Can learning from other cultures inspire resilience in challenging times? NYU Buenos Aires Director Anna Kazumi Stahl believes so and recently gave a TEDx talk on Japanese cultural codes as appropriate inspiration for social distancing. She has now been asked by TED to participate in the main conference this year as one of the foreign language contributors. This year’s main event, on May 23, to be conducted entirely remotely, will feature Kazumi Stahl as one of its Spanish-speaking presenters.
Kazumi Stahl’s original talk, How Collectivist Cultures React to the Pandemic, was organized by TEDxRiodelaPlata, a TEDx group in Buenos Aires that functions as a think tank which focuses on community engagement through their events. Her history with the group dates back to 2013, when she was asked to explore her own identity and her choice to write in a foreign language. A fiction writer and scholar of comparative literature, Kazumi Stahl, the daughter of a Japanese mother and a father of German descent father, is an American citizen who calls Buenos Aires home, and writes primarily in Spanish.
As Argentina began its program of isolation and social distancing in response to COVID-19, TEDxRiodelaPlata was invited by Argentine national public television to select eight speakers that could help people consider the positives of the situation.
Kazumi Stahl’s talk – which is available online with subtitles here – explores the ideas which inform collectivist cultures, and considers how to interpret certain behaviors as gestures of respect or closeness. The aim of this talk was “to consider other cultures so as a way to offer encouragement or hope for those feeling overwhelmed or afraid.”
Among the Japanese cultural codes that Kazumi Stahl considers are:
Hedatari
Distance
“Rather than a coldness, this gesture conveys acknowledgement of the other as not to be invaded or imposed upon, as if saying, ‘I see you.’ Japanese culture doesn´t call for an immediate physical intimacy like handshaking […]; instead things begin with a conscientious giving of space, respectfully interacting, and then over time and with the right conditions closeness may arise.”
Wa
Harmony
“[A]cross cultures we experience ways of connecting ourselves to larger entities we are a part of, such as the bonds signalled by a Mets cap, a national team jersey at the Olympics, or even the NYU torch. In Japan this concept of ‘wa’ extends to a societal level. And individuals are deeply motivated to help maintain the broader harmony.”
Amae
Dependency
“This is the idea of relying personally on the interconnectedness of individuals, so it is a deeply rooted notion in a collectivist culture. It leads to the expectation, indeed the confidence and trust, that other people will take of me and that I will take care of them.”
“One of the things that emerges from working across lines of cultural differences,” she explains, “is that you become more embracing of not knowing.” Kazumi Stahl believes that not knowing is among what is most challenging now and that this is also true of working interdisciplinarily. “It requires you to have respect for other disciplines,” according to Kazumi Stahl, “because without it, your work will become superficial.”
When she is not teaching, Kazumi Stahl dedicates most of her time to creative writing, and notes that her background in working at the intersection of disciplines and cultures has proven to be very helpful during this global health crisis.
“There is a very key aspect of the creative process that may be deeply impacted by a crisis like this, but that also provides a space where you can process it,” Kazumi Stahl says. “Writing and art is a means for allowing emotions to emerge and take shape. There is a great deal of resilience in the imaginative forces of literature and the other arts that we can rely on again as a place to imagine possible futures.”
Even though NYU Buenos Aires had to suspend their in-person activities due to the impact of COVID-19 in Argentina, the site’s Global Equity Fellow, Sydney Lin, is continuing to focus on building community with her fellow NYU Buenos Aires students scattered around the globe. Although this was not what she had envisioned for her GEF experience, Sydney’s personal goal has now become “keeping our community connected and supported” despite not being together and she decided that “continuing events was a way to do that.”
Sydney, a second-year Steinhardt student pursuing a double major in Early Childhood Education and Spanish, with a minor in Dance, is in the final stages of organizing an April 13 event that is featuring an Afro-Descendent activist and cultural studies expert. Sydney will present and lead Q & A with Anny Ocoró Loango on the topic of Afro-Descendants in Argentina: Myths, Realities, and Challenges in the Field of Education.
