayta,” Chikangana establishes a genealogy of current power in Abya Yala (today known in Spanish as Las Américas) to show us that the invading civilization and its power have been repeating and adapting to the changes of the times, but without losing its true essence of domination in order to maintain its privileges.
The poem is unpublished, so there is no printed version in Spanish. With the author’s permission, I transcribe here the version that he read in Spanish at the Poesía en Resistencia event on May 28, 2021, followed by my own translation.
Chikangana initially writes his poems in Quechua or Spanish, to later translate them into the other languages (Spanish or Quechua). Other times, he writes and translates at the same time, or writes in both languages simultaneously, implying that each version of the poem is an original creation, rather than a translation. This manuscript suggests that the poet translates, line by line, the poem into Quechua after it was originally laid out and written in Spanish in 1990.
This calligram expresses the feeling of emptiness experienced by the lyrical voice, the original peoples of Abya Yala, and all colonized subjects. The poem symbolizes the rupture of a world’s harmony due to the colonial experience.
Figure 5: Photo of the poem “Del Vacío”
Chikangana, Fredy. “Del vacío.” Samay Pisccok/Espiritu de pajaro, pozo del sueño. Ministerio de Cultura, Colombia, 2010, p. 65.
In this original manuscript, the poem appears written in Quechua. However, the title “Espíritu de pájaro” and the penultimate line, “en pozos del ensueño,” are written in Spanish. This suggests not just a blend of words and grammar from two languages but a writing produced in a space where one feels, thinks, and writes in a kind of Spanchua (following the idea of Spanglish). The last line, in parentheses, seems to be the translation to Quechua Runa Shimi of the verse “en pozos del ensueño.” The author, in his own voice and that of his ancestors, sings joyous songs to the Pacha Mama (Mother Earth). He aspires with them to move the human heart for his community to preserve its Quechua roots while moving in a border space, to preserve the Andean spirit of the condor, and together weave a new era, an intercultural era.
Figure 8: Photo of the poem “Espíritu de pájaro”
Chikangana, Fredy. “Espíritu del pájaro.” Samay Pisccok/Espíritu de pájaro, pozo del sueño. Ministerio de Cultura, Colombia, 2010, p. 19.
On
this original manuscript, the poem appears written simultaneously in Quechua
and Spanish. Each verse in Quechua is followed by its equivalent in Spanish.
This technique appears in several of the poems in this collection.
“Shimi machupay” evokes the proverbial voices of the elders and ancestors, the local knowledge that is based on the wisdom of nature and of physical and spiritual living beings. The lyrical voice embraces mystery, opens hearts to listen to what Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) has to teach us, her advice, and her guidance for life.
Figure 11: Photo of the poem “Palabra de abuelo”
Chikangana, Fredy. “Palabra de abuelo.” Samay Pisccok/Espiritu de pajaro, pozo del sueño. Ministerio de Cultura, Colombia, 2010, p. 51.
Figure 12: Photo of the poem “A Word from Grandfather”
Figure 13: Photo of the manuscript of the poem “Takina,” from the author’s personal file
This is the manuscript of a poem written in Quechua, without any translation. However, the Spanish version appears on the book Samay Pisccok Pponccopi Mushcoypa / Espíritu de pájaro en pozos del ensueño (61). “Takina” is a poem built on a double staircase of images that descend from the left and from the right towards their center, to meet in “a poem.” Both staircases of images relate the woman to a poetic act. As a mother weaver of the community and as a woman in the private sphere.
Figure 14: Photo of the poem “Poema”
Chikangana, Fredy. “Poema.” Samay Pisccok/Espiritu de pajaro, pozo del sueño. Ministerio de Cultura, Colombia, 2010, p. 61.
This poem gives us images of the Yanacona, a sensory people (“nose”, “mouth”, “eyes”, “ears”), who produce thought, knowledge, and wisdom in their communication with sacred nature (“tobacco and koka”). The harmony of their world was shaken by the invasion of Abya Yala and, in particular, by the invasion of the Andean worldview due to violence (“strangers”, “blood”, “death”) and the forced migration to the Western world. However, they retain their true roots.
