Home / Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: Environmental Justice
July 11, 2023 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Uptown Campus
Dates July 11 - 15, 2023 Space is limited to 25 educators (ONLY A FEW SPOTS LEFT!)
Location
Tulane University | New Orleans, LA
This institute is part of a four year series in collaboration with the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies at Vanderbilt University. This summer’s institute is hosted by Tulane University and will take place on campus in New Orleans, LA.
The year's institute introduces K-12 educators to evidence-based approaches, techniques and instructional strategies to create supportive, learner-centered environments to enhance the teaching of indigenous peoples. It will focus both on indigenous peoples’ relationship with the environment, and broader environmental issues regarding health, infrastructure, and land and water rights. Summer 2023 will focus on climate change and impacts of deforestation, access to water and its relationship to health. Participants will learn how indigenous communities advocate for the environment through food, literature, primary sources, film and firsthand perspectives. The institute engages participants with indigenous communities from Louisiana to Central America. The four-year series of institutes is sponsored by the Centers for Latin American Studies at Vanderbilt University and Tulane University.
By the end of the institute, participants will be able to:
Check out the schedule and the list of speakers.
If interested, please contact Denise Woltering-Vargas at dwolteri@tulane.edu by July 9th!
The in-person program is free to teachers in the Gulf South.
Indigenous Communities and Climate Justice Across the Americas
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Weaving Stories Across the Americas
9:00 AM - 3 PM
Climate Crisis of the Gulf South
8:30 AM - 6:00 PM
Indigenous Voices
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Incorporating New Ideas
9:00 AM -12:00 PM
Max Alarcón "Ya'ateh! Hello! My name is Max Alarcón. I was raised by the Mojave desert of both California and Nevada. I am Chiricahua Nde, as well as a first-generation Mexican-American, walking the paths of both communities through ceremony, outreach, consultation and living the experience proudly throughout my life. I come from a professional and passionate background of naturalism and ecology, having studied and worked in both Outdoor Education and Fire Ecology in Los Angeles County and with California State. Viewing these topics not as a career or a hobby but deeply fundamental to both my personal and cultural identity as an Indigenous Latin land steward. Educating on these important issues is one way I serve my people and the land I love so dearly. Now residing in Louisiana, I continue with my many years of experience teaching a wide range of demographics about ecology and indigenous keep with this duty to the land and people through working with local Nde and other Indigenous communities to strive for a stronger community and a sustainable path for positive land management and stewardess."
Elizabeth Swanson Andi is a Napu Kichwa visual storyteller, environmental educator, and community organizer from the Napo River in the Ecuadorian Amazon. She is greatly inspired by the land and people who shaped her, and she strongly advocates for Indigenous land rights and environmental and climate justice. As the President of the Iyarina Center, she works alongside her family to preserve Indigenous languages and cultures, restore and protect forests, and create alternative forms of income for Indigenous peoples. She believes storytelling is a key catalyst for change and, when bridged with education, stories can make a lasting impact, especially for frontline communities.
Ida Aronson is a citizen of the United Houma Nation (UHN) of southeastern “Louisiana”, a member of the Houma Language Project and the Okla Hina Ikhish Holo gardening network, and a founding member of the Bvlbancha Collective and Bvlbancha Public Access. Aronson is a multimedia artist working across visual arts fields, writing, lighting/theatrical design, event production, & cultural crafts, and lifeways. Find out more about them here.
Jorge Argueta, a Pipil Nahua Indian from El Salvador and the 2023 Poet Laureate of San Mateo County, is a prize-winning poet and author of more than twenty children’s picture books. They include Una película en mi almohada / A Movie in My Pillow (Children’s Book Press, 2001) and Somos como las nubes / We Are Like the Clouds (Groundwood Books, 2016), which won the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and was named to USBBY’s Outstanding International Book List, the ALA Notable Children’s Books and the Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices. His Madre Tierra / Mother Earth series celebrates the natural world and is made up of four installments: Tierra, Tierrita / Earth, Little Earth (Piñata Books, 2023), winner of the Salinas de Alba Award for Latino Children’s Literature; Viento, Vientito / Wind, Little Wind (Piñata Books, 2022), winner of the Premio Campoy-Ada given by the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española; Fuego, Fueguito / Fire, Little Fire (Piñata Books, 2019); and Agua, Agüita / Water, Little Water (Piñata Books, 2017), winner of the inaugural Campoy-Ada Award in Children’s Poetry. His poetry collection, En carne propia: Memoria poética / Flesh Wounds: A Poetic Memoir (Arte Público Press, 2017), focuses on his experiences with civil war and living in exile. The California Association for Bilingual Education honored him with its Courage to Act Award. In addition, Jorge Argueta is the founder of The International Children’s Poetry Festival Manyula and The Library of Dreams, a non-profit organization that promotes literacy in rural and metropolitan areas of El Salvador. Jorge divides his time between San Francisco, California, and El Salvador.
