Abroadia will host an international education fireside chat on November 17th at 2pm Eastern Time. The chat will feature two speakers with compelling and very relevant viewpoints about international education. Dr. Anthony Ogden from Gatewa

Abroadia will host an international education fireside chat on November 17th at 2pm Eastern Time. The chat will feature two speakers with compelling and very relevant viewpoints about international education. Dr. Anthony Ogden from Gateway International Group will moderate the conversation between Rhia Moreno from Augustana University and Daniel Greenberg from Earth Deeds. This event is free and open to everyone.

Register via this link: http://bit.do/moreno-greenberg-firesidechat

     

 
   Abroadia has released an update on the Covid Situation in Cuba. To read it, click  here .

Abroadia has released an update on the Covid Situation in Cuba. To read it, click here.

Global Thoughts with Sidal Aslan

Global Thoughts with Sidal Aslan

On May 19th Turkish pentathlete Sidal Aslan joined us to describe how she trains for competition and the challenges of being a practitioner of this so grueling sport.

If you missed the Global Thoughts talk, click here.

     

 
   On Friday, February 19th Abroadia facilitated its second COIL program and one first one of 2021. We worked with students from the US and Bolivia who are participating in the Latin American-US Studies Certificate program. It went very well

On Friday, February 19th Abroadia facilitated its second COIL program and one first one of 2021. We worked with students from the US and Bolivia who are participating in the Latin American-US Studies Certificate program. It went very well!

Global Thoughts with Ana Rivas

Global Thoughts with Ana Rivas

Ana Rivas, Associate Researcher at the Technical University of Munich, will be our Global Thoughts speaker on March 31st. Her talk is titled “Recovering public space for People with Street Experiments”.

There is no cost to participate and the event is open to everyone.

Register via this link:

http://bit.do/global-thoughts-anarivas

     

 
   Remembering Juan Carlos Tabío.  You may not know the name Juan Carlos Tabío, but if you saw the highly acclaimed Cuban film  “Strawberries and Chocolate”  (1993),  which lost out to “ Burnt by the Sun ” for the Best Foreign Language Oscar

Remembering Juan Carlos Tabío.

You may not know the name Juan Carlos Tabío, but if you saw the highly acclaimed Cuban film “Strawberries and Chocolate” (1993), which lost out to “Burnt by the Sun” for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, you will know that he co-directed that film with fellow Cuban cinematic legend Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. Tabío also directed the Cuban classic “Se Permuta” (House Swap) in 1983 and Abroadia frequently showed this comedy to our students as a way for them to encounter the affable Cuban sense of humor as well as to study the then popular social mechanism of trading homes.

Sadly, on January 18th, Mr. Tabío passed away in Havana.

Abroadia salutes this iconic Cuban cineaste and hopes that one day Hollywood will recognize his enormous talent and vision.

Descansa en paz, leyenda.

Photo credit: Cuba Sí

Nancy Morejón, Cuban Poet

Nancy Morejón, Cuban Poet

Cuba has a rich tradition of literature and poetry. Here is a name you should know: Nancy Morejón, She is one of Cuba’s foremost poets . Here is one of our favorite poems:

OBRERA del tabaco

Una obrera de tabaco escribió

un poema de la muerte. Entre el humo

y las hojas torcidas y secas de la vega

dijo ver el mundo en Cuba.

Era el año 1999…En su poema

dijo tocar las flores

formadoras de una mágica alfombra

que circunvolaba La Plaza de La Revolución.

En su poema, esa obrera

palpó los días del mañana.

En su poema no había penumbras, sino lámparas

energéticas

En su poema, amigos, no había Miami ni

[reclamaciones;

no había mendicidad,

no había ruindades,

ni violaciones de la ley laboral;

no había interés por la Bolsa, no había lucro.

En su poema, había astucia militante, lánguida

inteligencia

En su poema, había disciplina y asambleas

En su poema, había sangre hirviendo del pasado.

En su poema, había hígado y corazones.

Su poema era un tratado de economía popular.

En su poema, estaban todos los deseos y toda la ansiedad

de un revolucionario contemporáneo suyo.

Una obrera del tabaco escribió

un poema a la agonía del capitalismo. Sí, señor.

Pero ni sus hermanos, ni sus vecinos,

adivinaron la esencia de su vida. Y nunca supieron

del poema.

Ella lo había guardado, tenaz y finamente,

junto a unas hojas de caña santa y cáñamo

dentro de un libro empastado,

de José Martí.

