ignacio carvajal (he/they) is a poet, scholar, and translator. Ignacio’s academic research focuses on responses to early colonization in Central America; contemporary poetry and cultural production of the Central American Diaspora in the United States; and translation, among other things. ignacio is the author of the poetry chapbooks Plegarias (ElSuriporfiado / University of Houston 2019) and allow – a litany - (La Resistencia Press 2021). They work as assistant professor in the department of literature at the University of California San Diego, where they are also affiliate faculty for Latin American and Chicanx/Latinx studies.

Alicia is Nawat and Pok'omam from her mother's side from Siwatewakan, (Santa Ana/Chalchuapa), El Salvador and of Cantonese descent from her father's side, who is 2nd generation Nicaraguan born in Bluefields. Alicia was born in El Progreso Yoro, Honduras, Lenca homelands in 1983. Due to civil unrest and war, her mother left El Salvador to Guatemala, where she lived for 20 years, later moving to Honduras in 1981. Alicia was raised in San Pedro Sula, during the 80's and 90's when the country experienced an invasion of transnational companies, neoliberal policies, increasing corruption and militarization. Alicia and her family migrated to Los Angeles, California in 1998 due to social insecurity. She began painting at the age of eight. As a child, she wanted to be a muralist and make visible the beauty and legacy of Indigenous cultures she saw invisibilized by the dominant stream of colonial and nation state impositions and repressions. She was inspired by her mother's resilience and life story as an orphan child in El Salvador and the traditions, stories, and beauty of the land and living legacy of the Maya, Nawat and mesoamerican communities. She holds a B.A. in Studio Art and a Masters in Native American Studies, Hemispheric Perspective Program from UC Davis. Her thesis focuses on the historical clarification of the 1932 Massacre of Nawat(Pipil). She painted her first mural in Autonomous Zapatista Community of Oventic in Chiapas in 2001 and learned the community mural process which she implements in her practice, from Chicano Maestro and Muralist Malaquias Montoya at UC Davis, where she was also fortunate to study with and been inspired by Maestros Victor Montejo, Jack Forbes, Julio Lopez Maldonado, Ines Hernandez Avila, Francisco X. Alarcón and Darrel Standing Elk. She has since left murals in the community of Cucapa El Mayor, Patwin homelands in Knights Landing, Nahuat Community of Valle de Anton in Panama, Matanzas, Cuba, in Santa Barbara, Honduras, and many campuses and universities for Ethnic Studies Programs and resource centers within California. In 2006, she was part of the Zapatista Other Campaign in the Cucapa encampment and was encouraged by the Comandancia of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) to spread the vision of a “world where many worlds fit" with her art. She was recently part of the 'decolonizing pathways' project to rewrite the Maya Exhibit at the Museum of Us in San Diego California, store and repatriate sacred cultural resources held by the museum and the creation of two murals within the museum. Her continuous project is to revitalize ancestral Maya Mural tradition, techniques and processes and be able to share it with younger generations. Diaspora, de-conditioning from domination and colonization, the continuation of ancestral knowledge and ceremony integrate her life and art. She currently lives in Kumeyaay Homelands, San Diego with her daughter. In this light, she continues her artistic trajectory serving the seven generations before and ahead.

Edyka Chilomé (she/her) is a queer child of migrant activists from the occupied lands of the Zacateco (Mexico) and Lenca (El Salvador) people. Most widely known for her poetry, Edyka is a cultural worker and land steward with roots in migrant justice movements grounded in the tradition of spiritual activism. Her Interdisciplinary work seeks to combat the erasure of queer Black/Indigenous/People of Color's lived experiences and embodies the radical possibilities of storytelling as a spiritual technology for deep transformation and healing. Most recently her work seeks to support BIPOC Land Back efforts leading the way in regenerative and restorative practices for both the land and its people. To learn more about her work you can visit edykachilome.com.

Maryam Ivette Parhizkar is a writer, scholar, curator, and translator based in New Haven, Connecticut, where she is completing (in 2025) a PhD in American Studies and African American Studies at Yale University. She is currently working long-term on two research projects: a study of collecting practices, materiality, and the transfiguration of loss in the justice-seeking practices of minoritarian writers and artists from across the Americas; and a literary/cultural history of the “emergence” of the U.S. Salvadoran diaspora in a relational, multi-ethnic and transnational context.

Since 2019, Maryam has co-developed projects with Tierra Narrative, a collective of writers and filmmakers dedicated to circulation and production of Central American narratives from the isthmus and its diaspora. As a part of the collective, she produced and co-created ¿Que hora es en el reloj del mundo? (What time is it on the clock of the world?), a multichannel audiovisual piece curated from the contributions of nine activists, filmmakers, artists and writers from across the Americas, as well as hose of the collective’s members. The piece was commissioned by the Association of the Study of the Arts of the Present and presented at the Park Avenue Armory in 2024. Most recently, she co-edited (with Óscar Moisés Díaz) “I celebrate my permanence in the eye of the beast,” a folio of writing by six women from El Salvador, with English translations by three translators of Salvadoran heritage. You can find this folio on the digital platform of the journal FENCE at https://fenceportal.org/six-women-writing-from-el-salvador/.

The author of three previous poetry chapbooks, she is also completing a first-full length manuscript of her poetry, for which she has been recognized as a CantoMundo Fellow. With María Aguilar Velasquez and Eileen M. Galvez, Maryam was co-organizer of the first Central American Futurities conference at Yale in 2024.

Session Facilitator

Beatriz Yanes Martinez is PhD student in American Studies at NYU. Prior to starting their PhD, Beatriz was Curatorial Mutual Learning Fellow at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College where they curated [Un]Mapping: Decolonial Cartographies of Place and co-curated From the Field: Tracing Foodways Through Art. They received their BA in Latin American Studies from Carleton College, where their research was supported by the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship. A queer poet and curator, their research sits at the intersection of radical ecologies, histories of extraction, photography, aesthetics of refusal, counter-cartographies and archives. Beatriz has received fellowships from Undocupoets, Community of Writers, and BreadLoaf Environmental Writers Conference at Middlebury College, and Colby College Environmental Humanities. Their poetry and art writing can be found in the Brooklyn Rail, the Rumpus, Michigan Quarterly Review, and others. 

Jonathan Peraza Campos (he/him/él) is a Latinx/Central American studies and ethnic studies educator, program specialist for Teaching Central America, and a co-facilitator for the Vos del Sur program at Migrant Roots Media. When he is not teaching his sixth grade students in Atlanta, GA, he provides ethnic studies and political education with the Escuelitas program in Atlanta's Buford Highway neighborhood. As the program specialist for the Teaching Central America program at Teaching for Change, he supports teachers and schools with resources to weave Central American studies into K-12 classrooms across the country. Additionally, with Migrant Roots Media, he and Alejandra Mejía co-facilitate the online course, “Vos del Sur: A Central American Studies of the South”, to create a community of Central Americans in the US South who develop Central American identity and history through a transnational Southern lens. Peraza Campos believes in empowering Global US South communities, especially those of Latinx and Central American descent, with liberating education about who we are and who we can be in order to take action to change our conditions. He believes that Central American studies and ethnic studies education should exist within, beyond, and against schooling to build power, re-imagine, and rebuild our world.

Yvette Borja is the inaugural Laura E. Gómez Teaching Fellow on Latinx People and the Law at UCLA School of Law and teaches Latinx People and the Law. Her research is focused on movement lawyering, abolition, and immigration law. She previously worked as a movement lawyer at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network where she led the National TPS Alliance’s legal strategy to further its campaign goal of permanent residency for all Temporary Protected Status-holders. Before that, she was the inaugural staff writer of Balls and Strikes, a progressive blogsite that covers the Supreme Court and federal courts, the border litigation attorney for ACLU of Arizona, and a staff attorney for the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. She interned for Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 2015. Borja received her B.A. with distinction in the American Studies major at Yale University and her J.D. at Stanford Law School. She is the host and producer of the Radio Cachimbona podcast, which has been featured by Apple Podcasts for Latinx Heritage Month and Women's History Month.

Thelma Dietrich Rivera (formerly Patnett) is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at UC Riverside. She received her BA in Sociology and Anthropology and a Master’s in Latin American and Iberian Studies from UC Santa Barbara. Thelma is a UC President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellow, completing their dissertation titled “Displaced Diasporas: Narratives of Displacement, Migration, and Survival across Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and the US.” Thelma’s commitment to archiving transnational Central American resistance stems from valuing gender-feminist perspectives on lived experiences, history, and knowledge production. By examining histories and narratives through an interdisciplinary and intercultural lens, we can identify the ethical implications of radical consciousness and embodied practices that resist and challenge systemic violence, structural systems, and legacies of oppression. Thelma’s community-engaged and oral history research contributes to a social justice framework, humanizing the silenced, the exiled, and the asylum seeker’s experience. Thelma combines Critical Feminist ethnographic and Oral History methods with Black Diaspora Studies, Transnational Feminist Theory, Decolonial Studies, and Latin American Studies to archive the multifaceted experience and understanding of the intersections of race, gender, migration, and power.

Dr. Tanya Erazo (Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, with an emphasis in Forensic Psychology) has devoted her career to empowering women, immigrants, Queer, Black, Indigenous and Brown folx to understand their mental health symptoms and explore where they may be stemming from. Through proven, evidence-based methods, she helps her clients pinpoint what areas of their lives can be impacting them negatively and find the tools and strategies to best address them.

