Día de los Muertos – Origins

Photo credit: CLUES St. Paul

Description

Join us this Sunday, October 24, for the Community Conversation: Origins of Dia de los Muertos and Appropriation/Appreciation facilitated by professor, poet, and artist, Gabriela Spears-Rico.
 

About the facilitator

Dr. Gabriela Spears-Rico is a cultural anthropologist and an Assistant Professor of Chicano Latino Studies with a joint appointment in American Indian Studies. A Pirinda-P’urhepecha scholar, cultural worker and poet, her work examines manifestations of consumption and cultural appropriation in touristic transactions between mestizos and Indigenous people in Mexico.

She is currently working on Mestiza/o Melancholia and the Legacy of Rape and Conquest in Michoacán, a book that explores how gendered violence has framed the racialization of Indigenous people and the manufacturing of mestizaje in Mexico.

Her poetry has been published in Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas (University of Arizona Press, 2011), Love Rise Up: poems of social justice, protest, and hope (Benu Press, 2012) and will also be in the forthcoming Critical Latinx Indigeneities anthology.
Her creative work has been featured at Intermedia Arts, the Loft Literary Center, the Ordway Theater, and the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. Dr. Spears-Rico is a 2021-2023 McKnight Land-Grant Professor.

Learn more about Gabriela at:
www.cla.umn.edu/about/directory/profile/spearsrg

Co-Directors’ Note: It has been brought to our attention by trusted community leaders that this conversation is important to have and expand to involve multiple voices and perspectives. So we moved the conversation from Oct 17 to Oct 24 and invited Prof. Spears-Rico. We invite you to join us!