JOY CASTRO
Joy Castro signed a two-book deal for her novel Flight Risk, which will appear in October 2021, and a second novel, which will appear in 2022. Flight Risk follows a Latina sculptor who returns to Appalachia to confront her violent past. Smoke, a historical novel of suspense, follows six characters in the Cuban insurgents' community and cigar industry in 19th-century Key West and explores the factors that led to the Great Fire of 1886.
LORY J. DANCE
Lory J. Dance began lead-PI work on her newly funded ($150.000) NU grant titled "Forcibly Removed: Workshop and Symposia on the Lived Experiences of Displaced Persons. Though Dr. Dance had no new publications she did have a creative writing activity. More specifically, Dr. Dance organized a writing retreat called "The Art of Qualitative Article Writing" for her former UCARE student, Anna Poudel. As a result of that retreat, Dance and Poudel submitted a co-authored article to the journal Qualitative Inquiry.
MARC A. GARCIA
Marc A. Garcia had seven manuscripts published in peer-reviewed journals, including a series of papers highlighting the disparate impact of COVID-19 on older Black and Latinx communities. The titles of these articles are as follows: a) The Color of COVID-19: Structural Racism and the Pandemic’s Disproportionate Impact on Older Black and Latinx Adults; b) The Disproportionate Impact of COVID-19 on Older Latino Mortality: The Rapidly Diminishing Latino Paradox; c) Exacerbating Inequalities: Social Networks, Racial/Ethnic Disparities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic; and d) Contextualizing the COVID-19 Era in Puerto Rico: Compounding Disasters and Parallel Pandemics. Dr. Garcia also has a subsequent set of studies: a) Educational Benefits and Cognitive Health Life Expectancies: Racial/Ethnic, Nativity, and Gender Disparities; b) Age of Migration and Cognitive Function among Older Latinos in the United States; and c) Glycosylated Hemoglobin Level, Race/Ethnicity, and Cognition in Midlife and Early Old Age Examined Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Cognitive Functioning and Alzheimer’s Disease. Dr. Garcia also presented two papers on cognitive disparities at the Gerontological Society of America Annual Meeting. The above studies and presentations were funded in part by the National Institute on Aging and the National Science Foundation grants in which Dr. Garcia was a PI/Co-PI, as well as support provided by the Nebraska Tobacco Settlement Biomedical Research Development Funds.
JAMES GARZA
James Garza was moderator on an online (streaming) panel on November 18, 2020 as part of the Lied Center’s inclusive MOSAIC film festival series. Dr. Garza moderated the panel on the film Guanajuato Norte, by Ingrid Holmquist, featuring the film’s co-creator and several Nebraska experts on immigration and health inequality.
ALICE KANG
Alice Kang published in 2020 an article titled, "Diverse and Inclusive High Courts: A Global and Intersectional Perspective" in Politics, Groups & Identities 8 (4): 812-21, with co-authors Miki Kittilson (Arizona State University), Valerie Hoekstra (ASU), and Maria Escobar-Lemmon (Texas A&M).
AMELIA MONTES
Amelia M.L. Montes’ recent memoir chapter, “Trigger Warnings” in Don’t Look Now: Things We Wish We Hadn’t Seen (The Ohio State University Press) was praised as “One of the work’s most powerful essays” by Publisher’s Weekly. Her short story, “La Omaha Mariachi Dyke” was published in the Afro Hispanic Review. She was also chosen for a second year to be on the International Fulbright Application Review Board in the fiction, non-fiction, and poetry category. As well, Dr. Montes was slated to give a paper at the American Studies Association (ASA) Conference (November 12-15, 2020). Due to COVID-19, her panel and paper were postponed and re-accepted for the November 2021 ASA conference. By the way, Dr. Montes was awarded the inaugural University of Nebraska-Lincoln 2020 College of Arts and Sciences Mentoring Award.
LAURA K. MUÑOZ
In recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Sheldon Museum of Art invited Dr. Laura K. Muñoz to host its October “Virtual Look at Lunchtime.” Dr. Muñoz discussed John Sonsini’s painting “Christian & Alejandro,” which is currently on display as part of the Person of Interest exhibition that runs through July 31, 2021. Christian and Alejandro are day laborers from Los Angeles, who posed for Sonsini in exchange for their usual $30/hour wage. Muñoz contextualizes day labor work in the U.S., as well as images of laborers in contemporary North American art in her 15-minute talk, available on the Sheldon’s Facebook page.