The 2024 Ramona Arreguin de Rosales Lecture presented by the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies, introduced by Minnesota State Rep. María Isa Pérez-Vega.

Rosa Alicia Clemente Presents: “Can’t Stop Our Blackness: Black Latinx Narratives and Resisting Erasure”

More than ninety percent of enslaved Africans landed in what is today known as Latin America and the Caribbean via the transatlantic slave trade. The presence of our ancestors is still felt and maintained throughout these regions, including in the United States. Black Latinx/African descendants and people(s) are part of the broader Black community’s cultural and historical landscape in the United States. Contemporary migration patterns of Afro-descended people throughout the Americas have created complex and diverse definitions of Blackness. Through the lens of hip-hop, social justice, and Black and Brown freedom struggles, Clemente will discuss these diverse and complex experiences in an effort to illuminate intersections and findings about the experiences of people throughout the African Diaspora. Engaging with various topics and geographic locations to center Black Latinx and African descendant voices in service of providing historical context and contemporary realities about race, representation, and power within the United States, Clemente, a voice of the hip-hop generation, will draw from thirty years of movement building, third-party electoral politics, and independent journalism, weaving in her personal narrative with the histories and experiences of ancestors, elders, contemporaries, peers, and future generations.

6:30 p.m. Event with Live Bomba!
7:45 p.m. Reception — plus giveaways featuring department swag and local art!

Co-sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota.