University of Washington

Movimiento Afrolatino Seattle (MÁS) is a local organization focused on promoting awareness of Afro-Latino arts, culture and spiritual practices. Last October and November, Department of History professor Ileana Rodriguez-Silva was co-organizer of a special six-week series of events for MÁS, which included films, lectures, panels, music, and dance workshops. The series was designed to highlight "the cultural contributions of African descent Latinos in our community and beyond," and brought together hundreds of participants, representing multiple UW departments, including History, along with the larger Seattle community. While dance and music may have been the most visible parts of the program, MÁS executive director Monica Rojas- Stewart underlined the importance of weaving historical insight into the series' explorations of art and culture. "The racial tensions we are (and have been) experiencing against African descent or Latino citizens in this country are due, among other things, to lack of knowledge and understanding of certain historical events," she said. "We choose arts as a tool to first empower ourselves, then to educate the larger community about these histories for social change and racial equity." MOVIMIENTO AFROL ATINO UW HISTORIANS SUPPORTING UNIVERSIT Y BEYOND BARS Here at UW, we believe that education can be eye-opening, empowering, and transforming. Now History faculty and graduate students are helping to deliver that promise to a uniquely underserved community—the inmates of the Washington State correctional system. Dan Berger, professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies at UW Bothell and an adjunct with the Department of History, has seen how educational inequities help funnel minorities and the poor into the present system of mass incarceration. "People who are incarcerated come almost exclusively from communities that were underserved by educational and other institutions prior to their incarceration," he notes. The nonprofit organization University Beyond Bars (UBB) exists to help address these twin failings of educational and correctional institutions. UBB provides higher-educational opportunities—degrees, certificates, and lectures—to inmates at the Monroe Correctional Complex. Its teachers are professors and grad students from various local colleges, who together volunteer nearly 1000 hours to the program every month. Currently four members of the department are active in the UBB program: Berger, Emeritus Professor Carlos Gil, and graduate students Symbol Lai and Katja Schatte (pictured). As Schatte notes, serving with UBB is just part of a larger vision linking education and social change. "People should be thinking about how do we keep people out of prisons in the first place," she says, "and education is the answer." WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU COMBINE AFRO-LATINO CULTURAL HERITAGE, MUSIC AND DANCE WITH HISTORY? IT'S MOVIMIENTO AFROLATINO! history matters D E P A R T M E N T O F H I S T O R Y   5

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