Foreign Language Series: Spanish

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | "It's Not What You Think: On Researching Racism and Gender Inequality in Central America" with visiting faculty member, Laura Nussbaum-Barberena. 

Central America is many things in the U.S. public eye; naming Central American countries conjures racialized and class-inflected images of gender inequality, poverty, and violence. These perceptions—and the resulting foreign policies—also affect relations between the countries of Central America. The images conjured are not entirely untrue, however the explanations and realities are far more complex than the surface. While researching organizations focused on gender-based violence and xenophobia faced by Nicaraguan immigrant women in Costa Rica, I found myself confronting realities which, on the surface, resembled the stereotypes that I had heard thrown around. In this talk, I will provide background on my research about the broader context of U.S.-Central American relations. I will focus especially on the challenge of addressing marginality and violence, particularly the risk of inadvertently reifying the very stereotypes I aimed to dismantle.