Managing Editor’s Message

Abstract

Managing Editor’s Message Conxita Domènech With this December 2022 issue of the journal, allow me to recap on what happened for our organization, AATSP, and our journal, Hispania, during the present year. 2022 has been a year of hope and desire to put a long pandemic behind us. After the cancellation of the 2020 conference in Puerto Rico, we finally had the opportunity to present our papers and listen to our colleagues in a setting of encanto—the iconic San Juan hotel, Hilton Caribe—and we returned to our homes with a great feeling of satisfaction. The 2022 conference in Puerto Rico has reminded us of the pre-COVID conferences, but it also warned us that complete normalcy had not yet arrived: masks were present and messages notifying exposure were not lacking. We cannot forget, furthermore, the moment of sadness, but also of understanding, when our Executive Director, Sheri Spaine Long, announced that she will retire from her position on June 30, 2023. I knew that one day Sheri’s departure was going to happen. Nevertheless, I cannot imagine our organization and our journal without her. She interviewed me for my initial position as Assistant Managing Editor of Hispania in 2013 when she was the editor-in-chief. From then until today, Sheri has been a fabulous boss, a wonderful colleague, a fantastic mentor, a good friend, and most of all, the best role model. Her previous departure from Hispania in 2018 also caused me sadness, but then I was relieved to know that she was moving up from editor of the journal to director of the organization. We know that Sheri will never completely leave the journal, as she has always been our strongest supporter. Your example and your legacy, Sheri, inspire us to be better Portuguese and Spanish teachers and scholars. Mil gracias and muitíssimo obrigada for your impressive work at AATSP and Hispania. I cannot wait for June 26–29, 2023 in Salamanca to celebrate Sheri’s accomplishments. Let me set aside the past and the future and concentrate on the present issue of Hispania. This December 2022 issue contains a short-form article, seven research articles, and a robust collection of book reviews. The short-form article by Marisa Filgueras-Gómez titled “En defensa de la formación de los futuros profesores de Español como Lengua de Herencia” focusses on the need for university departments to offer training programs for future teachers of Spanish as a heritage language. The research article section begins with Emily Joy Clark. Her essay, “Arranged Marriages and Imprisonment: The Domestic Gothic Horrors of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’s La baronesa de Joux (1844) and Dolores (1851),” examines how Gómez de Avellaneda employs techniques and tropes associated with women’s Gothic writing to communicate proto-feminist messages and to reveal the potential dangers of marriage and domesticity. Clark’s article is followed by “On Blackness and Belonging in Contemporary Spain: Desirée Bela-Lobedde’s Ser mujer negra en España.” Eva María Copeland analyzes this 2018 autobiographical narrative which creates a space for the Black, Spanish female lived experience as a maker of meaning and identity. In “Business Spanish in the United States: Origins and Continuum,” Michael Scott Doyle revisits the foundational importance of business Spanish to the United States and tracks its early formalization in American secondary and higher education. Meanwhile, Mehl Allan Penrose with his article, “The Society of San Guiñolé: Pederasty and Prostitution in La chula by Francisco de Sales Mayo,” presents a rigorous and in-depth study on male homosexuality in La chula. In “The Medicalization of the Economy in Early Modern Spanish [End Page 485] Political Discourse,” Rocío G. Sumillera explores how early modern Spanish political authors applied the discourse of medicine to the economic and fiscal arenas during times of severe economic crisis. The last two research articles of the issue take us to Brazil and China, respectively, or better yet, make a further contribution to the Portuguese of Brazil and the Spanish of Chinese students in “Ditongos <ai>, <ei> e <ou> no português brasileiro” by Nancy Mendes Torres Vieira and Gabriel Antunes...