An award-winning, published and experienced psychologist, Dr. Erazo knows firsthand the inequities marginalized people face. She knew her expertise would best serve communities that typically don’t have access to mental health providers who are able to relate to and empathize with them. Her blend of knowledge, experience and relatability allows her to provide high-quality care for those who have been overlooked, overpathologized or left behind by the system. She is the founder of Liberate Psychological & Consultation Services, Inc. (based in Oakland, CA) as well as an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of San Francisco.

To learn more about Dr. Erazo, visit: www.tanyaerazo.com

Session Facilitator 

José Alvarado is a Honduran-born, New York City-based arts administrator dedicated to the intersection of arts, culture, and social impact. His work spans curation, production, and cultural commentary. At THE OFFICE performing arts + film, José has curated performing arts and music programming for esteemed cultural institutions such as The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), Crystal Bridge’s The Momentary, Symphony Space, ArtYard, and The Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts. He also served as Co-Artistic Director at Guild Hall of East Hampton. His curatorial efforts extend to music festivals, including Celebrate Brooklyn!, the FreshGrass Festivals, and the Momentous Electronic Music Festival. José is the co-creator of the live performance series Young Masters, which highlights excellence among the new generation of artistic pioneers. Additionally, his creative and strategic consulting work involves collaborations with artists and activists Ella Bric and Aurelio Martinez. As a producer, he has contributed to projects such as Yo-Yo Ma’s Our Common Nature and the Bach Project, Tiny Desk x GlobalFest, and the Rolex Arts Initiative. José also writes on his personal blog and for Contracorriente.red, examining the cultural narratives that shape Central America. He holds an MA in Arts Administration from CUNY Baruch.

Juanita is Maya Mam from the Western Highlands of Iximulew (Guatemala). She is a survivor of the war and genocide in Guatemala and a former political refugee. She has both personal and professional work experience in the defense of Indigenous Peoples’ human rights. Her focus has been to use international law and organizations and traditional knowledge for the development of an Indigenous human rights response in the areas of immigration, land rights, and environmental protection. She works with Maya leaders and elders in Guatemala and the United States through their traditional institutions. A key pillar to her work is The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to advance its full and effective use and implementation in both domestic and international policy. She has authored or co-authored various reports and articles on Indigenous forced migration, the right to seek asylum, and human rights violations of Indigenous Peoples. Juanita has presented on Indigenous rights before academic institutions, civil society organizations and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples Issues (UNPFII). She serves on the Board of Directors of the Indian Law Resource Center. She holds a Master of International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Tru (Philip Patrick Harper) is a first-generation Belizean-American artist from Leimert Park, CA. Drawing from his cultural heritage, Tru’s work intersects sound art, performance, and multimedia installation. He has collaborated with institutions such as Center Theatre Group, USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, LA Dance Project, Ballet BC and Netherlands Dance Theatre. His explorations in sound have been featured in major spaces like the Mark Taper Forum, The Greek Theatre and The Whitney Museum. Tru’s practice centers on the fusion of experimental sound with storytelling, technology, and social history.

Carolina Fuentes is a fourth-year PhD Candidate in Anthropology at George Washington University (GWU). Her research interests are Salvadoran migration patterns to the United States, transnational community-building, and identity formation in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. Carolina has served as the Editorial Assistant for Anthropological Quarterly, editing worldwide anthropological manuscripts for publication. She has served as a GWU Presidential Fellow, Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute Fellow, and HumanitiesDC Oral History Fellow. Outside of academia, Carolina is part of the Yellow House Collective, producing The Most Beautiful Deaths in the World, a film about the Salvadoran artist diaspora in the nation's capital. Born in Morazán, El Salvador, she hopes to continue to work on the intersections of generational healing, film, and research. 

Eileen (she/ella) is a Ph.D. candidate of Higher Education at Colorado State University and the 2024-2025 Education Studies Research Fellow at Yale University. In her scholarship, Eileen examines colonial practices of the imperial university through the centering of Central American and Isthmian peoples and their transisthmian hybridity within the higher education ecology. Eileen theoretically engages with Central American epistemologies, histories, and cultural practices of revolutionary storying in her methodological explorations. Her dissertation project examines three conditions of (in)visibility – visibility, hypervisibility, and invisibility – that Central American and Isthmian faculty navigate in and outside of the U.S. academy. Eileen is the daughter and sister of Salvadoran refugees and was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles.

