Our Communities, Our Histories: Engaging Oral History Praxis Across the Salvadoran Diaspora, an online encuentro on October 6 at 7pm ET, brings together Salvadoran scholars from various interests and expertise to discuss the role of oral history in building the emerging field of Central American Studies, including the representation of El Salvador’s transnational community.
Given the ongoing cycles of authoritarianism, censorship, and disinformation in El Salvador and in the Salvadoran diaspora, as well as the historical destruction of archives and distortions of historical memory, the facilitators of this encuentro session aim to start a conversation on the role of oral history in the contemporary moment.
Ana Patricia Rodríguez is professor of U.S. Latinx/e and Central American literatures in the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she teaches classes on Latin American, Central American, and U.S. Latina/o/e literatures and cultures. She is the author of Avocado Dreams: Remaking Salvadoran Life and Art in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area (University of Arizona Press, 2025) and Dividing the Isthmus: Central American Transnational Histories, Literatures, and Cultures (University of Texas Press, 2009) as well as coeditor of De la hamaca al trono y al más allá: Lecturas críticas de la obra de Manlio Argueta (San Salvador: Editorial Universidad Don Bosco, 2016).
Jennifer A. Cárcamo is a Salvadoran scholar and filmmaker, best known for her film Eternos Indocumentados: Central American Refugees in the US. She is currently an assistant professor of practice in the Department of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). She earned her PhD in History from UCLA and her MA in Documentary Film & History from Syracuse University. Her work has been published in Latin American Law Review, Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos, Feminist Formations, and Race and Class.
Alexis N. Meza (she/her) is an assistant professor of Ethnic and Women’s Studies at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. Her work has been published in Migrant Roots Media, Feminist Formations, and Latino Studies.Presenters
Presenters
Leisy J. Abrego is a professor in the Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA. She is always in search of liberatory spaces in the classroom, in community with colleagues, and in accompaniment of immigrant communities and movements in research. She is a member of the first large migration of Salvadorans who arrived in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. She writes about the intimate consequences of US empire and immigration policies for Central American migrants and Latinx families in the United States.
Joanna Beltrán Girón is an anti-imperialist artist, poet, organizer, and scholar born in so-called El Salvador and raised in San Francisco. Her praxis is rooted in curanderismo, ancestral reverence, spirituality, worldmaking, and liberation psychology. Her dissertation focused on the psychosocial impacts of the U.S.-backed war in El Salvador among war survivors and their adult children. As a healing-centered scholar, her methodology included the use of embroidery, body maps, and creative writing (poetry, letter writing, speculative fiction stories) to process and transmute intergenerational trauma.
Tania Cañas is a Salvadorian-born artist-researcher who grew up on unceded Kulin Nation Territory in so-called australia. She is a former Banting Fellow at Western University with the Surviving Memory project and currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Waipapa Taumata Rau (University of Auckland) Aotearoa new zealand.
Karla Cativo is a lecturer at California State University, Los Angeles, organizer with CISPES LA, and a Graduate Student in Educational Leadership for Social Justice at Loyola Marymount University. Her academic and organizing interests include Central American storytelling, intergenerational healing through memory work, decolonizing higher education, and arts-based critical pedagogy for liberation and social justice. Karla was born in El Salvador and forced to flee alongside her parents in 1982 due to state violence and political persecution during the civil war.
Gabriela G. Corona Valencia is an assistant professor in Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include histories of medicine and public health in education, anti-eugenic movement building, and reproductive justice politics.
Rossana Pérez is a poet, writer, lecturer, and translator whose work against gendered state violence transcends colonial borders. She immigrated from San Salvador in the 1980s after being released from prison for participating in the student movement. She is a lecturer in Gender and Women Studies at California State University, Northridge. She also works with a group of Central American Indigenous women to empower Maya and Nawa-Pipil community members to reconnect with our Indigenous roots and keep our stories alive for future generations.
Kevin Ramírez is a PhD candidate in Latin American and Caribbean History at New York University, studying Salvadoran Indigenous communities in the 20th century. His work sheds light on the overlooked Indigenous history in El Salvador by attempting to bridge the gap between La Matanza of 1932 and the 1980s armed conflict.
Arely Zimmerman is an political scientist who writes and teaches about the politics of citizenship, migration, race and gender, and activism from the perspective of Central Americans across borders. She is currently Associate Professor of Chicano-a/Latino-a Studies at Pomona College, and the author of Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders (Arizona UP, 2026).
Nicola Chávez Courtright is PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is one of the founders of AMATE El Salvador, a feminist queer organization and the first LGBTQI+ archive in El Salvador. Her work has appeared in places like NACLA, GLQ, Buzzfeed News, El Faro Académico and others.
Pedro Morán Bonilla (elle/él/they/him) is a Salvadoran former first-generation refugee currently residing on the traditional, unceded lands and territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, səlilwətaɬ, qʼʷa:n̓ ƛʼən̓, and kʷikʷəƛ̓ əm Nations. As an educator and researcher, elle explores the nexus within Mestizaje, White-Supremacy and SettlerColonialism in the salvadorian and canadian nation-building project. Their work is grounded in community-led Indigenous-salvadorian relationality praxis, la cotidianidad, and incorporates decolonial land-and place-based practices among salvadoran communities in the diaspora.
