Explore Latino Identity and Self-Expression on Dec. 5 at Central

The Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Center (LALCC) at Central welcomes all to attend its inaugural “Latino Identity and Self-Expression Through Art” conference on Friday, Dec. 5, at Hilltop Café on the university campus.

The conference is free and open to the public, with funding provided by a grant from CT Humanities’ America 250 CT Commission and with support from the Welte Society. The conference will run from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Hilltop Café.

“We are so grateful to CT Humanities’ America 250 CT Commission for its support, and we are looking forward to a lively conversation on Puerto Rican and Latino art,” says Dr. MaryAnn Mahony, director of the LALCC, noting that several scholars from Connecticut universities have expressed their interest in attending this conference.

“We are happy to be able to offer this program to the public, faculty, staff, and students in the central Connecticut region,” she added.

This event will bring together major collectors, scholars of Latino Studies, museum professionals, art historians, students, and members of the community in a day of discussion and collaboration around the topic of Latino art. Along with student presenters and performers, three main speakers will explore and reflect on diasporic culture in the United States to facilitate a conversation on the place of Latino art in the broader canon of art in the United States. (See speaker bios below.)

“We are thrilled to be welcoming Dr. Gilberto Cardenas, the founding director of the Latino Studies Institute at the University of Notre Dame, along with Dr. Mercedes Trelles Hernandez, an associate professor of Art History at the University of Puerto Rico, and Dr. Anthony de Jesus, a professor of Social Work at the University of Saint Joseph,” Mahony says.

The conference also will include an exhibit of student artwork and presentations by eminent scholars and a performance by Orquesta la Yunqueña, a Connecticut salsa band. At 3 p.m., Central will recognize Ceramics professor Vicente Garcia, who will retire from the university after 30 years.

With grant funds, the LALCC also will purchase three recently published volumes on Latin American and Latino art for the LALCC and the New Britain Public Library: Robin Greeley’s edited volume “A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latina/o Art” and the two volumes of Harvard’s Afro-Latin American Research Institute’s “The Image of the Black in Latin American and Caribbean Art,” by Bindman, de la Fuente & Gates, Jr. eds.

The New Britain Public Library also will develop programs leading up to December 5 conference that ties into the symposium, including an exhibit that displays Latino art, books related to Latino art and self-expression, and an invitation to the library's Latino patrons to come to the library to make art.

Conference speakers

Gilberto Cardenas, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Sociology and founding director of the Latino Studies Institute at the University of Notre Dame, will be the keynote speaker. Cardenas is an internationally recognized sociologist, one of the founders of Latino Studies as a field in the United States, and one of the most important collectors of Latino art in the world. He is one of the founders of the Inter-University Program for Latino Research, of which he was executive director from 1995 to 2013, and was the founding director of the Institute of Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Mercedes Trelles Hernandez, Ph.D., is an associate professor of the History of Art at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. She holds a doctorate in the History of Art from Harvard University and a bachelor's degree from the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras. She is the author of numerous scholarly works and has curated exhibits on Puerto Rican art at the Tate Museum in London, the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico in Ponce, and the Museum of the Americas. She is the curator of an upcoming exhibit at the New Britain Museum of American Art, which will bring works from the MAP to New Britain.

Anthony de Jesus, MSW, Ed.D., is a professor of Social Work at the University of Saint Joseph. Prior to joining USJ, De Jesús was as an assistant professor at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, and from 2003 to 2007 he served as research associate in education and subsequently interim director at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College (CUNY). He is a leader in the Connecticut Puerto Rican community and the organizer of an exhibit at the University of Saint Joseph in 2024 on Puerto Rican and Latino art.