Schedule

3–4:30 p.m., Fowler Student Center
Community Dialogues: Exploring Borders in Our Lives

What do borders do to us and for us? How do borders influence our experiences with physical space, identity, relationship, culture, access? When might they distance us from others, and when might they serve connection and community? Community Dialogues offer an opportunity for small, structured conversation as we explore our various approaches and values. Registration for this event is now closed. 

7 p.m., Council Chamber, Fowler Student Center
Keynote Event

From Transnational Borders to No Borders? Commoning, Abolition, and Imagining Otherwise
Miriam Ticktin, professor of anthropology at CUNY (City University of New York) Graduate Center

Presentation abstract: Migration is a lightning rod in political debates globally, from Tunisia and South Africa to the US, Australia, and many countries in Europe. And in most of these places, managing migration is synonymous with closing the borders. This talk will discuss the transnational politics of border walls, before it turns to transnational political movements that work to counter enclosures and other forms of containment. These struggles sometimes use the language of “no-borders,” and they involve a similar set of transnational circuits as do the technologies and designs of border walls, but with the opposite goal. While taking seriously these powerful politics and counterpolitics, ultimately Dr. Ticktin is interested in how people are imagining different ways of being, alongside or in the interstices of these visions–and she ends by discussing these forms of afterpolitics, grounded in collective living and abolitionist forms of world-making.

• American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation will be provided. For additional information about accessibility, please consult the Event Details page.
• No registration is required. This event will not be streamed.
• Reception to follow in the Council Chamber foyer.

9:45–11 a.m., Smith Hall, Albany Quadrangle
What is Ethnic Studies?: Student-made Zines and Other Views of the Field

What is the academic field and political project of Ethnic Studies? Where and when did Ethnic Studies begin to appear with institutional representation in universities? How is the concept of “border” a central category and tool of analysis for Ethnic Studies today? In this gallery-style session, students from ETHS 200: Introduction to Ethnic Studies will share the zines they have produced to explore these questions, offering a view from the ground of what Ethnic Studies looks like at L&C. Information about the minor in Ethnic Studies and broader program will also be available. There will be a short presentation near the beginning but people are free to come and go. Light refreshments will be served.

11:30 a.m.–1 p.m., Council Chamber, Fowler Student Center
Roundtable: People Crossing Borders, Borders Crossing People

What does it mean to experience borders in our lives, and to reflect on our personal experiences and histories with borders? What kinds of borders do we cross? What kinds of borders cross us? In what ways do these experiences shape us and our identities? L&C students and faculty will discuss the kinds of borders they have faced in the past and present, their personal experiences with borders ranging from migration and relocation to multilingualism and multiculturalism, and how these borders have impacted them. 

Moderator: Kabir Mansingh Heimsath, L&C director of Asian studies and assistant professor with term of anthropology
Egly Amador Fuentes ’25, history and political science major, Campus Activities Board vice president
John Mbanda ’25, Afrikan Diaspora Club president, International Affairs major
Cristi Miles, adjunct instructor of theatre
Tati Montez ’25, SOAN major
Zahra Tait ’27, TCK board member, International Student Government president

1:45–3:15 p.m., Council Chamber, Fowler Student Center
Panel: Borders Across Disciplines

How do people think about borders in different disciplines? What kinds of research questions are L&C faculty and students pursuing in relation to borders? How do these approaches interact with each other to transform the way we conceptualize borders?

Moderator: Meilin Beloney, L&C ’26 and symposium co-chair
Katelyn Leymaster ’25, “Understanding German-Native American Relations Through a Historical Lens”
Jazmín Contreras ’26, “Migrant and Seasonal Farm Workers in the Columbia River Gorge: How the People Who Put Food on Our Tables are Going Hungry”
Maryann Bylander, associate professor of sociology, “The Trade-Offs of Legal Status: Contesting Safe Migration in Southeast Asia”
Emily Larabee ’25 and Grace Cronley ’25, “Navigating Sexuality, Health, and Political Borders in a Venezuelan Asylum Claim”
Reiko Hillyer, associate professor of history, “Porous Walls: The Shifting Borders Between Prison and the Free World”

3:30–5 p.m., Council Chamber, Fowler Student Center
Film Screening with Discussion: Frontiers of Dreams and Fears

Join us in watching and discussing this 2001 documentary by Palestinian-American filmmaker Mai Masri. This moving film focuses on the feelings and friendship of two Palestinian teenage girls, one living in a refugee camp in Beirut and the other in occupied Bethlehem, who connect as penpals and meet at the border of southern Lebanon. Film screening followed by discussion facilitated by Sidra Kamran, L&C assistant professor of sociology.

