AMANDA DEDIE and ESTHER HIDALGO
Assistant News Editor and Special to The Leader
In order to demonstrate pride in Hispanic heritage, Latinos Unidos put together a full schedule for the whole month to help celebrate it. Hispanic Heritage Month runs from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15.
Last Tuesday, Sept. 22, the Ethnic Studies Speaker Series and Latinos Unidos had Andrea Lepage — an associate professor of art history at Washington and Lee University — and Melissa Birkhofer — a lecturer at the Western Carolina University — come to campus to talk about police brutality against Latinos and lynching in the Latino community.
These are topics that many in the Latino community are not familiar with. Issues like these demonstrate miscommunication between the world and the Latino community.
During Birkhofer’s presentation, “Breaking the Black/White Binary en los Estados Unidos: Police Brutality against Latinos in 2015,” she made a few points on how police brutality against Latinos is never broadcast or mentioned in the media. She also contrasted the story of Guillermo Gómez-Peña, a journalist who almost got arrested for “kidnapping” his own son, with the story of Jesus “Chuy” Huerta, a 17-year-old who allegedly shot himself while he was in the back seat of a police car.
Due to his own documentation of the event, Gómez-Peña’s ended up being broadcasted in the media, increasing awareness police brutality against Latinos. However, the same cannot be said for Chuy’s story, which was never was never covered, and in January 2014 it was determined that no charges will be filed against the Durham police department in charge of him at the moment the event occurred.
The purpose of Birkhofer’s presentation was to increase awareness of the issue of police brutality and lynching, but to also give a side-by-side comparison of the inconsistencies of media coverage. Birkhofer also mentioned how The New York Times published an article titled “Killing in Washington State Offers ‘Ferguson’ Moment for Hispanics,” in which they explain how Antonio Zambrano-Montes, a 35-year-old man, was killed by the Pasco police after throwing rocks at cars and police officers.
Social media has changed how we see police brutality. We are now able to report some of these major events through social networking, which gives young adults the opportunity to become more involved and informed on current events.
Caitlin Hackett, a junior exercise science major and president of Latinos Unidos, stated that she feels there is a lack of media coverage when it comes to issues relating to the Latino community.
“I think that this event made an impact with the students that went to the talk, because there weren’t just questions that were made about the topic,” said Hackett via email. “It looked like they were shocked by how much the news doesn’t report the things that happen in the U.S. and because they are not told, it looks like we are taking 10 steps back.”
During Lepage’s presentation “Official Threat: Vincent Valdez’s The Strangest Fruit,” ﹘ which, according to the Brown University website, “places realistic depictions of people known by the artist within an historical subject—the lynching of Latinos in Texas and the United States more broadly—metaphorically illustrating the persecution and oppression felt by contemporary Latinos in the United States,” ﹘ she incorporated Valdez’s work and then made the connection to the lynchings in the South.
“I was excited about the opportunity to share my work on Vincent Valdez’s ‘The Strangest Fruit’ with SUNY Fredonia students and to learn more about Melissa Birkhofer’s work,” said Lepage via email. “I hope that students exposed to Valdez’s “The Strangest Fruit” series will go on to explore more of his artwork and also the work of other artists who have investigated the ways that our society can invisibilize entire communities of people and their histories.”
Lepage and Birkhofer, while covering different topics, made connections between the two talks that combined to make a cohesive presentation in the hopes that both could educate the audience while covering the major problems facing the Latino community.
“Our work engages and questions the black-white binary that mainstream media promotes in this country in an effort to bring other [frequently marginalized] people into the discussion,” said Lepage. “I thought that there were fantastic and productive intersections between the two presentations.”
Lepage and Birkhofer came to Fredonia to present with a specific purpose. Lepage commented on her goals for the event, saying, “I hope students became aware of the little-known history of lynching of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the U.S. southwest … It is especially important that students came away from the event with a sense that art serves a powerful role in civilization: artists can use their art to critique society and also promote change.”
*Esther Hidalgo is a member of Latinos Unidos