March 7, 2019 | UHCL Staff
University of Houston-Clear Lake’s Latino/a and Latin American Studies program is sponsoring presentations by two scholars who will address intergenerational trauma within Latinx communities.
Christopher Carmona, assistant professor of creative writing and Mexican American studies at University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, will speak about intergenerational trauma and memory on Tuesday, March 19 at 11 a.m., in the Forest Room of the Bayou Building at UH-Clear Lake. Valerie Jackson, founder of Initiatives for Healthy Communities and Monarch Family Services will speak about family separation policies at the U.S./Mexico border and the resulting overrepresentation of Latinx children in the foster care system. Jackson’s talk is scheduled for Thursday, March 21 at 6 p.m., also in the Forest Room.
Desdamona Rios, associate professor of social psychology and director of LLAS said, “Dr. Carmona is a prominent figure in the movement to include Mexican American studies at all educational levels. His most recent project spotlights intergenerational trauma passed down through oral stories and how he was able to create a superhero story that not only challenges the narrative of American exceptionalism, but also questions how we think about memory and reality.”
Jackson, who received her master’s in psychology from UHCL, is founder of Monarch Family Services, a nonprofit organization dedicated to foster care and adoption, and particularly kinship adoption. “Dr. Jackson assumed it was African-American boys who are aging out of the foster care system in the greatest numbers, but it turns out it is Latino boys,” Rios said. “She wants to call attention to family separation policies and how they contribute to intergenerational trauma by sending Latino children into the foster care system where they are not being reunified with their families, nor are they being adopted by others.”
Rios said a goal of this lecture series is to expose students to social issues within the Latinx community. “One of our missions in the Latina/o and Latin American Studies minor program is to shed light on social issues faced by the Latinx community, and offer varied examples of how to address these issues,” she said. “As with our speakers, one is a creative writer and one is in social work. There are different ways to address these problems, and we can each contribute to the solution.”
For more information about the Latina/o and Latin American Studies minor, visit www.uhcl.edu/academics/degrees/latin-american-studies-minor.