William Balée is a cultural anthropologist with a long-term focus on the peoples, societies, and landscapes of the Amazon River region. Before joining the faculty at Tulane in 1991, he held appointments at the New York Botanical Garden and the Goeldi Museum (Brazil). Balée's first scholarly monograph on the Amazon, Footprints of the Forest; Ka’apor Ethnobotany: The Historical Ecology of Plant Utilization by an Amazonian People (Columbia University Press, 1994) and his second one, Cultural Forests of the Amazon: A Historical Ecology of People and their Landscapes (University of Alabama Press, 2013), received the Mary W. Klinger Book Award from the Society for Economic Botany. The late Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands appointed Baleé Officer of the Order of the Golden Ark (a Dutch conservation merit order) in 1993. Baleé has worked to help establish historical ecology as a research program. He has had an interdisciplinary outlook, in fact, since the beginning of his career. Balée’s postdoctoral field research has been supported by extramural grants, including from Fulbright, Wenner-Gren Foundation, Edward John Noble Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, Environmental Defense Fund, and National Geographic Society. Balée was honored to receive in 2016 the President’s Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching. He has given guest lectures at numerous scholarly venues in the United States and around the world, including Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Japan, Ireland, England, Sweden, Spain, France, and Germany. Balée's research has been mostly noted in the fields of archaeology, ecology, and ethnobiology. Recently, he has done fieldwork with indigenous groups and forest peasants exhibiting traditional lifestyles in tropical forests of Malaysia, Ecuador, and Brazil and has studied their historical and contemporary engagements with the flora and fauna of their landscapes. Baleé's most recent research, as of 2019, specifically concerns the Waorani of the Ecuadorian Amazon, where with colleagues from IKIAM (the Ecuadorian university in Tena, Ecuador) and ASU and support as P.I. from a National Geographic Society grant, he has been engaged in studying and describing an anthropogenic forest managed by forebears of the current Wao people. In 2019, Balée became a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellow. He is using the research time freed up by that fellowship to work on a new book concerning the Lower Amazon.
Balée's teaching emphasizes the specific areas where he does research, topically and geographically. Balée teaches courses in historical ecology of Amazonia, South American ethnology, environmental anthropology, ethnographic methods, and cultural anthropology. As to this last course, his textbook Inside Cultures (2016), which is an introduction to cultural anthropology, is in its second edition with Routledge. Balée's graduate advising and mentoring are in related areas of these specialty interests. Thus far, he has supervised ten dissertations at Tulane, with five more in the pipeline. Balée also advises undergraduate majors in anthropology and occasionally environmental studies.
Andy Carter is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Roosevelt University. He is a founding board member of the Resource Center in Chicago and serves on the Local School Council at the William Ray School. In April 2007, he made his first of eight trips to the village of Saq Ja’, Guatemala as a delegation member from University Church Chicago. On that trip, he was struck by the stark contrast between a lush old-growth forest near the village and the fields and scrub brush that surrounded it. He was told that Margarito, a man with a peculiar love of trees, had planted the forest. On subsequent trips he carried out a series of interviews with Maria Guadalupe, the daughter of Don Margarito, to find out about this Mayan man and his forest. The book Margarito’s Forest is based on information he gathered from these interviews. Since its 2016 publication, Margarito’s Forest has won a 2017 commendation from the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP) and been included on the Bank Street College of Education’s 2017 list of Best Children’s Books of the Year. Andy is a master gardener, an environmental activist and enjoys playing his guitar and leading group singalongs.
Brittney Dayeh taught elementary social studies for ten years at The Willow School in Uptown, New Orleans. She designed the lesson plans featured in this presentation while serving as a Curriculum Writer for the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University, where she attended workshops on Tunica-Biloxi, Mayan, and Aztec culture and customs. Brittney is currently the High School Librarian at The Willow School, and is highly committed to sharing multicultural literature with children of all ages, K-12.
John DePriest is a linguist, musician, educator, and songwriter based out of Bvlbancha (New Orleans, Louisiana). He earned a PhD from Tulane University, studying the interactions of language and music in the brain. He has been teaching English for Academic & Professional Purposes in the Center for Global Education since 2016, emphasizing English phonetics & phonology, speaking performance, and intercultural competence. An enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, he is actively working to preserve Choctaw language and music, including producing an album of Choctaw music set to be released in early 2024. He is also the lead singer, banjo player, and songwriter for the band Bogue Chitto.
Jeanne Gillespie exhibits a passion for finding fascinating stories and rendering them into accessible narratives for reflection and further investigation. She teaches courses at all levels of Spanish language and cultures and American Indian Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi, where she is also the co-director of the Center for American Indian Research and Studies (CAIRS). Her book, Saints and Warriors: Tlaxcalan Perspectives on the Conquest of Tenochtitlan (2004), examines the Tlaxcalan rhetorical constructions of their alliance with the Europeans in the Conquest of Tenochtitlan. Recent publications include “Lessening the Sting: Huipil Power and Deadly Scorpions” in A New World Bestiary: Animals Symbolism in Postclassic Mesoamerica edited by Susan Milbrath and Elizabeth Baquedano (expected fall 2023); “Sacred Geography and Gendered Ritual Violence as Social Control in Anahuac,” in Rites, Rituals & Religions in Amerindian, Spanish, Latin American & Latino Worlds edited by Debra Andrist (2023); and “Santos y guerreros: los relatos tlaxcaltecas de la conquista de Tenochtitlan” in De conquistados a conquistadores. La raíz mesoamericana del virreinato de la Nueva España. Una nueva mirada edited by Alejandro Salafranca (2022). She is currently working on a book about the poetics of military conflict in the Cantares mexicanos.
Juan Pablo Gómez holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Cultural and Literary Studies from The Ohio State University and an M.A. in Social Sciences from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) and serves currently as the Latin American Library's Research and Instruction Librarian. He has held teaching and research positions in libraries and archives, including the Institute of Nicaraguan and Central American History, at Central American University (IHNCA-UCA) in Managua, and the Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences (AVANCSO) in Guatemala. His research interests include Central American and Nicaraguan history, culture, and memory.
Diego Matadamas Gomoro is a PhD student in Archaeology. He received a BA in Archeology from the National School of Anthropology and History in Mexico City and a MA in Anthropology from Tulane University. From 2009 to 2017, he was a member of the Proyecto Templo Mayor (PTM), where he worked in the ancient capital of the Aztec Empire. He is currently a member of the Proyecto Arqueológico Tlalancaleca, Puebla (PATP) in Mexico. His dissertation research focuses on the socio-political organization of the Late Postclassic community in Tlalancaleca and its interactions with the major political entities of the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley, and the Aztec Empire.
Brooke Grant is a Senior Professor of Practice in the Teacher Preparation & Certification Program at Tulane University where she prepares new teachers for the PK-12 classroom. In addition to teaching, she works to support teachers by running S.S. NOLA, designed to support social studies teachers in the New Orleans area. Dr. Grant also works to support first-year Tulane students in their transition from high school to college as a First-Year seminar instructor and First-Year Residential Faculty Mentor. Additionally, she is proud to be a member of the First Generation Faculty & Staff Council. Before working in higher education, Dr. Grant enjoyed a ten-year career as a certified middle school social studies teacher outside of Buffalo, New York. She has an undergraduate degree in Political Science and International Relations from Canisius College, as well a Master's and PhD Degree in Education from the University at Buffalo.
Tammy Greer, Ph.D. (United Houma Nation) is a faculty member in the School of Psychology and Director of the Southern Miss Center for American Indian Research and Studies. She is a faculty advisor to the Golden Eagles Intertribal Society - a Native focused student group who works with the Center to host a yearly powwow, school days and garden events. She is a member of the WECAN group Okla Hina |khish Holo, who are building gardens and food forests along historical Southeastern trade routes to address food insecurity. She received a Library of Congress grant in 2022 to document Houma Culture Bearers so that Houma youth, even to the 7th generation can hear their ancestors speak of their tribe and tribal arts. Dr. Greer's research interests involve the integration of Medicine Wheel teachings into contemporary approaches to health and healing. Her Okla Achukma project with Mississippi INBRE focuses on identifying barriers and facilitators of healthy diets and physical activity levels and developing culture-informed interventions that promote healthy ways.
Christine Hernández serves as Curator of Special Collections at The Latin American Library and coordinates digitization initiatives at the Latin American Library since 2012. She received her A.B. in Spanish and Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where she was Phi Beta Kappa. She earned her M.A. and her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Tulane University in 2000. She specializes in Mesoamerican archaeology with some practical experience in the Greater Southwest of the US and SE Louisiana. She has published widely on the archaeology of Mesoamerica, specializing in the prehistory and ceramic traditions of Michoacán and the El Bajío region of north-central Mexico and prehispanic-painted Maya and highland central Mexican codices. Her published works include journal articles and chapters in edited volumes by publishers, including Ancient Mesoamerica, Ancient America, MARI, BAR, University of Florida Press, and ArcheoPress. She has co-authored several volumes with Dr. Gabrielle Vail the most recent of which is, Re-Creating Primordial Time: Foundation Rituals and Mythology in the Postclassic Maya Codices (2013), published by University Press of Colorado. She is co-PI with Gabrielle Vail of the Maya Hieroglyphics Codices Database (mayacodices.org) and author of Digital Resources: Tulane University's Collection of Cuban American Radionovelas, 1963-1970 (https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.933).