Sydney is also busy coordinating with the NYU Buenos Aires Student Life team to showcase a visually vibrant project of large portraits of Argentine historical figures who in truth were Afro-Descendents, despite the fact that some historiographies showed them as caucasian or Euro-Descendant. Plans for an in-person exhibition of eight portraits at the Academic Center have been postponed to a future semester, though Sydney and the NYU Buenos Aires staff are moving the exhibition online for now. The online exhibition will open on April 30.
A page from the exhibition pamphlet.
The images the team has selected showcase the visual impact of restoring the actual visual identity to national historical figures who were misrepresented as more European but now restored to their authentic image by the sponsoring Institute’s historical research. The digital images that will be shared for this event are photos of the portraits themselves. These images reveal that these Afro-Argentine historical figures were “invisibilized” and are now being re-vizibilized, and correctly fully celebrated as part of the larger movement to combat discrimination against persons of color in Argentina.
Originally from Durham, North Carolina, Sydney says she enjoyed expanding her horizons at NYU’s New York campus, and was very excited to study in Buenos Aires for Spring 2020 to further her Spanish fluency and to investigate questions surrounding inclusion, diversity, belonging, and equity. Sydney, along with everyone at NYU Buenos Aires, had to depart because of COVID-19. “A month and a half in, we had just gotten into the swing of things with classes and with living in a new country. As GEF, I had various events planned or in the works that I had to quickly leave, not knowing if we’d be able to do them virtually or not.” Sydney feels that moving forward with the events has become a meaningful way for students to stay connected. Even though she knows it is likely that fewer students will attend virtual events, Sydney believes that “it is important to continue providing safe spaces and opportunities for students to talk about IDBE (inclusivity, diversity, belonging, and equity) issues/concerns. Additionally, learning about these issues in the context of Buenos Aires helps us learn more about the beautiful city we had to leave so abruptly.”
“What would Martin Luther King do if he were here today in our Latin America? With no doubt, he would certainly be denouncing the inequality that affects black populations, claiming for them to have fairer working conditions. He would be inspiring us. He would be making history.”
So writes Anny Ocoró Loango, professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences whose scholarship focuses on ethnic-racial issues, and presenter at a panel discussion, The Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., From the Argentine Context, heldin early February. Centered around the topic of inclusion, NYU Buenos Aires (NYUBA) hosted the event, which was organized by the United States Embassy in Argentina.
Convening academic and practitioner perspectives, the panelists also included: Madoda Ntaka, an anti-discrimination attorney; Miriam Gomes, president and co-founder of the Diáspora Africana en la Argentina (DIAFAR) and scholar on the influence of African culture in Argentinian society; and Nengumbi Sukama, founder and executive director of the Argentine Institute for Equality, Diversity and Integration (IARPIDI). From legal, academic, and human rights perspectives, the panelists considered how Dr. King would address the current struggles of Afro-descendants, and how his legacy has informed the work of activists historically and today. An audience of embassy personnel, members of Afro-Argentine advocacy organizations, city of Buenos Aires representatives, as well as members of the NYU community, came together to engage in open-format conversations with the presenters.
“The space itself allowed for people of color, as myself, to feel heard in a safe room with others that acknowledge the plight of sticking out in a country that has done a lot in the past to white wash certain parts of history,” said Fanny Yayi Bondje, a junior studying away at NYUBA in the Global Liberal Studies program with a concentration in Politics, Human Rights, and Development. “The panelists were vulnerable and shared stories where they have been targeted with racist acts and words by neighbors, coworkers, and even strangers on the street. They have used those experiences to make them fight harder for what’s right and have been inspired by activists all around the world, such as Dr. Martin Luther King. They shared some of their favorite quotes from Dr. King but they also shared the names and legacies of influential Afro Argentines figures, who are often not talked about in history or today. For example, Bernardino Rivadavia, the first Argentine president was of Afro-descent.”