Figure 17: Photo of the poem “Raíces”
Chikangana, Fredy. “Raíces.” Samay Pisccok/Espiritu de pajaro, pozo del sueño. Ministerio de Cultura, Colombia, 2010, p. 63.
by Mabel Orjuela-Bowser, Ph.D. Candidate in Interdisciplinary Humanities, UC Merced
Exhibit: To Feel, Think, and Write in Quechua
This past summer, I met with Fredy Chikangana, one of the
most visible indigenous poets in Colombia. In an email exchange in 2021,
Chikangana had promised to send me the original manuscripts of a series of
poems written in Quechua, at the peak of the 2021 protests in Colombia. Our
meeting allowed me to receive some of them personally. Once I had the
manuscripts in my hands, I leafed through them trying to guess, from the
cross-outs and notes, the process of creating these poems, wondering about the
experience of writing them during the protests, and the reason why the author
initially wrote them in Quechua.
For context, I want to explain more
about who the poet in question is and what the protests in Colombia during 2021
were about. Then, in my next blog, with his permission, I will share several of
his original manuscripts, some of which are currently on display at the UC
Merced Library, through May 31, 2023. My exhibit The
Poetic Creation Process of the Oralitor Fredy Chikangana: To Feel, Think and
Write in Quechuahas two main goals:
1- To introduce the viewers to one of the most important contemporary indigenous poets from Colombia and Latin America. This is an invitation to learn about his trajectory as an indigenous leader and as an intellectual from the Yanakuna Mitmak community. Viewers also have the opportunity to learn about this culture from the Colombian Andes.
2- To show viewers original manuscripts of poems written in Quechua Runa Shimi, a native language from the Colombian Andes, as well as printed copies of these poems in Spanish. The visual appearance of the printed version tells a story in a hegemonic language, while the Quechua manuscripts show us the author’s creative process and the importance of his mother language. This shows the viewers the process of feeling, thinking, and writing in his community’s mother tongue, as well as an idea of how the author crafted the bilingual final product.
The Indigenous Poet
Exhibit: To Feel, Think, and Write in Quechua
Fredy Chikangana is a poet and oralitor from the Quechua Yanakuna Mitmak culture. The poet defines himself as an oralitor to the extent that his writing is carried out alongside his sources: the orality of the elders. Yanakuna, from their own cosmovision (worldview), means “people who serve each other in times of darkness.” This community is located mainly in the southeast of Cauca, Colombia. His name in the Yanacuna community is Wiñay Mallki, which means “root that remains in time.” His poems have been published and translated into Italian, French, English, Romanian, and German in national and international magazines and newspapers, including Etnografist (Sweden), Kontakt (Denmark), Poetry Internacional (Holland), Casa de Poesía Silva (Colombia), and Antología de literatura indígena de América (Chile). His poems are part of the Biblioteca básica de los pueblos indígenas de Colombia (Basic Library of the Indigenous Peoples of Colombia), several anthologies of Colombian poetry, anthologies of indigenous poetry of the Americas, and are the subject of multiple literary reviews and postgraduate theses and dissertations. He has published several books, such as Kentipay llattantutamanta / El colibrí de la noche desnuda (The Hummingbird of the Naked Night) and Samay Pisccok pponccopi muschcoypa/ Espíritu de pájaro en pozos del ensueño (Bird Spirit in Dream Wells). Chikangana is also co-author of Herederos del canto circular (Heirs of the Circular Song) and Voces de Abya Yala (Voices of Abya Yala). Currently, he is working on a book about sacred medicine. Chikangana has been recognized and awarded nationally and internationally with prizes such as the “Humanidad y palabra” (Humanity and Word) poetry award from Universidad Nacional de Colombia (1993) and the Nosside Prize for Multilingual Global Poetry held in Italy (2019).