Session Facilitator

Veronica Melendez is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and educator based in Greenfield, MA. Her work centers the afterlives of Civil War, migration, and Mesoamerican Indigenous imaginaries. Her projects weave between original photography, archival imagery, collage, oral history, and stop motion animation. These mediums allow her to delve into the hybridity that comes with living in the diaspora. Having ancestral roots in Guatemala and El Salvador and growing up in Washington D.C. she is constantly faced with the complex ideation of home in a city that is deeply tied to her family’s history of displacement. Through her art she finds ways to process the endless questions that arrive from this complicated upbringing.

Veronica is a founder of La Horchata - an arts publication highlighting creatives with Central American roots. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography, Creative Arts and Visual Culture at Hampshire College. 

Tomás Ayuso is a Honduran writer and documentary photojournalist whose work focuses on Latin American conflict as it relates to the drug war, forced displacement and urban dispossession. Based in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, his goal is to connect and include marginalized communities in the overarching narrative and history of the Western Hemisphere.

Although his work documents violence and struggle that the region’s people face, many on a daily basis, Ayuso aims to record the communities' successes, as well, creating a more complete and holistic view of the Latin American, and more specifically, the Central American experience.

Olvin Abrego Ayala is a Salvadoran-born, Honduran-raised, undergraduate student at Dartmouth College majoring in Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean Studies with a focus on Central American Studies. He co-leads his school’s first Central American Club, CAUSA, and is a former student researcher for the Central America Project. His research interests include popular movements, agrarian reform, decolonial thought, historical memory, artivism, and educational justice.

Tesora Garcia (she/her) [born 1989] is a Salvadoran-American media artist, writer, and educator whose work is here to devastate the violence of the Global North. A citizen of the Global South and an American Dreamer, Tesora’s research, drawing from various threads in immigration politics, philosophies of madness, and nonwestern esoteric spirituality, aims to explore how structural violence shapes personal and collective experience. A co-founder of Becoming Sticky, a lens-based collective of Central American photographers in the diaspora, Tesora uses a mixed-media approach that combines creative writing, critical theory, and experimental digital forms to unsettle fixed systems of value and artistic inquiry. Tesora’s work and practice, through novel approaches like insect reiki and games in collective consciousness, are dedicated to the emancipation of bodies, thought, and land.

Tesora holds an MFA degree in Photography & Extended Media from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), dual degrees in Photography and Art History from the University of North Texas, and currently serves as Assistant Professor of Photography and Digital Futures at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, where she is teaching the next generation of experimental media artists and thinkers.

Julio Gutiérrez is a Salvadoran anthropologist, currently finishing his doctoral work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the political ecology of urban extractivism in Central America. Julio’s dissertation examines the socioenvironmental dynamics that emerged in El Salvador following the end of the civil war in 1992, when the country transitioned from an agricultural economy to a financialized and service-oriented economic model. The study focuses on the case of Nuevo Cuscatlán, a coffee-producing town in the outskirts of the capital city of San Salvador whose agricultural lands have been targeted as sites for high-end residential development. Drawing on a combination of ethnographic methods, oral histories, and documentary research, it analyzes the reorganization of land use and water rights under real estate expansion and how this expansion connects with broader State efforts to turn the region into a stock of urban property assets for national and foreign investment.

Julio has published on topics related to land and water grabbing, urbanization, elites, financialization and authoritarian populism. His first article, titled “Staging the New City: Urban Spectacles and the Ecological Origins of Nayib Bukele’s Authoritarian Populism,” published in the journal City & Society, examines President Nayib Bukele’s instrumentalization of land and water during the early stages of his political career as mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán. This article earned an award for Best Published Paper in City & Society for the 2022-23 year. His second article, “Real Estate Oligarchs: Elites and the Urbanization of the Land Question in El Salvador,” published in The Journal of Peasant Studies, examines the reconfiguration of Salvadoran business elites in the postwar period and its implication on rural environments. Both of these article’s are the basis of a book project on the political ecology of urban extractivism in El Salvador.

Session Facilitator

Jorge E. Cuéllar is an Assistant Professor in Latin American, Latino & Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College, and the CAUSA Advisor

He is a scholar of politics, culture, and daily life in modern Central America. His research and teaching focus on Central American Studies, Cultural Studies, Race, Migration, and Critical Social Theory. 

His current book project, Everyday Life and Everyday Death in El Salvador, traces the practices of peoplehood, community formation, and everyday life-making amongst varied groups in El Salvador since the end of the Salvadoran Civil War. Via embedded observation, unstructured interviews, and archival analysis, this work explores the quotidian modes of living, thinking, and being produced by historical inequality, the postwar Salvadoran state, and by structural shifts in the transnational system. A multi-sited study, Cuéllar's research attends to the cultural and political strategies employed by diversely situated in-country Salvadorans that, despite living in conditions of extreme marginality, economic abandonment and routine violence, engage in practices of refusal, survivance and critique that motion towards restored and dignified social futures.