“To talk about leaders and activists who gave their life for equality, justice and integration is a way of disseminating their legacy to our generation and future ones to come,” said South African and Argentine lawyer Madoda Ntaka. Providing pro-bono work on anti discrimination cases to the Afro-descendant community, he hopes to promote justice and increase understanding of racial issues in the City of Buenos Aires.
Growing up in an environment of activism, Ntaka’s father Simon “Blues” Kotsi Ntaka, was a musician and militant from South Africa. “[He] also fought for the rights of those in the African Diaspora. As an active member of the African National Congress, he dedicated his life to fighting the apartheid system in South Africa until 1965, when he was forced into exile in Argentina. […] So I feel connected with the struggle that many African and Afro-American leaders have undertaken in the US, Africa and the Americas as a whole.”
The topics of inclusion, diversity, belonging, and equity (IDBE), said Site Director Anna Kazumi Stahl, inform some of the events and academic projects at NYUBA, including Fall 2019 Global Equity Fellow Brian Ruiz’s collaboration with three local experts — Sandra Chaga, Cleonice Da Silva, and Maria Isabel Soares — on a workshop on the history, dance, and culinary culture of Afro-Descendants. “IBDE is a deeply important issue — indeed a core concern — for us in BA. Many staff and faculty have a heightened experience of such and engage in research and/or activism vis-a-vis this theme. At the same time, we very much want to continue to develop more ways to bring attention to these themes as they play out in this local context.”
The panelists agreed that one of the major problems today is the lack of education about the long history of Afro-Argentine presence and their contributions to the country. Reflecting on the ideas discussed, Bondje noted, “I can only imagine how much could change if children in schools were taught about them and could see them in this beautiful way, how different Argentina would look today.”
Today we are in conversation with NYU Buenos Aires Professor Cecilia Calero, who teaches “Developmental Psychology” at NYU Buenos Aires.
I understand that you are a neuroscientist in the Neuroscience Laboratory of Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. There you lead a research project called “Little Teachers.” Can you tell us a bit about the project?
I work in the neuroscience lab at UnivesidadTurcuato Di Tella. In the lab I now have dual responsibilities. On one hand, I am currently the Vice Director, this means that I am in charge of all the groups in the lab and must take care of all of the administrative work necessary to make sure that everyone can do their own projects. I serve as a liaison between the lab and the rest of university. On the other hand, from an academic point of view, I lead the “Little Teachers” project. This project started during my postdoctoral work with Dr. Mariano Sigman and Dr. Sebastian Lipina, and I continued it as I became an appointed researcher. The focus of the Little Teachers project is trying to understand and explore different aspects of teaching during development. Much of the literature is focused on how we learn and acquire new abilities, concepts, master new materials. Our group is focused instead on how we pass on and transmit information, and the cognitive changes we experience when we pass on what we know. We are evaluating how we assess what we know, and we are exploring whether or not we are intuitively good teachers even without professional training. In the project we work with kids between the ages of three and twelve. They, therefore, have no professional background on how to teach, but have had many teachers in their lives. We examine what behaviours they mimic and which one they don’t and why, as well as what information they present when transmitting information to others.
How did you come to teach at NYU Buenos Aires and what do you teach?
It was kind of funny story because I ended up teaching at NYU Buenos Aires due to a happy accident. A professor at NYU invited my supervisor to give a talk at NYU Buenos Aires. On the day of the talk, he had a delayed flight and asked me to go instead. So, it was by chance that I ended up giving a talk. While there, I talked about my project and I got to know the NYU Buenos Aires Director, Anna Kazumi Stahl, and Gigliana Melzi. Because I have a neuroscience background, I have a singular perspective on cognitive development, and they like it. I am always connecting everything we observe to the brain; every behaviour is linked to the brain, which operates constantly changing and rearranging the way we process what we experience and physically changing in response to the environment. Both Anna and Gigliana liked this approach to the topic so I started teaching four years ago.