The Social Outbreak in Colombia
The protests of April 2021 against tax
reform, with which the government of Iván Duque sought to raise taxes on the
middle class during the COVID-19 pandemic, became an unprecedented mobilization
in recent decades in Colombia. It was a true social outbreak
where different demands repressed for decades, which go beyond economic
demands, came together. In
addition to demanding a more supportive state to deal with the economic damage
caused by the pandemic and a reform of the police, the mothers of the
disappeared, the indigenous, Afro-descendants, people of different sexualities,
women, youth, the poor, peasants, and the unions were fighting for a different
country, for an organic democracy. This would be a country built from below by
the citizens, one that responds
to a new political ethics, which includes, among many others, the defense of
the environment and the development of peace. The indigenous communities
in Colombia, including the Yanacona people, participated and protected the
popular marches with their minga[1]
methodology (an Inca tradition of community work) and the Guardia Indígena[2]
(non-armed indigenous guard).
As a result of this social uprising, there was an explosion of cultural expressions demonstrating social discontent about repression, as well as proposals for the construction of a country where we all could belong, where there is social justice and basic rights. Music, humor, caricatures, banners, literature, and many other manifestations flourished, capturing the facts and supporting the resistance. In this context, Chikangana accompanied the processes of resistance through the word, with which he illuminates another future for the protesters of the First Line[3] and all the racialized nations that co-exist in Colombia. As part of a border subjectivity, Chikangana writes these poems in Quechua and Spanish, two of the languages spoken in this territory of cultural diversity, to establish bridges of horizontal communication and reject the superiority of Spanish, the hegemonic language. With them, he reconstructs the origin and course of the current violence, which daily kills the hope of a country full of biological, cultural, and epistemic diversity. He expresses the hope of the peoples who resist and invites the construction of an organic, participatory democracy, built from below, which communalizes power.
The author is a poet, witness, and chronicler of the facts. Narrating from a situation of danger, he joins the marches and visits the different sites of resistance. Chikangana writes to the rebels in the heat of a historical rupture, of a social explosion that involves a new methodology (minga methodology). His poems represent an act of ownership of the protests, solidarity, fraternity, and accompaniment to the protesters. There is no waiting time for balsamic post-conflict poems.
Why Does the Author Write in Quechua?
On May 28, 2021, Chikangana presented some of these poems at the Poesía en Resistencia,[4] an event organized by Revista Prometeo. There, he explains that he begins his reading in Quechua to “remember the memory of our language present in our America, our Abya Yala.”[5] He needs to have the mother tongue of his ancestors present in order to keep the memory of their culture alive. Chikangana writes in Quechua Runa Shimi, the ancestral language of his community, because his poetry, although cosmopolitan and transnational, is rooted in his Yanakuna Mitmak culture. Keeping in mind the memory of his mother tongue is at the heart of his creative process.
According to the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, ONIC, in the country “70 languages are spoken: Spanish and 69 mother tongues. Among them, 65 are indigenous languages, 2 Creole languages (Palenquero of San Basilio and that of the islands of San Andrés and Providencia – Creole), the Romaní or Romaníes of the Roma people – Gypsy and the Colombian sign language.”[6] The Colombian law 1381 of 2010, in its second article, recognizes that native languages “constitute an integral part of the intangible cultural heritage of the peoples who speak them, […] The plurality and variety of languages is an outstanding expression of the cultural and ethnic diversity of Colombia…”[7] However, the reality is that in Colombia, like in most of the countries of Latin America, the official history has been written from the position of an ethnocentric power, with a Eurocentric vision that excludes other ways of being within our nation. The discourse and social practice of exclusion, as Foucault would say, leaves the original peoples out of the national project, and the official history relegates them to a category inferior to “civilized” Colombia. Therefore, speaking and writing in Quechua or any other indigenous language is a political act, an act of resistance against the disappearance of a culture. It is an attempt to preserve its memory inside and outside the local indigenous community. Keeping the ancestral language alive preserves the world it names and describes. In the creative process of the author, the language linked to the territory guides the writing and it gives the Pachamama[8] a voice. The possession of a pre-Columbian language from the Andes gives authority to the Yanakona peoples as an original culture of Abya Yala. Quechua, as their mother tongue, provides cohesion and authority by connecting them with the Inca Empire. The use of Quechua avoids epistemic privileges and brings together the diversities that inhabit Colombia to establish a horizontal dialogue between them.
