Participants

Bios of Panelists

Dr. Jaime Bofill Calero

Dr. Jaime Bofill Calero received his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology and Music Theory from the University of Arizona. Dr. Bofill currently serves as Assistant Professor at the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico, where he also directs the Instituto de Investigación Musical de Puerto Rico y del Caribe and the academic journal Musiké. His interdisciplinary research is now focused on creating awareness on the relationships between music, sound, and the environment. This past April 2018, Bofill organized “Conscious Soundscapes: Music, Art & Climate Change after Hurricane María”, a symposium which brought together scholars, artists, and environmentalists from different parts of the globe to discuss the pressing issues surrounding climate change. He is currently producing the film "Bajando por la montaña: Ecology of Colombian Gaita Music".

Dr. Laura Bravo

Laura Bravo holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She has been a researcher at Tate Britain, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, La Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona. From 2012 to 2016, she served as Chair of the Art History Program at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, where she is also a tenured professor. She is also coordinator for faculty initiatives at iINAS, an undergraduate research program at the Office of the Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, at the UPR

Bravo has curated more than fifteen exhibitions in museums and art galleries in Puerto Rico and Spain, including Ida y Vuelta [Departures and Arrivals]: Migration Experiences in Puerto Rican Contemporary Art (Museum of History, Anthropology and Art, at the University of Puerto Rico, 2017), and Parallel Universes: Photographic Transvergences between Spain and Puerto Rico (University of Salamanca and University of Puerto Rico, 2013-2014), as well as many others in independent spaces.

Bravo is the author of Ficciones certificadas: invención y apariencia en la creación fotográfica (1975-2000) [Certified Fictions: Invention and Appearance in Photographic Creation] (2006), and she is coeditor of Counterstreaming: Measuring the Impact of Cultural Remittances, a special issue of El Centro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College (CUNY, 2016), and Geopolitics of Difference: Discussions on Gender and Migration in Contemporary Visual Culture, a special issue of Art and Identity Politics Journal (University of Murcia, 2018). She has coauthored more than twenty books on art history and visual culture, and long exhibition catalogues. She is founder of the online art journal Visión Doble, where she has also served as editor-in-chief since the journal’s inception in 2013. Bravo has presented her research in more than forty conferences, congresses and symposia, in institutions such as the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid); Menéndez Pelayo International University, Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, the University of Castilla La Mancha, the University of Amsterdam, the Kunsthistorisches Institut of Florence, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, and La Casa de la Cultura in Havana. As part of the VISAPUR program at the Program of Latin American Studies in the summer 2018, Laura Bravo researched on migration and contemporary art in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, studying other lines of inquiry in a broader context. 

Kālewa Correa

Kālewa Correa serves as the curator Hawai’i and the Pacific with the Smithsonian Institution’s Asian Pacific American Center. He is a graduate of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa Kamakakūʻokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies with a focus on Hawaiian traditional society and politics. Additionally, he also holds advanced degrees in the Information Science and Education technology disciplines. His primary program as curator of Hawai’i and the Pacific is on the Digital Storytelling Initiative entitled Our Stories. The Our Stories initiative is in place to present and elevate the voices of Pacific Islanders on the national and international stage through mixed media formats.

Dr. Arlene Davila

Arlene Davila (born in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico) has contributed to the field of Latino/a Studies as an author and professor. She has written five books and many articles on issues ranging from depictions of public images of Latinos, marketing to Latinos, cultural politics in Puerto Rico, and Latinization of the United States. Her research focuses on race and ethnicity, media studies, and Puerto Rican national identities. She is a professor at New York University.

Dr. Theodore S. Gonzalves

Theodore S. Gonzalves is a scholar of comparative cultural studies who has taught in the United States (California, Hawaiʻi, and Maryland), Spain, and the Philippines. His research interests include Asian American cultural studies, Filipino/American histories and cultures, and the relationship between social movements and cultural expressions. Professor Gonzalves is associate professor and a former chair of the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he is also an affiliate faculty member in the Asian Studies program and the Language, Literacy, and Culture doctoral program.