How has the experience of teaching at NYU Buenos Aires complimented your research work? How has your experience been with the NYU students?
Teaching at NYU Buenos Aires is very different from teaching at my university. First, it is a very small class, which creates a more personal experience for the students. My classes at the university can have 25, 30, 40 students. My class at NYU Buenos Aires is always around ten to twelve students. This intimacy shapes and changes the classes every year, because I always try to include things that the students in each particular class are more interested in. Therefore, I change the materials and papers, and I customize the classes for them each semester. I try to get to know the students and their interests, whether it is public policy, the economic aspects of development, the brain, genetics… It also depends on whether or not the students have already taken classes on development before. Given the fact that the students have very different backgrounds every year, it has been quite a ride. They come from many different disciplines, but also different NYU sites, Shanghai or Abu Dhabi, NY. These differences and the cultural richness it brings, constantly shapes the course. It is also instructive for me.
I am often repeating that we all are a combination of genetics plus environments. That is perhaps the most important concept the I share with my student – we are a combination of what comes with us and what is around us. The diversity in the classroom helps me to illustrate that point. I also always encourage the students to take advantage of being in Argentina. Many may have heard some ideas about Argentina or Latin America, but have never experienced what it means to be in a Latin American country.
During the whole semester we learn about scientific inquiry and how to conduct a real live interview. We explore what you would ask to a hypothetical person to learn different things about that person. We then, during the semester, we have different people coming into the class – researchers, doulas, professionals – to be interviewed.The students learn how to conduct interviews with adults, and towards the end of the semester we also do an interview session with Argentinean teenagers. This entire process requires them to discussed theoretical background matters, choosea topic,develop questions. They consider physical or emotional development, cognitive development, gender, and other issues. They have to come up with an interview and collect data with real subjects. It is especially interesting that the adolescents are usually 15 – 16 years old and the students are a few years older, so they are not that far away from that age. It is therefore a really interesting interview because by the end they realize that they can compare the experiences of the Argentinian teenagers with their own life experiences. There are a lot of differences and similarities, which allows them the understanding of culture from different perspectives.
I understand that your teaching of developmental psychology and neuroscience at NYU Buenos Aires has provided great opportunities for local fieldwork. Can you share a bit about that?
NYU Buenos Aires is always keen to give students opportunities to interact with researchers and learn how we conduct developmental psychology and neuroscience research in Argentina. I have been in the field for the past 15 years so have a broad network in Argentina. I can usually make appropriate connections depending on student interests. Every year, I bring different researchers to the class, so they have these hands on experiences and know what it means to do science in a Latin American country. I really want my NYU Buenos Aires students to have an experience of what it means to do studies and research and interventions here in Argentina. Reading about interventions in a paper is very different from when you actually have to do it in the field. The way that you connect with the studies is quite different because it becomes much more personal and you cannot always grasp that, when reading a paper. The study comes to life. This year, for example, I brought a researcher from my lab who is a young woman, thereby also providing the gender perspective about how it is for a woman to do science in a Latin American country.
Is there anything else that you’d like to share about your work or your experiences with NYU Buenos Aires?
I have had a blast with NYU Buenos Aires. You are able to build a real community. Everyone knows your name and everyone knows the students and what they want to study and their hopes and what they want to achieve.
In some sense, that is part of coming to Argentina; we have that personality, we build bonds, we get involved. Overall this has been a really nice experience. Last year, I received a travel grant to visit Global Programs and this year I was in NYU and saw colleagues in the applied psychology department which was great.
Argentina may be a little intimidating at the beginning, but in the end students love that they are part of something. This also makes it easier when you bring people into the class. There is already a sense of openness, and you can ask anything and everything.
I am really glad to be teaching at NYU Buenos Aires.
