For Symposium I went to two very cohesive presentations.

Danica Genners:  Danica’s project examined how attitudes have shifted towards those in the  LGBTQ+  in Latin America have shifted after the election of LGBTQ+ politicians. Her poster was very clear to follow, using a good mix of statistical figures and words. Given the information one would need for the project, I think it was a good choice to show lean towards more statistics rather than pictures for the poster. I think Danica portrayed Latin America fairly, and I really enjoyed being able to listen to what she had to say on the subject

Sarah Vonck:

Sarah’s project explored how the government’s lack of implementing an environmental policy has negatively affected the indigenous community in Ecuador. Her poster was well balanced, showing an equal amount of text, figures, and pictures that were well distributed throughout the poster. The scope of her project seemed pretty big when she first started explaining it but was very thorough and concise. I didn’t have a lot of time to ask her questions at the end, but as she was leading me through her project her tone remained pretty neutral about her findings.

I went to one presentation and a poster. First one was Sydney Irias’s. She talked about how economic, age and educational factors affect one’s adoption culture. She found that having higher educational degrees and income leads to a positive impact in adopting in Honduras. As a person who lived in Honduras for three years, I figured she would talk about religious factor in Honduras. In fact, she did. Honduras, also countries in Latin America, is known for their Catholicity. Looking at the virtues of Catholics, the adoption rate for Catholics was higher than the non-Catholics, since more access was granted for Catholics.

Also I went to Nancy Grazon’s presentation. In her presentation, the main topic was immigrants. She mentioned how the children who have immigrated have hope and desire for their better future, mostly told by their parents. I found it very interesting since it resonated with my Spanish class. In my Spanish class, we watched a movie called “Almost a Woman”. It talked about a child called Esmeralda, an immigrant from Puerto Rico. She had high hopes for her future due to her mother. Her mother had high hopes for the future for Esmeralda since she had more opportunities. It surely had negative impacts on her, putting too much pressure and stress, but positive impacts led her to a success, being able to graduate from a public arts school. The student mentioned negative impacts and positive impacts of the parents’ influence and they were reasonable.

IS symposium was great, providing people with new and interesting ideas.

I went to a poster by Sidney Irias, whose project compared adoption attitudes between the United States and Honduras. The researcher focused on certain factors that influenced positive or negative adoption attitudes, such as age and income, and whether they had the same impact in both cultures. Sidney found that higher formal education, being a woman, and having a higher income all led to positive attitudes toward adoption in both conties. However, I found it interesting that Sidney focused on religion only in Honduras, portraying Latin America as more as a Catholic region than the United States. As a child of Peruvian parents, I thought this was a smart move since Catholicism is heavily practiced by the majority of Latin America. She found that Catholics in Honduras had more access to adoption than non-Catholics.

I also went to the poster of Diana Bickmore, whose poster focused on the impact of climate change on the coffee industry in Columbia and Honduras. Diana found that the Colombian Coffee Grower’s Federation and the Honduran Coffee Institute both were successful to some extent in combating coffee growing issues arising from climate change. Diana portrayed Colombia as more organized due to their unified governing body and prominent national coffee brand than Honduras, suggesting that Colombian coffee industry will adjust better to climate change than Honduras.

[Sarah Vonck]

Sarah’s central argument for her Senior Independent Studies was examining how the lack of implementation of the Rights of Nature, as defined in the newly drafted Ecuadorian constitution, has caused backlash from the indigenous community in the country, and how this backlash has led to further mistreatment of the indigenous community at the hands of the Ecuadorian government (thesis provided by the author). She portrays Latin America (in her case, Ecuador) through capturing Ecuador’s polarized nature that draws a clear distinction between social minority groups such as indigenous group to the established state with abundant resources and power, and further addresses the political inequality between these two groups.

[Dylan Pederson]

Dylan’s focus was the study of racial inequality in Colombia. Several features included human rights catastrophe, para-militarism, and Afro-Colombian collective conditions. He portrays Latin America (in his case, Colombia) as forced displacement and tumultuous place with armed conflicts, presence of Leftist guerrillas and Right-Wing paramilitaries, and drug traffickers.

For symposium, I attended presentations by Danica and Madeline Braver. For Danica, she looked at attitudes towards LGBTQ+ individuals in Latin America, emphasizing the relationship between the number of out LGBTQ+ legislators in Latin American and the acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals in the countries. She provided a comprehensive analysis, looking at over 10 different Latin American counties and ended up finding a consistent link between counties with LGBTQ+ legislators and improved acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals. I think she portrayed the region fairly, with equal attention and treatment paid to countries, and no normative claims made without clear data to back them up.

For Madeline, she looked at the maintenance and efficacy of community water pumps in Ghana and a few Central American countries, finding that there are a number of factors that affect the efficacy of those pumps, including community by-in and the regulation of the pumps. While her project was not centrally focused on Latin America, I still believe she presented a balanced and data driven view of the region that left a good impression with me.

I attended the IS presentation of Nancy Grazon and Alondra Correa. Nancy’s IS was titled “The Opportunity to Succeed: An Analysis of First-Generation, Latinx College Student Aspirations, Family Expectations, and definitions of Success,” and Alondra’s presentation was titled “Lo Bueno Y Lo Malo: A Critical Analysis of Mexican-American Machismo,” which both deals with the diasporic side of Latinx people.

Nancy’s presentation emphasized the children that have arrived in the United States and their hopes for themselves but mostly hops that have been imposed by their immigrant family members.  She emphasized how this pressure from family can have positive and negative effects, mostly at the same time.

Alondra’s presentation discussed the effects of machismo on the Mexican-American women, college educated and not. She empathized that it is not uncommon to have positive experiences with the machismo, however, more commonly was the negative experiences. Another interesting thing emphasized is how the participants were in agreement that both sexes and the different genders can be machistas.

For I.S. Symposium I attended two Latin American presentations on Kauke 2nd Floor. The first one was called “More Coffee Please?: The Present and Future of the Coffee Industry in Columbia and Honduras in Light of Oppressive Climate Change,” by Diana Bickmore. It was about how Climate Change is affecting Arabica coffee bean growth in these countries and could be detrimental to the local farmers growing them. Latin America is considered important in this because most coffee production comes from Latin America, and as well as Africa. The second presentation I went to was called “Adopted Across Cultures: A Comparative Analysis of Adoption Attitudes between the United States and Honduras,” by Sidney Irias. Unfortunately, she was not there to present but, I read through her poster. It was mostly saying that people, dependent on their religious, gender, and age had different opinions as to adopting children from the country. An example of the opinions is religious, and Catholic families in the United States would be more willing to adopt a Catholic Honduran if they cannot have a child. It didn’t have an opinion per say on Latin America, but the topic was related.

Happy Symposium Day!
I attended Danica’s poster presentation on the effects of LGBTQIA+ legislators on public perceptions of same-sex rights. Her results show that while all aspects of an individual’s identity factor into levels of approval for same-sex rights, having an out LGBTQIA+ member of the legislature does have an additional impact on public perception. She portrayed the Latin American countries in her study as significantly more progressive on the issue of same-sex rights than what many US and European focused scholars/publics might expect.
I also attended Sarah Vonck’s G&IS/Spanish poster presentation on the connection between Ecuadorian environmental policy and the treatment of Ecuador’s indigenous population. Her project emphasized the tension between the demands of political structures and humanitarian concerns of indigenous populations. In discussing part of her data, Sarah focused on her interpretation of primary reports of oil extraction, arguing it is skewed lower than the numbers suggest as the Ecuadorian government wanted to appear to be making environmental progress regardless of the real state of extraction.