[1] Minga comes from the Quechua
word minka, which means collective
work. The minga is a process open to intercultural dialogue.
[3] The First Line is a protesters’
defense group created two years ago in the anti-government protests in
Colombia, against the government of Iván Duque. The main objective of the First
Line was to repel the attacks and violence by the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad
(Esmad).
[5]
Since 1977, the World Council of Indigenous Peoples agreed to use the
pre-Columbian term “Abya Yala”, with which the Kuna culture refers to
the territory that we know today as America. Abya Yala, in Kuna language, means
“land in its full maturity” or “land of vital blood”. https://www.revistas.una.ac.cr/index.php/tdna/article/view/9712
UC Merced UpstART and the Center for Humanities hosted LADAMA as the last free virtual concert of the year. UpstART director Dr. David Kaminsky kicked off the concert by introducing the band: LADAMA was formed by a group of four Latina musicians: Lara Klaus, Daniela Serna, Mafer Bandola, and Sara Lucas, after they had met while being part of a U.S. – based music residency program in 2014. Since then, LADAMA has composed and performed songs in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, drawing their musical inspiration from their home countries of Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and the United States. Combining traditional and contemporary music genres, LADAMA has shared its unique Latin Alternative sound at venues and festivals worldwide. The one-hour performance was shot in a private recording studio. Between songs, they incorporated “listening breaks” to give the educational context of things like the origins of the musical instruments they used.
The concert was immediately followed by a live-streamed Q&A hosted by UC Merced’s Assistant Professor of Music, Dr. Patricia Vergara. Vergara moderated audience questions with the band members, focusing on their musical and regional influences, creative processes, experiences touring, and the unique aspects of being Latina women musicians and educators. They also described how they use oral traditions and storytelling to educate young listeners on the instruments, sounds, and culture of the countries from which the band draws their inspiration. The band ended by sharing videos and lesson plans they had created in collaboration with Teach Rock as a resource for elementary school music educators wanting to teach about traditional forms of South American music and dance.
This concert will be shared on our “Critically Human” channel on UCTV in the near future. For more information about the band and a list of their upcoming tour dates, check out their Instagram @Ladamaproject and website link: https://www.ladamaproject.org.
Deputy University Librarian Donald Barclay gave our first and only in-person seminar talk of the spring 2022 semester on the 4th chapter of his most recent book, Disinformation: The Nature of Facts and Lies in the Post-Truth Era. This book followed his earlier book Fake News, Propaganda, and Plain Old Lies: How to Find Trustworthy Information in the Digital Age (2018), which looked at how to deal with and evaluate credible vs. non-credible information.
Disinformation focuses on why things like fake news exist and how we got to our current place in the information world. Mr. Barclay began by looking at how various scholars viewed advancements in technology as mixed blessings with economic, social, and political complications. Opinions were also divided on whether technology determines how society operates if culture determines the creation of technology itself, and how much people can resist these technological advancements in their daily lives.
Barclay’s talk then shifted to discussing the importance and impact of the invention of moveable type on European literacy and cognition because of printing accessibility. Citing communications scholars such as Marshall McLuhan, Barclay outlined historical stages of oral, scribal, print, and electronic communication and how printing changed how knowledge from being communicated orally to the listener to become an act of reading in private. From there, printing and later electronic communication influenced nationalism, individualism, consumerism, and more.
Barclay then described how communication through popular social media platforms (i.e., Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitch) fit into Sauerberg’s Gutenberg Parenthesis: “oral culture (written/print culture) secondary orality.” The Gutenberg Parenthesis is a chronological representation of the dominant mode of receiving information. Societal communication was first mainly oral then later people recieved much of their information through written and printed forms (books, newspapers, etc.). Now we are moving away from printed information into “secondary orality” where literate people gain much of their information from hearing others speak on the radio, television, and internet. Using the U.S.’s 45th President, Donald Trump, as an example, Barclay showed how Trump gained fame through forms of secondary orality, like his television show “The Apprentice” and later political momentum through Twitter.
