Center for the Study of the Peoples of the Americas

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Center for the Study of the Peoples of the Americas

Just Published!


The Center for the Study of the Peoples of the Americas is pleased to announce the release of its latest publications with Casa de las Américas. Please click the images above to access.

Mission

The Center for the Study of the Peoples of the Americas (CESPA) is devoted to the principle that education is the basis for solutions to societal tensions. To this end a primary concern of the Center is the issues stemming from the lived experiences of our students. The purpose of (CESPA) is to promote interest in and knowledge of peoples descendent of Latin American communities, whether of Latino/a, Asian, European, African or indigenous origins, within the US and south of the border through service learning, student and faculty research. CESPA also promotes faculty and public intellectual workshops, symposia, conferences, and lectures. Multimedia forums are utilized to distribute Center programs and research.

The peoples of the Americas have their roots in African, European, Asian, and indigenous cultures. The Center for the Study of the Peoples of the Americas (CESPA), is committed to a deeper understanding of the creation and movements across borders, and the development of border cultures, identities and economies. A primary concern is the lived experiences of our students. The California State University system has among the largest concentration of students of Mexican and Central American extraction of any four-year university system in the country, as well as substantial populations of Asian American and African American students.

To this end CESPA will bring together a group of scholars, researchers, and creative artists from a wide range of disciplines to more effectively provide accessible information to all students and communities about the experiences and the cultures of the more than 50 million Americans of Latin-American extraction and the more than 600 million people living to the south of the United States.

 

Upcoming Events:

In Defense of Our Ancestral Territories: Resistance and Criminalization of Maya Q’eqchi’ Women in Guatemala

Wednesday, November 3, 2021 - 4:00pm to 5:15pm

Event Flyer

Lesbia Artola Teyul is the regional coordinator of the Comité Campesino de Desarrollo del Altiplano (CCDA), an organization that defends the rights of Indigenous communities in Guatemala. As a result of her activism in defense of land and environmental rights, Artola Teyul has been criminalized by the State and landowners who accuse her of promoting land occupations and participating in organized crime. In this webinar, she will discuss the ways that transnational extractive projects in the Alta Verapaz region have increased land dispossession, extreme poverty, environmental destruction, forced migration and displacement for Maya communities. She will also address the varied ways in which women have contributed to resistance movements in defense of their ancestral territories.

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Webinar, Thursday, Oct. 21, 4-5:15pm with Juan Francisco Sandoval, Former Head of the Guatemalan Special Prosecutor's Office Against Impunity

Thursday, October 21, 2021 - 4:00pm to 5:15pm

Event Flyer

Juan Francisco Sandoval is the former head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity, where he worked for over a decade. He has directed the investigations of some of the most important cases in Guatemalan history. Some of these cases have led to the detection and prosecution of Criminal and Illicit Political-Economic Networks. On July 23, 2021, Sandoval was removed from his post by Guatemala’s attorney general without an explication. He has continued to be politically persecuted by virtue of the investigations he carried out. In his webinar, he will discuss the work carried out by the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity and explain how illegal political-economic networks are created, functioned, and maintained in Guatemala.

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