Teach Central America Week Virtual Encuentro
Our Communities, Our Histories: Engaging Oral History Praxis Across the Salvadoran Diaspora, an online encuentro on October 6 at 7pm ET, brings together Salvadoran scholars from various interests and expertise to discuss the role of oral history in building the emerging field of Central American Studies, including the representation of El Salvador’s transnational community.
Given the ongoing cycles of authoritarianism, censorship, and disinformation in El Salvador and in the Salvadoran diaspora, as well as the historical destruction of archives and distortions of historical memory, the facilitators of this encuentro session aim to start a conversation on the role of oral history in the contemporary moment.
All three moderators are Teach Central America advisors and this event is part of the 2026 Teach Central America Week.
Moderators
Ana Patricia Rodríguez is professor of U.S. Latinx/e and Central American literatures in the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she teaches classes on Latin American, Central American, and U.S. Latina/o/e literatures and cultures. She is the author of Avocado Dreams: Remaking Salvadoran Life and Art in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area (University of Arizona Press, 2025) and Dividing the Isthmus: Central American Transnational Histories, Literatures, and Cultures (University of Texas Press, 2009) as well as coeditor of De la hamaca al trono y al más allá: Lecturas críticas de la obra de Manlio Argueta (San Salvador: Editorial Universidad Don Bosco, 2016).
Jennifer A. Cárcamo is a Salvadoran scholar and filmmaker, best known for her film Eternos Indocumentados: Central American Refugees in the US. She is currently an assistant professor of practice in the Department of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). She earned her PhD in History from UCLA and her MA in Documentary Film & History from Syracuse University. Her work has been published in Latin American Law Review, Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos, Feminist Formations, and Race and Class.
Alexis N. Meza (she/her) is an assistant professor of Ethnic and Women’s Studies at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. Her work has been published in Migrant Roots Media, Feminist Formations, and Latino Studies.Presenters
Presenters
Leisy J. Abrego is a professor in the Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA. She is always in search of liberatory spaces in the classroom, in community with colleagues, and in accompaniment of immigrant communities and movements in research. She is a member of the first large migration of Salvadorans who arrived in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. She writes about the intimate consequences of US empire and immigration policies for Central American migrants and Latinx families in the United States.
Joanna Beltrán Girón is an anti-imperialist artist, poet, organizer, and scholar born in so-called El Salvador and raised in San Francisco. Her praxis is rooted in curanderismo, ancestral reverence, spirituality, worldmaking, and liberation psychology. Her dissertation focused on the psychosocial impacts of the U.S.-backed war in El Salvador among war survivors and their adult children. As a healing-centered scholar, her methodology included the use of embroidery, body maps, and creative writing (poetry, letter writing, speculative fiction stories) to process and transmute intergenerational trauma.
Tania Cañas is a Salvadorian-born artist-researcher who grew up on unceded Kulin Nation Territory in so-called australia. She is a former Banting Fellow at Western University with the Surviving Memory project and currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Waipapa Taumata Rau (University of Auckland) Aotearoa new zealand.
Karla Cativo is a lecturer at California State University, Los Angeles, organizer with CISPES LA, and a Graduate Student in Educational Leadership for Social Justice at Loyola Marymount University. Her academic and organizing interests include Central American storytelling, intergenerational healing through memory work, decolonizing higher education, and arts-based critical pedagogy for liberation and social justice. Karla was born in El Salvador and forced to flee alongside her parents in 1982 due to state violence and political persecution during the civil war.
Gabriela G. Corona Valencia is an assistant professor in Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include histories of medicine and public health in education, anti-eugenic movement building, and reproductive justice politics.
Rossana Pérez is a poet, writer, lecturer, and translator whose work against gendered state violence transcends colonial borders. She immigrated from San Salvador in the 1980s after being released from prison for participating in the student movement. She is a lecturer in Gender and Women Studies at California State University, Northridge. She also works with a group of Central American Indigenous women to empower Maya and Nawa-Pipil community members to reconnect with our Indigenous roots and keep our stories alive for future generations.
Kevin Ramírez is a PhD candidate in Latin American and Caribbean History at New York University, studying Salvadoran Indigenous communities in the 20th century. His work sheds light on the overlooked Indigenous history in El Salvador by attempting to bridge the gap between La Matanza of 1932 and the 1980s armed conflict.
Arely Zimmerman is an political scientist who writes and teaches about the politics of citizenship, migration, race and gender, and activism from the perspective of Central Americans across borders. She is currently Associate Professor of Chicano-a/Latino-a Studies at Pomona College, and the author of Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders (Arizona UP, 2026).
Nicola Chávez Courtright is PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is one of the founders of AMATE El Salvador, a feminist queer organization and the first LGBTQI+ archive in El Salvador. Her work has appeared in places like NACLA, GLQ, Buzzfeed News, El Faro Académico and others.
Pedro Morán Bonilla (elle/él/they/him) is a Salvadoran former first-generation refugee currently residing on the traditional, unceded lands and territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, səlilwətaɬ, qʼʷa:n̓ ƛʼən̓, and kʷikʷəƛ̓ əm Nations. As an educator and researcher, elle explores the nexus within Mestizaje, White-Supremacy and SettlerColonialism in the salvadorian and canadian nation-building project. Their work is grounded in community-led Indigenous-salvadorian relationality praxis, la cotidianidad, and incorporates decolonial land-and place-based practices among salvadoran communities in the diaspora.
The event is free and open to the public.
Posted: August 15, 2026