Luisa Mattos is the Program Coordinator for the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies (CLACX) at Vanderbilt University. Originally from Brazil, she holds a B.S. in Education specializing in Advanced Multicultural Studies from the University of Brasilia. Luisa is also a member of the research group for Public Policy, History, and Education for Racial and Gender Relations at the University of Brasilia. As an Afro-Latina, her academic projects were focused on racial relations in education, and anti-discriminatory policies in Brazil. She continued to pursue these interests at Middle Tennessee University, where she worked as a Program Assistant in the Intercultural and Diversity Affairs Office and has served as a Counselor for international students while pursuing her degree in Business and Economics. Luisa is bilingual in Portuguese and English and has translated academic and other publications over the past 15 years.
In her role at CLACX, Luisa oversees programs with K-16 educators, coordinates events and activities on and off campus, leads communications, and serves as a liaison between CLACX and our affiliated student organizations and alumni.
Hannah Palmer, who joined the Stone Center for Latin American Studies staff in 2019, oversees summer abroad initiatives and academic-year programming at the Stone Center and the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute. Before coming to Tulane, she worked in Latin American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she served as Graduate Program Coordinator for the Institute for the Study of the Americas, Resident Director for the Yucatec Maya Summer Institute, and a teaching fellow of Spanish-language and English-literature courses while completing her Ph.D. Her interests include contemporary Maya literatures, critical Indigenous studies, gender and sexuality studies, contemporary Latinx literatures, and interdisciplinary and decolonial methodologies. In her research, teaching, and administrative work alike, she enjoys exploring new areas of inquiry and forums of instruction.
Sisa P. Tixicuro Duque is from Otavalo, an indigenous community in northern Ecuador. She received her B.A. in Spanish and Latin American Studies from Pitzer College and holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University. Her research focuses on the relationships between indigenous entrepreneurship, digital technologies, tradition, and modernity through the lenses of community-engaged research. She is also currently working on a podcast in which she will present the experiences of indigenous entrepreneurs, mainly women, when navigating the entrepreneurial environment in Ecuador.
April Tondelli "My name is April Tondelli, and I teach Social Studies at Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center in Chicago. Von Steuben is an ethnically and economically diverse public magnet school in the Albany Park neighborhood, known for its worldwide immigrant community. I have been teaching in Chicago Public Schools for 20 years, and I have taught at Von for the past 12 years. I received my Bachelor’s in English Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago and my Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction from Concordia University in River Forest, Illinois. I earned my National Board Certification in English, but I have been teaching Social Studies for the last 13 years. During the 2015/16 school year, I started a Latin American Studies class at Von, a school which is 54% Latino, but that has never offered ethnic studies. I was thrilled to discover the Vanderbilt/Tulane/UGA Central America summer teaching institutes because I have many students of Central American descent, especially Guatemala. Learning in community with other teachers last summer in Panama was one of the highlights of my teaching career, and I am hoping to build on my emerging knowledge of how indigenous knowledge has contributed to Latinx identities and how indigenous people continue to define their own identity and futures. I also have loved diving into all the curricular resources available for teachers on the Vanderbilt and Tulane K12 teaching websites. I am passionate about literacy and have focused on extensive reading and writing across the social studies curriculum. I am always building a summer reading list for myself, but I frequently end up focusing on texts I am considering teaching in the upcoming school year. Recently reading “Not “A Nation of Immigrants”: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz has challenged my thinking about teaching Indigenous history. Daughters of the New Year by E.M. Tran reinvigorated my enthusiasm for visiting New Orleans and I have read everything ever written by Tulane celebrity crush Jesmyn Ward. I have two boys aged four and eight and I can’t wait to start traveling with them more."
Denise Woltering manages educational and community programs for Tulane University’s Stone Center for Latin American Studies. She coordinates the Center’s K-12 programming by developing teacher workshops and professional development institutes abroad. She leads the development of new curriculum in collaboration with faculty, K-12 educators and artists in order to enhance and internationalize the K-12 curriculum. She also instructs pre-certification teachers in a unique service-learning course in the Teacher Preparation & Certification Program, Education in a Diverse Society. In addition, she is the Coordinator of the Américas Book Award, an award sponsored by the National Consortium of Latin American Studies