Barclay also addressed the performativity of individuals of influence on these platforms, present-day political polarization, and the denial of science. In this era of secondary orality, Barclay described the focus is not on which is “right,” but instead, the individual decides on the facts they like best that appeal to their biases. He ended his talk by summarizing how we must stay aware of technology’s unique control and potentially divisive effect on us.
Anzaldúing It podcast hosts and creators Dr. Angélica Becerra (she/her/hers/ella) and Dr. Jack Cáraves (he/him/they/them/el) joined us virtually to share their thoughts on creating digital sonic spaces. Dr. Becerra is a queer, 1st generation Mexican American, and L.A. public school system alum. Aside from being a queer immigrant artist and activist, she is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Technology & Culture at Washington State University in Pullman. The podcast co-host and producer, Dr. Cáraves, is a 2nd generation Mexican American who identifies as a trans-masculine and queer Chicanx/Latinx. He is currently an Assistant Professor at San Jose State University who conducts qualitative research focusing on experiences of transgender Latinxs in the U.S. and is doing a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign this year. Dr. Becerra and Dr. Cáraves met in 2012 during their Ph.D. program in Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA and began Anzaldúing It in 2016.
original artwork by Angélica Becerra
Anzaldúing It is a Queer Latinx podcast that frequently touches on issues like navigating academia, relationships and mental health, and astrology and healing. The podcast’s name was inspired by the creators’ early exposure and personal and academic admiration for queer Chicana writer and scholar Gloria Anzaldúa. “Anzaldúing It” became a reference for code-switching and unapologetically moving between spaces, languages, and identities as queer Chicanxs.
As of April 2022, Anzaldúing It has 70 total episodes with almost 510, 000 plays from the U.S., Latin America, and even Europe, appealing to those seeking a sonic space for often stigmatized conversations about mental health and survival in relation to issues like racism, sexism, homophobia, and the ivory tower of academia. Dr. Becerra and Dr. Cáraves continued by describing various Chicana feminist influences, theorizing the need for the creation of a sonic counterspace, and using pláticas (talks/conversations) as a method of knowledge production and exchange. They ended their talk by addressing why the Anzaldúing It sonic archive must be free to combat elitist practices by maintaining the accessibility of this specific form of knowledge production.
The talk was followed by a Q&A where the speakers addressed questions about technical difficulties with podcast production and scheduling conflicts. They also discussed their worries about perfectionism and imposter syndrome when starting the podcast, dealing with public-ness and hypervisibility, and the need to take breaks from podcasting during significant life shifts/events (graduating with a Ph.D., starting tenure track jobs, and living and surviving in the pandemic).
Sixth-year Interdisciplinary Humanities Ph.D. Candidate Alyson Caine led one of our spring 2022 humanities seminars discussing her archaeological work on fauna and human remains found at a shellmound site, which is a mound of earth and organic materials made by Indigenous people over hundreds or thousands of years, in Alameda, California. This project was made possible through funding from the UC Humanities Consortium Collaborative Research Grant and Caine worked under the supervision of UC Merced Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Christina Torres-Rouff. The pair collaborated with UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz scholars and the Confederated Villages of Lisjan.
Caine described the process of working with an archaeological firm, Archaeological/Historical Consultants Inc., and within the Native American Heritage Commission’s burial regulations when performing a rescue excavation at the Alameda Marina. She also emphasized the importance of the wishes of the Indigenous community, which had opposed the planned construction at the site and worked with the archaeological firm toward the goals of identifying the most likely descendants and the protection, proper storage, and reburial of material culture as well as the 187 individuals’ skeletal remains recovered.
Caine ended by discussing the value of this research opportunity in collaborating with other faculty across the UC to gain experience in various archaeological methodologies and discussed some of the struggles of working during the pandemic. Methodologies used included osteological, isotopic, and aDNA analyses, which can assess sex, familial relationships, diet, migration patterns, disease pathogens, and cultural practices of an individual. Beyond the individuals’ health profiles, the team was also able to gain insight into burial practices, material culture, and wealth distribution through the excavation with various scholars still conducting research on cultural patterns at this site.
