The Latinx Identity Project
Jan 19, 2022
A Chicago Kid from Oaxaca Tells His Story Featuring Rene Velazquez
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Hola, bienvenidos, and welcome to another episode of the Latinx Identity Project.
I am your host, Elsa Iris Reyes
This is a podcast where we tell stories by us, and for us.
Today’s guest is Rene Velazquez.
Rene is an immigrant from Oaxaca with a mix of tastes and cultures. Today we will hear his story about starting a new life in a new country and embracing his own identity throughout his journey as an immigrant and as an automotive engineer. I am humbled by Rene’s story and how much I have to learn from him. I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you do, please share it with your friends. Also rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to them.
Lastly - follow me on Instagram! I am @thelatinxidentityproject.
Thanks and enjoy the show.
Music and artwork by Emmanuel Reyes
Artwork and intro music by Emmanuel Reyes @trueloathing
More episodes from The Latinx Identity Project
Feb 19, 2023
Latinx Poetics Featuring Ruben Quesada
Hola, bienvenidos, and welcome to another episode of the Latinx Identity Project. This is the podcast where we tell stories for us and by us. I am your host, Elsa Iris Reyes.
Today’s guest is Ruben Quesada, a critically acclaimed writer and author of his latest novel, Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry.
Join us as we deep dive into Ruben’s inspiration for his writing and the state of Latino literature today.
If you like what you hear, please leave a review. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show!
More about Ruben:
https://www.rubenquesada.com/
Ruben Quesada is also the author of Revelations (2018), Next Extinct Mammal
(2011), and translator of Selected Translations of Luis Cernuda (2008).
Quesada has served as an editor for AGNI, Pleiades, and The Kenyon Review. His
writing appears in Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, Guernica, and Harvard
Review. He has been honored by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special
Events in the City of Chicago, Canto Mundo, Lambda Literary Writers’ Retreat,
Napa Valley Writers Conference, and Vermont Studio Center. Quesada has
taught courses on poetry and poetics for Vermont College of Fine Arts, Northwestern University, Chicago High School for the Arts, School of the Art
Institute, Columbia College Chicago, and University of California, Riverside. He is an Associate Teaching Fellow at The Attic Institute and teaches for the UCLA Writers’ Program. He lives in Chicago and serves on the board of the National Book Critics Circle.
Connect with Ruben on twitter @RubenQuesadaSupport the show
Artwork and intro music by Emmanuel Reyes @trueloathing
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Jan 14, 2023
Expanding the representation of Muslims featuring Evelyn Alsultany
Hola, bienvenidos, and welcome to the Latinx Identity Project. This is a podcast where we tell stories for us and by us. I am your host, Elsa Iris Reyes.
Today’s guest is Evelyn Alsultany, a Muslim-Latina author and scholar.
Join us as we discuss Evelyn’s experience as a Muslim-Latina in the US, religious diversity and inclusion in the U.S. and her new book, Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion.
Be sure to check out the show notes to learn more about Evelyn and ways you can learn about the importance of expanding the representation of Muslims in the media.
And if you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast.
Follow me on Instagram @thelatinxidentityproject
*More about Evelyn:
*Even though 25% of the world's population is Muslim, only 1% of TV characters are Muslim. Much of the portrayals that do exist are often unnuanced and perpetuate harmful stereotypes.
The novel, Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion (NYU Press—November 22nd, 2022), in which Muslim Latina author Evelyn Alsultany argues that Muslims are only included through “crisis diversity,” an institutional pattern of crisis (such as high-profile Islamophobic incidents), response, and then inertia until the next crisis.
Alsultany notably co-authored The Obeidi-Alsultany Test to help Hollywood improve representations of Muslims—what some label the Bechdel test for Muslims—and serves as a consultant for Hollywood studios, making her a leading expert on the history of representations of Latinas, Arabs, and Muslims in the US media, and anchoring her argument that diversity initiatives often end up marginalizing Latinas, Arab Americans, and US Muslims, while lasting, systemic change remains elusive.
This is the first book to examine how Muslims and Latinas are included across a range of US institutions (the media, corporations, universities, and law enforcement), emphasizing the different ways that they respond to anti-Muslim racism.
To get in touch with Evelyn and more guests like Evelyn, please check out Coriolis Company
A special thank you to Nanda Dyssou for getting me in touch with Evelyn. Thank you for your support of the show!
**Support the show
Artwork and intro music by Emmanuel Reyes @trueloathing
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Oct 23, 2022
Proud Chicanos in Conversation Featuring Christopher David Rosales, Author of Word is Bone
Hola, bienvenidos, and welcome to another episode of the Latinx Identity Project.
This is a podcast where we tell stories for us and by us. I am your host, Elsa Iris Reyes,
Today’s guest is Christopher David Rosales, a Chicano author and professor of Chicano & Latino Studies at California State University Long Beach. Join us as we dive into his latest novel, Word is Bone. Episodes like today’s are a reminder for why this podcast exists - it’s to uplift and promote our diverse perspectives and voices.
Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow me on Instagram @thelatinxidentityproject to get the latest and greatest updates.
Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.
*About our guest:
*Christopher David Rosales, PhD, MFA is a Chicano novelist and short-story writer from Los Angeles. He is the author of three novels including Silence the Bird, Silence the Keeper (2015, Mixer Publishing) which won the Hispanic Scholarship Fund & McNamara Family Creative Arts Grant, Gods On the Lam (2017, Perpetual Motion Machine), and Word Is Bone (2019, Broken River Books), winner of the International Latino Book Award. His award-winning short stories have appeared in Both Sides: An Anthology of Border Noir (2020, Polis/Agora Books), among other anthologies, journals, and magazines in the U.S. and abroad.
Rosales is a Professor in Chicano & Latino Studies at California State University Long Beach.
*WORD IS BONE*
*Winner of the International Latino Book Award.*
1999. Ex-con June returns to Los Angeles to bury his father, and in the process brings violence and mayhem to everyone he encounters. Low-rent gangsters fight dogs and pistols shoot quiet through potato silencers, and at the center of this sweltering California Gothic and its surreal and colorful cast of characters is the love story of Kiddy and June, two wild young people separated by circumstance and time, trying not to love each other against their better instincts.
“Christopher Rosales’ writing in Word is Bone is so vibrant and dirty with street-level intimacy like a lot of hip-hop: think Kendrick Lamar’s “Money Trees” and Domino’s “Getto Jam.” These are stories from the stoops, laundromats, canals and alleyways, that show how a community weaves narrative webs to understand their own truths. So, here we go, here we go as the tune* *starts to bloom.” —Steven Dunn, author of Potted Meat and water & power
*Official Website: **https://www.christopherrosales.com/*
*Facebook: **https://www.facebook.com/christopher.d.rosales** *
*Instagram: **https://www.instagram.com/chrisdrosales/** *
*Twitter: **https://twitter.com/CDRosales*Support the show
Artwork and intro music by Emmanuel Reyes @trueloathing
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