Athens, Ga. – Hispanic Heritage Month will be celebrated in Athens and on the University of Georgia campus. The celebration kicks off with a Sept. 18 open house at the University of Georgia’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute, 290 South Hull St. from 3 p.m. until 6 p.m.
Co-sponsored by the UGA Romance languages department’s Brazilian Portuguese program, the open house will feature tango music performed by visiting Argentinean bandoneon player David Alsina (www.davidalsina.com) and UGA undergraduate bass player Laura Camacho. Traditional Latin food will be served. Brazilian Capoeira performances also will be featured.
Hispanic Heritage Month is a nationally recognized celebration that began Sept. 15 and will run until Oct. 15. The celebration, which coincides with independence celebrations of eight Latin American countries, honors the contributions of Hispanic Americans in the United States while highlighting the diverse heritage and culture of Latin America.
Hispanic Heritage Month 2009 posters will be available at the event and all activities can be found on the LACSI website at www.lacsi.uga.edu.
Throughout the month-long celebration, dramatic performances, films, lectures and fiestas will take place at UGA and throughout the community. Unless otherwise noted, all events are free and open to the public:
Ongoing
Exhibition: Surrealist Tropical Pop. Paintings and mixed media works by Stanley Bermudez of Athens and Carlos Solis of Kennesaw, will be on display at the Lyndon House Arts Center, 293 Hoyt St. until Oct. 31. Both artists are originally from Venezuela and have lived in the U.S. over two decades.
Friday, Sept. 18
Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute Open House: LACSI celebrates the start of Hispanic Heritage Month 2009 with live music and Latin food from 3 p.m. until 6 p.m. at 290 South Hull St.
Saturday, Sept. 19
Noche Latina: In search of El Dorado. The Hispanic Student Association showcases Hispanic culture with live artistic performances and Latin American music and food. This Franklin College Blue Card Event will be held from 5:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. in the Grand Hall of the Tate Student Center. Tickets are $10 or $7 for students. An after party will be held at Farm 255 in downtown Athens from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Friday, Sept. 25
Geography Colloquium: Jeffrey Jones, GIS Laboratory, CATIE Tropical Research Center, Costa Rica, will speak on “Mountain Aquifers in the Central American Tropics: Climate, Hydrology and Irrigation in El Salvador” at 3:30 p.m. in Room 200C of the Geography Building.
Monday, Oct. 5
Roundtable Discussion: “Ethnicity, Identity and Race in Latin America and the Caribbean,” will be discussed by Jeffery Lesser, Emory University; Nicolas Lucero, UGA Romance languages department; Susan Thomas, UGA music department and women’s studies; and Simon Aderibigbe, UGA religion department at 12:20 p.m. in 268 Miller Learning Center. The event is sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and LACSI.
Monday, Oct. 5
Lecture: Jeffery Lesser, Emory University, will speak on “Ethnic Names, National Names: Japanese-Brazilian Militants in Brazil, 1960-1980” at 4 p.m. in 350 Miller Learning Center. The event is sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and LACSI.
Monday, Oct. 5
Piano Recital: Pianist and musicologist José Ruiz Elcoro will give a concert at 8 p.m. in Ramsey Hall of the Performing Arts Center. The event is sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts.
Tuesday, Oct. 6
Orgullo Hispano: Students, faculty, staff and community members can discuss the successful journeys of highly honored Latino men and women at8 p.m. in 248 of the Miller Learning Center. ThisBlue Card Event sponsored by the Hispanic Student Association.
Wednesday, Oct. 7
Balseros (2002). This documentary film tells the story of seven rafters or balseros who left Cuba in 1994 and resettled in different locations across the United States through the help of Catholic Charities. While they are united as Cuban immigrants, their experiences in America are quite diverse. Filmed over a period of seven years, the film charts the rafters’ large-scale struggles, small-scale victories and everything in between. The film will be shown at 7 p.m. in 150 Miller Learning Center. Miguel Vicente, director of library services at the Commerce Public Library, will lead the discussion. The event is part of the LACSI and Georgia Museum of Art Hispanic Heritage Month Film Series.
Thursday, Oct. 8
Lecture: Graciela Montaldo, professor and director of graduate studies in the department of Spanish and Portuguese at Columbia University, gives a lecture in Spanish on “Aesthetics and Politics in Latin America, 2009” at 5 p.m. in 214 Miller Learning Center. The event is sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts.