     

 
   Our first Global Thoughts session of 2021 will take place on January 18th at 2pm EST. Abroadia will speak with several winners of the Chevening Scholarship and what they did when they studied in the UK.   The event is free and open to the

Our first Global Thoughts session of 2021 will take place on January 18th at 2pm EST. Abroadia will speak with several winners of the Chevening Scholarship and what they did when they studied in the UK.

The event is free and open to the public. You may register via this link:

http://bit.do/globalthoughts-CheveningScholars

We hope to see you there!

Farewell, Armando Manzanero

Farewell, Armando Manzanero

Abroadia is saddened to learn of the passing of Mexican singer Armando Manzanero. Born in 1935 in Mérida, México, his work became popular in the 1960s and 1970s featuring covers of his songs by the likes of Perry Como and Frank Sinatra.

Here is a live performance of his song “Adoro”.

¡Descansa en paz, maestro!

Photo: from Armando Manzanero’s Instagram account.

Deb Haaland

Deb Haaland

It has been announced that President-elect Joseph Biden will announce that Rep. Deb Haaland (New Mexico) is the new Secretary of the Interior Department. Abroadia wholeheartedly applauds this choice. Haaland is a member of the Laguna Pueblo people and will be the first Native American selected to fulfil the duties of a Cabinet. Her support for the environment and Native American communities will be a welcome change to the US government. Her approach will be a fresh of breath air in a government that has not prioritized the environment.

Photo credit: Aliyah Chavez, Indian Country

Abroadia Salutes Miguel Algarín

Abroadia Salutes Miguel Algarín

Abroadia joins the Nuyorican poetry community in lamenting the passing of Miguel Algarín, the poet who inspired and drove that literary movement in the 1970s and 1980s. Mr. Algarín passed away on November 30th at the age of 79.

In an era where the the literary power of the spoken word of poetry has been supplanted by the hard scrabble and pulsating rawness of rap music, Mr. Algarín’s words still remain relevant and inspiring. Who will be the next Miguel Algarín? Time will tell.

We can enjoy his work. From his poem “Survival” we recall these powerful lines:

i resist being humanized

into feelings not my own—

the struggle is really simple

i will be born

Rest in peace, Miguel Algarín.

Photo credit: Paul Hosefros/The New York Times

A Perceived Racist Comment Conjured  Through Distinct Cultural Lenses

A Perceived Racist Comment Conjured Through Distinct Cultural Lenses

Until this week, few people outside the world of fútbol (soccer), knew of Edinson Cavani, the Uruguayan forward, who until now, was best known for moving to Manchester United from Paris St. Germain. Yesterday, he posted a comment on social media that immediately drew scorn from sleep wokers (I define “sleep wokers” as partisans of wokeism whose passion and righteousness sometimes blinds them to what is right before their very eyes) around the world. In a 2019 article for Medium.com Joe Duncan defined this new movement in these terms:

“Wokeism is the religification of social justice, a bastardization that pollutes original messages of those legitimate social grievances that it consumes as they become hijacked by decentralized players who are more concerned with inflicting harm, shaming, and celebrating together, rather than righting the very grave wrongs of social institutions. It’s the conspiracy-theory arm of the so-called “left” quite often, a term I refuse to use to this particular group of people because their message is so vehemently anti-left on a predictable basis. The point of wokeism is to attack an out-group, it’s never to correct an error, and rarely to criticize the more dangerous elements of society that lead to those errors, namely infinite-growth capitalism. Outrage for outrage’s sake wants to inflict pain, not acquire justice.”

We may disagree with the most precise definition for wokeism, but we cannot deny the impact it has had. It has been said that wokeism has evolved from critical theory, but the present form of this movement eschews any form of constructive debate or criticism. If finds reprehensible the mere notion of considering context or culture in its attacks against alleged perpetrators of 21st century social mores.

Cavani comes from a Latin American culture where interactions between friends center round terms of endearment or affection. It is not rare to call a white friend “negrito” or a heavy-set colleague “flaco”. Irony is part of the friendly interaction in Latin American in a way that no longer exists in the US. Having lived in Cuba for seven years, I am used to this. I was often called by my Cuban friends “mi negro”. I never felt offended, but rather honored that I was considered to be part of the individual’s circle of close friends. In the case of Cavani, he is being judged and condemned by people who are not attuned to these cultural nuances. Oftentimes these keyboard warriors take their shots behind the shields of their social media anonymity and that is a shame. Cavani is not even afforded an opportunity to defend himself against the sleep wokers who have assailed him in such a vicious fashion. It never occurred to them to consider the context or the culture that it was made in.

Racism and wokeism are two sides of the same coin. Both represent the extreme sides of human behaviour and attitude. As international educators we must work hard to build and maintain a middle ground.