Dr. Carlos Hernández-Falco

Carlos Hernández-Falco is the founder and executive director of a Latino 501 (c) (3) non-profit arts organization known as the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance (PRAA) founded in 1996. Presently, Carlos directs all cultural programming, office operations, fundraising, board development and volunteer recruitment for the PRAA. In 2012, he established a new expanded Puerto Rican/Latino cultural center in the Logan Square/Avondale community of Chicago. The center will continue to focus on promoting its nationally recognized Cuatro and the Latin Music Project programs, among others. Under Carlos’ leadership the PRAA has established a reputation of extending its regional arts program outreach and collaboration with other ethnic communities such as the Columbian, Venezuelan, Dominican Republic, Cuban and Mexican communities.

Dr. Ramona Hernández

Dr. Ramona Hernández is the Director of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute and is Professor of Sociology, both at the City College of New York. She is also on the faculty of the Sociology Department of the Graduate Center at CUNY. Renowned sociologist and public intellectual in the United States, Dr. Hernández has published pioneering texts in the areas of Dominican studies.  Under her leadership, the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute has evolved into a bona fide leading research institute with a national and international reputation with an active research agenda that covers both historical and contemporary issues pertaining to Dominicans and those who claim Dominican ancestry. 

Dr. Frances Negrón-Muntaner

Frances Negrón-Muntaner is an award-winning Puerto Rican filmmaker, writer, and scholar and professor at Columbia University in New York City where she is also the founding curator of the Latino Arts and Activism Archive. Among her books and publications are: Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture (CHOICE Award, 2004), The Latino Media Gap (2014), and Sovereign Acts: Contesting Colonialism in Native Nations and Latinx America (2017). Her most recent films include Small City, Big Change (2013), War for Guam (2015) and Life Outside (2016). For her work as a scholar and filmmaker, Negrón-Muntaner has received Ford, Truman, Rockefeller, and Pew fellowships. In 2008, the United Nations' Rapid Response Media Mechanism recognized her as a global expert in the areas of mass media and Latin/o American studies; She is also recipient of the Lenfest Award, one of Columbia University's most prestigious recognitions for excellence in teaching and scholarship (2012) and an inaugural OZY Educator Award (2017).  Negrón-Muntaner served as director of Columbia’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race from 2009-2016. 

Dr. E. Carmen Ramos

E. Carmen Ramos is the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s deputy chief curator and curator of Latino art; she joined the museum’s staff in 2010. Since then, she has dramatically expanded the museum’s pioneering collection of Latino art with an eye toward capturing the broad aesthetic and regional range of the field. Her research interests include modern and contemporary Latino, Latin American and African American art. Currently, she is organizing “Tamayo: The New York Years” (2017), the first exhibition to explore the influences between this major Mexican modernist and the American art world. She also is writing a monograph about Freddy Rodríguez, part of the A Ver: Revisioning Art History book series published by UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center. Before joining the museum’s staff, Ramos was an assistant curator for cultural engagement at The Newark Museum and an independent curator. She has curated exhibitions such as “The Caribbean Abroad: Contemporary Artists and Latino Migration” (2003), which featured the work of Nicolas Dumit Estevez, Scherezade Garcia, Miguel Luciano and Juana Valdes, as well as projects with Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Freddy Rodríguez, Paul Henry Ramirez and Chakaia Booker, among others. Ramos organized the exhibitions “Down These Mean Streets: Community and Place in Urban Photography” (2017) and “Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art” (2013), which recently completed a multi-city U.S. tour. The accompanying catalogue received a 2014 co-first prize Award for Excellence by the Association of Art Museum Curators.

Dr. Efren Rivera Ramos

Dr. Efrén Rivera is a Professor of Law at the Law School of the Universidad de Puerto Rico.  Dr. Rivera earned his J.D. at the Law School of UPR, his LLM (Master’s in Law) from Harvard University, and his doctorate in law and social theory from the University of London. During his career, Dr. Rivera has been the Dean of the Law School of UPR, the Director of the Haitian Legal Defense Project, Director of several regional offices and programs of the Legal Services Corporation of Puerto Rico, has served as the President of the Board of Directors for the Puerto Rican Institute of Civil Rights and currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Investigative Journalism of Puerto Rico. In 2006, Dr. Rivera was a recipient of the prestigious Deborah Rhode´s Award for Pro Bono and Public Service by the American Association of Law Schools.  Dr. Rivera has extensive publications on legal theory, constitutional law, identity and culture. Two of his notable publications include, The Legal Construction of Identity, and American Colonialism in Puerto Rico: The Judicial and Social Legacy. Dr. Rivera is recognized as an international legal scholar and has lectured in Puerto Rico, the US, Europe, and Latin America. He has also been a visiting professor at Yale University, the University of Ottawa and the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.

