Editor’s Message

Abstract

Editor’s Message Benjamin Fraser The current issue of Hispania marks a brief pause between the two issues containing the journal’s Transformative Pedagogy special feature. This important contribution to the journal and to the AATSP’s ongoing conversations as an organization first debuted in the March 2021 issue (104.1) and will continue in the September 2021 issue (104.3), with another set of carefully selected essays. Created and led by Managing Editor Jennifer Brady and the Guest Editorial Team of Comfort Pratt (Texas Tech University), Rachel Mamiya Hernandez (University of Hawai’i Mānoa) and Martha Vásquez (San Antonio School District), the two halves of this special feature together deliver on the promise to reflect deeply on the values that drive us as educators at all levels (K–20). As the guest editors suggested in their introduction, taking “vulnerable times” and “vulnerable communities” as central coordinates, the hope is that the selected essays “can serve as exemplars for reshaping the pedagogical practices in Spanish and Portuguese classrooms in these uncertain times that have demanded more responsive and equitable approaches rooted in social justice.” Here in this June issue (104.2), readers will find three short-form articles. In “Bad Bunny: Un artista latino que canta en subjuntivo,” Beatriz Glick finds inspiration for reaching contemporary students with popular music. In another short-form contribution, titled “O canto do mar: Jornal criativo em língua portuguesa da Universidade de Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2017–20,” Maria Otília Lage explores the inspiration, content, process, and value of producing a collaborative publication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. And in “Contextualizing Social Turmoil Abroad and at Home in the L2 Classroom,” Laura Graebner Shepin walks readers through an innovative unit focused on Chile and Argentina that incorporates literary, filmic and musical texts. We are also pleased to be presenting eight research articles in Spanish, English, and Portuguese whose insights are, as is so often the case, also transferable to ongoing innovation in the classroom. In “Mujeres rifle: Masculinidad femenina en el evento fotográfico de la Revolución mexicana,” Roxana A. Curiel approaches a counter-archive of historical photos through the notion of queer curatorial practice. In “Bananas, Deep Ecology, and Neocolonialism in Viento fuerte by Miguel Ángel Asturias,” Adriana Kolijn adopts an ecocritical perspective on the role of nature in the Guatemalan author’s novel. “Identidad mexicana en California en el paso del XIX al XX: La patria política frente a la patria lingüística,” by Covadonga Lamar Prieto, places manuscript analysis at the center of insights into the socio-political and linguistic aspects of identity formation. “Caught in the Ethnographic Trap: The Disenchantment of Magical Realism in Novels by Junot Díaz and Alberto Fuguet,” by Silvia Mejía, poses nuanced questions regarding the complex relationship of aesthetics to narratives of globalization. “Ela se faz presente: construindo subjetividades em Um passaporte húngaro, Elena e Os dias com ele,” by Angela Rodriguez Mooney, is a compelling analysis of three twenty-first-century documentary films, which are placed in the wider context of feminist cinema. Alicia Rita Rueda-Acedo’s “A Successful Framework for Developing a Certificate in Spanish Translation through Community Translation and Service-Learning” describes and reflects on the impact of [End Page 149] the creation of an innovative 15-credit certificate program at the University of Texas at Arlington. Leonardo de Oliveira Silva’s “O herói negro na poesia da Guerra da Tríplice Aliança: Marcílio Dias em Riachuelo” blends historiography and poetic analysis in consideration of connections between the named conflict of the 1860s and abolitionist discourse. Finally, Gabriela C. Zapata’s “Lotería in the Age of COVID-19: A Social Semiotic Analysis of Two Artistic Visions” is a highly original piece situated at the intersection of Mexican-American cultural production and the medical humanities. [End Page 150] Benjamin Fraser Editor of Hispania Copyright © 2021 American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, Inc