Brian is a rising junior and HEOP student at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study pursuing a concentration on Prison Abolition. Brian wants to focus on how the Prison Industrial Complex affects marginalized communities and groups of color in New York City. In particular, he is interested in the ways in which he can utilize his experience in community organizing, transformative justice, and film-making. Brian seeks to center marginalized communities and groups of color, dismantle the current oppressive carceral system, and create a new system that ensures accountability, healing, and community. Brian is Domincian and a New York resident from Washington Heights, a predominantly Latinx community. He greatly values community as it is essential to forming relationships, trust, and a love for the land.He is a grassroots community organizer who has done work in the South Bronx and Bushwick on anti-carceral, anti-gentrification, and immigration-related topics.
During his time at NYU, Brian has worked with other students to cultivate spaces for inclusive and diverse communities through his work in the HEOP Alternative Break to Puerto Rico, Gallatin Sophomore Student Council, and Gallatin Diversity Council. Brian looks forward to working with many grassroots community organizers, artists, and students in Buenos Aires as to not only create spaces of diversity, inclusion, and belonging, but also confronting and resisting political and social issues as a means of radically transforming our societies and systems.
Stemming from her own experiences delivering art therapy workshops around the world, Ikuko Acosta, director of NYU Steinhardt’s Graduate Art Therapy program, and clinical associate professor, wanted to offer her students the invaluable experience of practicing art therapy internationally.
More than a decade ago, Acosta established a global internship program at Steinhardt to provide “the opportunity for students to develop racial and cultural self-awareness, work with diverse communities, hone critical thinking skills, and explore the role of art therapy in another culture.” Says alumna Krystal Atwood of her decision to enroll in the internship in Buenos Aires, “I wanted to learn everything I could to provide the most nuanced and culturally fluent art therapy services possible to a range of client populations.”
Coordinated in collaboration with several of NYU’s global sites, Acosta’s interns have practiced therapeutic arts in a wide array of foreign settings, including Florence, which welcomes its third cohort in July 2019. Some of this year’s group will serve a geriatric population that has worked with two different intern cohorts. Acosta recalled that this population was especially receptive to engagement in creative activities, noting “their facial expressions became cheerful, moods were boosted, and their social interactions improved.” In Accra, Ghana, students have worked at a rehabilitation center for young men with mental, cognitive and physical disabilities. A grouping, Acosta said, that contrasts with “facilities in the US where patients are usually separated based on the nature of their disabilities.” The men are also provided with “job training and various types of skills to survive in society” explained Acosta. During the three weeks that the men worked with interns, she emphasized that “they are not treated in a clinical sense, yet a very positive change can be seen in their self-esteem due to their increased ability to express themselves freely without being judged. Their general attitudes became more positive.”
Returning to NYU’s global sites offers faculty the opportunity to observe the long-term impacts of programs. In Ghana, when the van entered the driveway to the rehabilitation center one year later, Acosta and her students were greeted by shouts of “art therapy!” “And,” she added, “the young men went right back into making art as if they had done so yesterday.” When returning to the geriatric facility in Florence two years later, the demeanor of the residents immediately became “uplifted,” and they “even remembered the names of some interns from prior years,” providing “evidence,” that the “experiences were etched in their memories.” Acosta says that “while what we do may be little, at a basic human level, the experience leaves a bright and memorable spot in their minds.”
“There is an amazing resilience that each location reveals. The internship leads to a questioning of one’s values in a way that can’t be gained inside a classroom."
Ikuko Acosta
Indeed, Acosta notes that “the program is not geared toward addressing mental illness directly” and that “it would be unrealistic to treat a patient in three weeks.” Furthermore, she explained that “applying a western concept of art therapy to non-western societies can create tension with local attitudes around mental illness. And therapeutic techniques that are not adapted to the culture situate the therapist as a colonialist.” But while mental illness is viewed in various ways around the world, she emphasized that “the symptoms and behavioral manifestations of mental and psychological disturbances are very similar. What differs are cultural attitudes and treatment.” Yet she has observed that art therapy brings together commonalities in international settings. “Art is universal and so too is human suffering.”