Wednesday, Oct. 14
Film: Favela Rising (2006). This documentary film tells the story of Anderson Sà, a former drug trafficker who tries to reinvigorate life in the favela, a squatter’s community in Rio de Janeiro. Sà uses dance, hip-hop and street music to celebrate life as an alternative to violence, drugs and corruption, in the process creating the Afro-Reggae movement. The film will be shown at 7 p.m in 150 Miller Learning Center. Susan Quinlan, associate professor of Portuguese in the Romance languages department, will lead the discussion. The event is part of the LACSI and Georgia Museum of Art Hispanic Heritage Month Film Series.
Thursday, Oct. 15
Voces Unidas: Students, professors and politicians raise their voices to speak out about politics and legislation that directly affects Georgia, national, and global Latino communities on this day dedicated to celebrating the National Day for Latino Politics. From 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. there will be a table in the Tate Student Center Plaza. The event is sponsored by the Hispanic Student Association.
Wednesday, Oct. 21
Film:Chac: Dios de la Lluvia/Chac: The Rain God (1974). In this film, a village plagued by a withering drought familiarizes itself with its cultural roots through the help of a magical seer who lives in the mountains bordering their village. The mysterious man leads twelve men from the village on foot in a ritualistic quest for rain. As a result, inexplicable events begin to occur in the village. The film will be shown at 7 p.m. in 150 Miller Learning Center. Brent Berlin, emeritus professor of anthropology and past director of LACSI, will lead the discussion. The event is part of the LACSI and Georgia Museum of Art Hispanic Heritage Month Film Series.
Friday, Oct. 23
Lecture: Maria Bermudez, of the department of child and family development, will lecture on “Lessons Learned from Mexican American Mothers Parenting Alone” at 12:20 p.m. in 214 Miller Learning Center. The event is part of the Institute of Women’s Studies’ Friday Speaker Series,
Tuesday, Oct. 27
An Evening with Sylvia Mendez: Mendez shares her insights on Mendez vs. Westminster, 1947, her family’s fight to give all children access to education, at 7 p.m. in 101 Miller Learning Center. The case ended segregation in California schools, setting a precedent for Brown vs. Board of Education seven years later. Refreshments will be served. The event is Franklin College Blue Card Event. For more information on Mendez visit http://sylviamendezinthemendezvswestminster.com/.
Wednesday, Oct. 28
Film: A Dios Momo/Goodbye Momo (2006). Set against the backdrop of the riotous Uruguayan carnival, this magic-realist film tells the story of a young newspaper boy, Obdulio, who learns to read and write from an unlikely mentor, the night guard of the newspaper’s headquarters. The film will be shown at 7 p.m. in 150 Miller Learning Center. Armando Tisastro will lead the discussion. The event is part of the LACSI and Georgia Museum of Art Hispanic Heritage Month Film Series.
Friday, Nov. 13
Lecture: Betina Kaplan, of the Romance languages department, delivers a lecture on “Representations of the Unseen: The Desaparecidos in Recent Argentinean Photo-essays,” at 12:20 p.m. in 214 Miller Learning Center. The event is part of the Institute of Women’s Studies’ Friday Speaker Series.
Film Series: New Looks on Latin American Cinema
All film screenings will be held at the Tate Student Center Theater at 6:30 p.m. The Romance Languages Lecture Fund and LACSI sponsor the series.
Tuesday, Sept. 29
El Baño del Papa (2007). This film is a heartfelt and deadpan portrait of the knife-edge poverty of people who are not so much greedy as desperate. In this film, a collective madness grips a small Uruguayan town before a papal visit and the inhabitants start dreaming of doomed-to-fail get-rich-quick schemes.
Tuesday, Oct. 6
Linha de Passe (2008). Set in Sao Paulo, Brazil in a state of emergency, this film tells the story of four brothers try to reinvent themselves in different.
Tuesday, Oct. 13
Madeinusa (2006). This film centers around Madeinusa, a sweet girl who lives in an isolated religiously zealous village in mountainous Peru. Everything changes when a geologist from Lima arrives and unknowingly reshapes Madeinusa’s destiny.
Tuesday, Oct. 20
Stellet Licht (2007). A husband and father of seven faced with a personal and religious crisis falls for another woman in Northern Mexico’s Mennonite community. The film is noted for its stunning cinematography in the massive spaces of Chihuahua, including one of the most talked-about and beautiful opening long shots ever filmed.
Tuesday, Oct. 27
La Ciénaga (2001). The film tells the story of two families make the best of a bad situation as they suffer through a heat wave in this drama set in the high plains of northwestern Argentina. A matriarch tries to keep home and family together while her children deal with the vagaries of drinking, adultery and other unpleasant situations.