Editor’s Message

Abstract

Editor’s Message Benjamin Fraser We begin this new year with sincere gratitude for all the collective work behind the scenes that has been contributed by our editorial board members and our peer reviewers from 2022. Behind the articles that are published in each quarterly issue of Hispania there are numerous peer reviewers who have given generously of their time and expertise. Many times, articles that reach the acceptance stage have passed through multiple rounds of peer evaluation, and we are particularly thankful that our reviewers are ready to take a second (or third!) look at a revision along the way. Our aim in all cases is to provide authors of submissions with rigorous, detailed, and meaningful feedback. It is our pleasure to include these reviewer names in our March issue as a way of saying thanks. The anonymity of the review process is essential to the work we do, and so individual reviewers are never connected with a particular submission. If you are interested in becoming a reviewer, please create a reviewer profile in the Scholar One system and make sure to include your areas of expertise!! This issue’s contents are just one batch of contributions to our continuing commitment toward reaching members of the association at K-20 levels and including all research specializations pertaining to the broad categories of literature, linguistics, and pedagogy. The short-form articles section of the journal was formed to provide readers with access to shorter pieces (1,500–3,000 words) that promise to be of interest to K-12 members of the association in particular. Here we include Jerry L. Parker’s “Racial Inclusivity in the Spanish Curriculum: A Case for Afro-Hispanic Literature,” which outlines the impact of diversity equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) efforts in an intermediate Spanish II course. The research articles run the gamut. In “Re-Conceptualizing Affricate Variation in Caracas Spanish,” Manuel Díaz-Campos, Molly Cole and Matthew Pollock tie frication duration to social and linguistic factors in the Venezuelan capital. In “Teaching Special Questions: The Role of Semantics and Pragmatics in Colloquial Interrogative Structures in Spanish,” Javier Fernández-Sánchez and Alfredo García-Pardo assert the special interpretative functions of questions in which evidentiality and irony play a crucial role. Ana Cecilia Iraheta’s article, “Reclaiming the Power of Bilingualism: Spanish Heritage Learners Using Bilingual Skills in a Critical Service-Learning Project,” finds linguistic and affective gains are strengthened through community engagement. Rob A. Martinsen and Gregory L. Thompson discuss the current state of computer-mediated communication in their “Virtual Language Exchanges in Lower-level Language Classes: Promise and Practice.” Two of this issue’s articles blend the study of literature in both Portuguese- and Spanish-language texts. In “Heterotopías decoloniales y subversiones de la sexualidad en ‘A menor mulher do mundo’ de Lispector y en ‘El informe de Brodie’ de Borges,” Gustavo Faverón Patriau revisits two canonical authors from the perspective of the colonial encounter. Jordan B. Jones casts resistance in social, economic and narrative terms in “From Próximos to Prójimos: Discursive Redlining, Autoconstruction, and Crossing in Estação terminal and Angosta.” Finally, Yoel Villahermosa Serrano’s article, “El videojuego queer en el aula: Una alternativa pedagógica española a la cisheteronormatividad,” asserts the value of including LGTBIQ-themed videogames as pedagogical tools in the classroom. [End Page 1] Benjamin Fraser Editor of Hispania Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, Inc