Regardless of location, Acosta says, art therapy students work to build a “human connection.” In every country in which the course has been held, Acosta has seen “students establish relationships despite not speaking the local language. They learn to become highly receptive and attuned to the subtleties of body language and other non-verbal cues.” She added that her students “thoroughly enjoy getting to know each client’s personality beyond his/her disability through creative communication.” Inevitably, explained Acosta, “basic human bonds are formed during experiences that are not bound by a singular form of expression. Connecting in this way is a universal phenomenon.”
Other skills that students quickly acquire, said Acosta, are “flexibility and adaptability, because their clinical training does not translate directly in foreign locations.” She went on to say that “outside of the US, concepts of boundaries between patient and client are much different, particularly those that are physical – it is common and natural for patients to openly and physically express affection to their therapists in many cultural contexts. Another example is corporal punishment, which seems to be an acceptable form of discipline in some countries.” Therapists in the US, Acosta explained, are trained to report signs of “abuse,” so it can be “difficult to set aside feelings of confusion about roles and responsibilities during the internship.”
Reflecting on her experiences in Buenos Aires, Atwood explained that she “felt humbled by the grace and dignity with which Dr. Acosta acknowledged our interpersonal struggles while maintaining hope for all of the involved parties and, ultimately, guiding the student interns toward providing life-changing art therapy services to the clients.” The level of care delivered by the interns is possible, says Acosta, because they “very quickly, learn to take a humanistic perspective and adapt to local mores.” “Interns observe, learn, and respect the host country and are not there to negate or impose their cultural norms,” she explained, and added that “after we leave, they resume their own lives, yet are instilled with memories of the brief but undeniable human connections that we all shared.”
“Students also learn to adapt their planning process for clinical sessions,” said Acosta, as “they develop activities appropriate to the population […] and seek out locally available art materials.” During an early iteration of the program in India, coordinated by Cross-Cultural Solutions, a New York-based non-profit that provides volunteer service to communities around the world, Acosta said her students “found beautiful textiles with which they made dolls with women at a shelter for victims of domestic violence. They also collected many found objects from the streets, which they incorporated into a piece of artwork.” In Florence, a capital of the art world, “students find low cost materials at art stores and unusual items from junk shops.” Acosta elaborated that “these experiences too contribute to students’ creative growth and help them to become more flexible and less confined in their practice of art therapy.”
“Through exposure to how others survive amidst adversity,” Acosta noted, “with very limited resources and significant hardship, students gain a sense of humbleness.” For Atwood, her work with refugees and asylum seekers in Buenos Aires provided a glimpse into individuals’ experiences – many had fled war and violence, and struggled to live with uncertainty in the confines of refugee centers. During the internship, explained Krystal, she saw increases in “self-efficacy and a reduction of isolation as they connected with other refugees and asylum seekers in art therapy groups.”
“There is an amazing resilience that each location reveals,” said Acosta. “The internship leads to a questioning of one’s values in a way that can’t be gained inside a classroom. And that is essential as a therapist because personal value systems can’t be brought into clinical sessions.”
Today we are in conversation with Jazmin Jinnah, who shares her experiences with Gallatin’s Great World Texts course in Buenos Aires. For six years, NYU Buenos Aires has been sending NYU students to local high schools via
Great World Texts, which focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the literary canon. The NYU students serve as tutors in the Argentine classrooms and each work closely with a group of students to creatively engage with texts from multicultural authors. The local high schools have found have inspiring NYU student mentors to be a meaningful experience for young Argentines.
1. What year, school, and major are you? What inspired you to study in Buenos Aires and when did you go?
I’m an Education Studies major in Steinhardt graduating in May. I wanted to go to BA in the fall because I took a class the previous semester on Human Rights and Eduction in Argentina under professor Carol Anne Spreen and Anna Hillary. I had the opportunity to go to BA for the class during Spring Break. I was inspired to come back after talking to the students at Leguitas and EN10. I had so much left to learn about student agency.
