Cholo en el MIT

Un grupo de alumnos del MIT tiene un proyecto muy bonito llamado de February School. Se trata de un aula abierta a estudiantes y público en general, y el 9 de febrero, día de tormenta, pasé por allí para conversar con Nicolás Kisic y Kimberly Barzola. La Asociación de Estudiantes Peruanos en Harvard tuvo la gentileza de grabar la charla.

Acá los datos del evento y de la escuela:

The February School &
Harvard Association of Peruvian Students Present:

NO SOY TU CHOLO
Race and Racism Beyond The Wall

*Marco Avilés at MIT*

In the context of The February School, an initiative led by graduate students in MIT’s program in Art, Culture and Technology, the Peruvian writer and journalist Marco Avilés will participate in a talk and discussion in topics related to the recent publication of his latest non-fiction book “No soy tu cholo” (I’m Not Your Cholo).

Kimberly Barzola, Peruvian-North American activist will present a number of excerpts from Marco’s book tuned with her experience growing up as a latina in New England, also where Marco currently lives.

The discussion counts on the participation of the public; Peruvians, Latinxs, locals and foreigners, to develop a stimulating dynamic in order to understand, analyse, value and imagine the importance of being cholo/a or latinx in contexts where white skin color continues to be an enormous privilege.

The event will be presented and lightly moderated by Nicolás Kisic Aguirre, a Peruvian student in MIT’s program in Art, Culture and Technology.

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Marco Avilés, as stated on his bio on the back cover of his latest book “No soy tu cholo” is “Cholo. Serrano. Immigrant. Was born in Abancay in the Peruvian Andes; he grew up in San Juan de Lurigancho, the famous Lima-of-the-future neighborhood. He studied journalism in San Marcos, the great university of ‘cholos’. He has published a number of books, among them “Día de visita”, which covers the intimate life in the women’s jail of Lima, and “De dónde venimos los cholos”, one of the most significant books of 2016, according to The New York Times Spanish Edition. He was a reporter for El Comercio newspaper, was editor in chief at Cometa and Etiqueta Negra magazines, and worked as a kitchen ‘pinche’ at Tao Yuan restaurant, in Maine, where he now lives with his wife and a Peruvian hairless dog.

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Kimberly Barzola, despite being born in the United States, is fiercely proud of her Peruvian heritage. As a part of the Peruvian diaspora following the politically turbulent 1980s and 1990s in Peru, her indigenous ancestry and her parents’ agrarian backgrounds, she is constantly questioning the capacity of the US made “latinx” ethnicity to address anti-indigenous racism. She attended Salem High School and recently graduated from Boston University majoring in Food and Agrarian Studies and graduated last spring. Kim currently works as a Transit Justice organizer for Alternatives for Community and Environment, a community based non-profit that advances the cause of environmental justice.

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Nicolás Kisic Aguirre is white, Limenean, with Croatian, Spanish and German ascent. He was born with 3 passports, near Washington D.C.; grew up in La Molina, a distinguished district of the rich outskirts of Lima. He studied a bit of Economics at Universidad del Pacífico, the most expensive school in Peru. He switched to Architecture at Universidad Catolica, the richest school of Peru. He worked as an architect in Lima and was a teacher at the same school of Architecture that educated him. He now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he studies a masters in Art, Culture and Technology. He is obsessed with the power of sound and has been traveling to peculiar places around the world showing, and talking about his (somewhat useless) projects. He’s happy.

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For more info please e-mail info@thefebruary.school referring to this specific event. We hope to see you there!

*This event will be in English, although questions and comments from the public in Spanish will be happily accepted.