5:15–6:45 p.m., Fowler Student Center
Community Dialogues: Exploring Borders in Our Lives

What do borders do to us and for us? How do borders influence our experiences with physical space, identity, relationship, culture, access? When might they distance us from others, and when might they serve connection and community? Community Dialogues offer an opportunity for small, structured conversation as we explore our various approaches and values. Registration for this event is now closed.

7 p.m., Council Chamber, Fowler Student Center
Keynote Event

Indigenous Hip Hop and Healing Soul: Colonized Moderns in Conflict on the U.S.-Mexico Border
Christina Leza, associate professor of anthropology and Indigenous studies at Colorado College

Presentation abstract: The U.S.-Mexico border symbolizes both the colonized state of Indigenous territories in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and the border identities of this region’s Indigenous peoples. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in the borderlands and close analysis of language and sound in the music of two U.S.-Mexico Indigenous hip hop groups, Shining Soul and Anahuac Underground, Christina Leza addresses identity negotiation and ethnic alliance-building for border Indigenous hip hop artists producing music as decolonial and racial justice movement. These hip hop productions articulate unique Indigenous American histories of settler colonialism through the lens of postapocalyptic suffering and violence at the border, communicating ongoing struggles for freedom from colonialism. Musical “soul” is explored as a mode of interethnic communication and survival emerging from colonized and Indigenous struggles to (re)claim Indigenous identities and lifeways. Addressing the featured Indigenous music artists as colonized moderns in conflict, Leza further explores how border Indigenous hip hop narratives intersect with similar apocalyptic storytelling by other conscious hip hop artists who employ postcolonial/postapocalyptic imagery. In doing so, this keynote offers an entry point for discussing the significance of soul as a symbol and poetic tool across BIPOC discourses for liberation.

• American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation will be provided. For additional information about accessibility, please consult the Event Details page.
• No registration is required. This event will not be streamed.
• Reception to follow in the Council Chamber foyer.

11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., Council Chamber
Post-Election Ethnic Studies Roundtable

Join members of the faculty in the Ethnic Studies program for a conversation about the outcome of the U.S. election and the ways that concepts, tools, and perspectives from Ethnic Studies might inform or shape our thinking and action about the present and future, locally, nationally, and globally. All are welcome! Feel free to bring your lunch.

1:45–2:45 p.m., Stamm, Fowler Student Center
Performance and Dance Workshop with Jafra Dabke Team

Learn about the Arabic folkloric rhythmic dance called dabke with members of the high-energy Jafra Dabke Team, a Seattle-based group whose mission is to preserve Palestinian culture and tradition through practice and performance of this dance. Join us for this performance followed by an interactive workshop. No dance experience necessary!

3:30–4:30 p.m., Smith Hall
Fashion Show: Bold and Embodied

Celebrating the power in our embodied presence, this event is a showcase for participants to share their personal styles and their narratives of who they are. Fashion can be informed by cultural heritage, ethnic backgrounds, religious traditions, and/or racialized forms of expression. The art we curate in an outfit can make our memories and community ties visible as we resist erasure, vibrantly authoring our stories each day. Coordinated by Leanne Robinson ’25.

7 p.m., Agnes Flanagan Chapel
Race Monologues

Each year a different group of L&C students writes an original series of personal narratives to share their feelings, experiences, and understandings of race, ethnicity, and identity. We invite you to learn more about the history of Race Monologues.

Featuring (in alpha order) L&C students Shubhika Baral ’27, Jazmín Contreras ’26, Alina Cruz ’25,
Anna Kwett ’26, Christi San Diego ’27, Judith Segovia ’25, Mari Sheppard ’25, Mithila Tambe ’25,
and Cole Whitaker ’25

Doors open at 6:40 p.m. First-come seating. Doors will be closed at 7 p.m. (or earlier if we reach capacity), and latecomers will not be admitted.