2. When did you first hear about Gallatin’s Great World Texts course and what drew you to it?
I heard about Great World Texts my freshman year from the New York Campus. As an education major, I’m naturally drawn to being in the classroom, so I was very excited that they offered the course spring semester in BA. It’s one of the major reasons I decided to go to BA. This way I would still be critically analyzing education.
3. I understand that the course focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the literary canon and involves working with local high schools. NYU students serve as tutors in the Argentine classrooms and each work closely with a group of students to creatively engage with texts from multicultural authors. How was this experience? What was most surprising? Rewarding?
It of course was an eye opening experience. What really surprised me was the differences in the class from the NY campus. The NYU students in NY are placed in schools that are almost all POC, have higher pregnancy rates, speak multiple languages, and are economically disadvantaged. The schools in BA that we were placed in are elite, but still came with its own challenges. Grappling with the differences is very interesting. Even though I was in an elite school (Lenguitas), there were of course barriers to language and there was no technology. For the first time, I had to teach without using a computer or powerpoint. It forced me to be more innovative with my teaching.
The most rewarding aspect was getting to know my students. They were fierce and passionate about human rights and their rights for education.
4. Can you give me an example of one of the texts you worked with? What was it like to work with the students? Did engaging with them change your own perspectives on the texts?
We worked with waiting for Godot. They hated the text, but loved engaging the various activities I planned for them. They thought it was very abstract, and did not see the purpose. Engaging with them made me reflect on what I valued as a teenager. My students are so creative and they taught me how to make the text less abstract and more concrete. For example, one of the final projects used a blog to highlight mental health issues (which was present in Waiting for Godot).
5. How do you think this course contributed to your experience studying abroad overall?
This course was a main reason I wanted to study in Argentina. I learned so much about the power students have and continuously try to bring that into my teaching practice in NY.
6. Would you recommend this course to other Buenos Aires students or those thinking of studying in Buenos Aires? If so, why?
ABSOLUTELY take Great World Texts! You get to actually interact with local Argentines. They are so loving and are incredibly curious. You won’t regret it. You learn along side of them. They taught me more than I taught them.
7. Is there anything else you’d like to share about your time in Buenos Aires or experience with the Great World Texts course?
Being part of this course is a fabulous experience, and one that has informed my teaching practice in NY. Anna and Betina are so supportive with the experience and are truly passionate about NYU students learning.
In this video clip, three NYU Buenos Aires students speak about the recently opened art exhibition in Buenos Aires called La Forma de la Boca [Read My Lips is the English title]. The exhibition is about how the marginalized, immigration-informed La Boca neighborhood is seen or re-envisioned by five artists and one writer.
The curator is NYU Buenos Aires lecturer Florencia Malbran, an art historian and independent curator. She has chosen to fold in some narrative writing in her shows lately.
In the video you see three NYU Buenos Aires students speak about the show. This is a video produced by the Arts Department at the City of Buenos Aires, and it was fortunate that NYU students were selected as featured speakers. Two in Spanish and one explaining the show in English.
NYU Buenos Aires Director Anna Kazumi Stahl is the writer included in this show. Her work is based in fragments as a mode of telling unheard/invisible stories.
The visual artists include well-known figures like Pablo Siquier, Alejandra Seeber, and Gian Paolo Minelli as well as up-and-coming young artists Tomas Maglione and Irina Kirchuk.
Ally Week is important across the NYU community. Here, three students from NYU Buenos Aires, Matthew Gibson, Ellen Heaghney, and Maritza Rico, share how they observed this tradition. Matthew is a junior in Gallatin studying Globalization who chose to study at NYU Buenos Aires to improve his Spanish skills and take advantage of the internship program. Ellen is a junior in Global Liberal Studies with a focus in Politics, Rights and Development and a double major in Spanish. She chose to come to Buenos Aires for the full academic year to improve her Spanish and also because after taking a course on International Human Rights she became very interested in the political history of Argentina. Martiza is a junior majoring in Latin American Studies who came to NYU Buenos Aires to learn more about the history and literature of Argentina in preparation for writing her senior thesis.