Dr. Maya Santos Febres

Dr. Mayra Santos Febres is a renowned author and poet, and currently a professor of Hispanic Studies and Literature at the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus. Her publications and research focus on the topics of the Puerto Rican diaspora, gender, women studies, and sexuality.  She has presented her works at numerous national international forums and her literary works have been translated into multiple languages.  Among her notable works are:  Pez de Vidrio, Sirena Selena, Our Lady of the Night, Tercer Mundo, and Boat People. Dr. Santos earned her PhD from Cornell University and served as a visiting professor at Harvard University and Cornell University.  She has won such prestigious awards such as, the Guggenheim Fellow for the Humanities, the Juan Rulfo Award, and the Letras de Oro.  Dr. Santos is also currently the Executive Director of the Festival de Palabras which is held annually in Puerto Rico and New York.

Dr. Hadiya Sewer

Hadiya Sewer is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University. Dr. Sewer earned her  B.A. in Sociology from Spelman College where she was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow. Sewer has a Masters and a Ph.D. in Africana Studies from Brown University. Her research blends ethnography and phenomenology to examine the political philosophies that facilitate contemporary colonial subjection in the U.S. Virgin Islands. As one of the seventeen remaining non-self- governing territories in the world, this American colony lacks an ostensible independence movement. Dr. Sewer contributes to theories on decolonization in the Caribbean and discourses on American racism by posing a set of critical questions about race, empire, biopower, governmentality, environmental precarity, the human, and the construction of contemporary colonial subjectivities in St. John, USVI. Sewer’s work has appeared in Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters. She is the co-founder and President of StJanCo: the St Jan Heritage Collective, a nonprofit startup dedicated to decolonization, land rights, and the preservation of the history, identity, and culture of the people of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Dr. Sewer is also a founding member of the VI Studies Collective (VISCO). 

Dr. Arlene Torres

Dr. Arlene Torres is the Director of the Chancellor’s Latino Faculty Initiative in Academic Affairs at the City University of New York, a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Africana and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies at Hunter College, and Vice-President and past President of the Puerto Rican Studies Association. Torres received her Ph.D. and master’s degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a cultural anthropologist with expertise in Caribbean, Latina/Latino, and Latin American Studies.  Dr. Torres has conducted research in the Anglophone and Hispanic Caribbean and in the United States. Her scholarly interests include: African Diaspora; Puerto Rican and Latina/Latino Diaspora; Theories of Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Nationalism; Ideology and Praxis; Migration and Transnationalism; Representation; and Class and Economic Development.

Prof. Juan Valdez Durán

Prof. Valdez is a specialist in bilingual education and educational technology, with 30 years of experience in educational leadership. He is currently the Director of Professional Training Systems., the Academic Director of Saint Lawrence Bilingual School and he is also the Executive Director of Dominican Republic TESOL. Prof. Valdez is the proponent of the Bilingual Republic Project for the Dominican Republic.

Dr. Carlos Vargas-Ramos

Carlos Vargas-Ramos is a Research Associate at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (Hunter College-CUNY), where he works on the impact of migration on Puerto Rican political behavior, political attitudes and orientations, as well as on issues of racial identity.  A political scientist by training, Dr. Vargas-Ramos is co-editor, along with Edwin Meléndez, of Puerto Ricans at the Dawn of the New Millennium published by the Center for Puerto Rican Studies in 2014. He also co-edited with Anthony Stevens-Arroyo, Blessing La Política: The Latino Religious Experience and Political Engagement in the United States published by Praeger in 2012. His newest work —Race, Front and Center: Perspectives on Race among Puerto Ricans (2017)— a reader on the subject of race, based on a selection of articles in the holdings of Centro: The Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, is available from the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. Dr. Vargas-Ramos joined CENTRO as a researcher in public policy in 2001, charged with initiating CENTRO’s policy papers and reports series. As coordinator of CENTRO’s Data Center, Carlos has co-edited the recently published State of Puerto Ricans, 2017 and Almanac of Puerto Ricans in the United States, 2016.