Ally Week in Buenos Aires – Conversation with Alba Rueda
Ally Week in Buenos Aires, an annual tradition across New York University’s global network, culminated last week after three days of discussion of culturally specific approaches to allyship in Argentina. On April 11th, NYU Buenos Aires welcomed Argentine professor and Trans activist, Alba Rueda, to have a conversation with students about the history of Trans movements in the country and her current work on the issue. Rueda currently serves as the president of Trans Women Argentina in addition to her work with the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism.
Rueda set the stage for her discussion by explaining that although Argentina became the first Latin American country to legalize marriage equality, there still remains plenty of work in the fight for equality, for example the recognition of transgender identities in schools. She also illustrated a timeline of the relationship, fraught with tension, between the police and Argentine society, and in particular the LGBTQ community. She explained the persecution that arose during the last military dictatorship in the 70s and 80s and the ways in which traces of this discrimination are still very much present today. Rueda brought with her the personal testimony of a friend, who explained her struggle as a Trans individual in Argentine society. This individual was so often targeted by the police that she grew accustomed to being arrested, and even remembers being arrested three times in a single day. Her life was so often disrupted that she lost her job, and she always left the house with a change of clothes, just in case.
Beginning in the 1980’s, social organizations emerged to tackle the issue of persecution of queer communities like what this woman faced. Over time these organizations gained influence and won important victories, but they faced obstacles as well. Argentina as a nation is heavily influenced by its Catholic history–not to mention that the current pope is from Buenos Aires. Catholic organizations were large opponents in the fight for equality and recognition, and Rueda still remembers the moment Pope Francis proclaimed that God was against them.
Nonetheless, organizations like Rueda’s persevered, and with time were key players in important social change. In 2010, marriage equality was legalized, and in the following years rights for the queer community, especially Trans people, were increasingly protected. Soon, Argentine’s of any age were granted the right to change their name and gender officially on documents without any justification other than their own word. And throughout it all, those same organizations that fought for equality, were turned to in order to develop the content of new legislation. Today, Rueda emphasizes the importance for the Trans community of having role models–trans men and women who are respected and accepted in Argentine society.
Of course, there are still many challenges and more progress to be made. But we are at a point that Rueda never thought she would see in her entire life. From her point of view, more people than ever before are comfortable going out into the streets and living their lives. Thanks to the hard work of community leaders like Rueda, positive change was achieved in Argentina. A particularly impactful part of the talk with Rueda was the important reminder that LGBTQ communities are specific to local cultural nuances. She reminded us that each community, although in theory universal, still holds specific spaces that need to be understood and studied with local lenses and historical contexts in mind. Today, they continue their work, part of which includes education and awareness, such as speaking to students like those of us at NYU Buenos Aires – teaching us all how to understand and contextualize Trans movements around the world, and be better allies moving forward.
On Monday, May 8, NYU Buenos Aires will host the Nobel Prize winning novelist J. M. Coetzee. He will read from his new novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. The Schooldays of Jesus is Coetzee´s sequel to The Childhood of Jesus, that situates refugees in an imagined landscape where Spanish is spoken. Mr. Coetzee will also join students and community members for a reception and be available to sign copies of his books.
Can learning from other cultures inspire resilience in challenging times? NYU Buenos Aires Director Anna Kazumi Stahl believes so and recently gave a TEDx talk on Japanese cultural codes as appropriate inspiration for social distancing. She has now been asked by TED to participate in the main conference this year as one of the foreign language contributors. This year’s main event, on May 23, to be conducted entirely remotely, will feature Kazumi Stahl as one of its Spanish-speaking presenters. 
