As part of the Illinois State University’s 2024 Latinx Heritage Month Celebration, Dr. Angharad Valdivia will give a talk titled, “Latinidad via Mediated Quinceaneras: The Status of Latinx Youth in Mainstream Media” on November 1, at 1 p.m. in 314 Williams Hall.
The lecture closes the Latin American and Latina/o Studies Program’s 2024 Latinx Heritage Month Celebration, an annual series dedicated to recognizing contributions made by/for Latine community members, scholars, and artists in a lineup of thought-provoking events.
Date: Friday, November 1, 2024
Time: 1 p.m.
Place: 314 Williams Hall
Valdivia is a Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for Latina/Latino Studies and the Insitute of Communications Research. Her work combines gender studies, ethnic studies, and Latin American studies in the examination of contemporary mainstream popular culture, centering tension between agency and structure within a transnational setting.
For the past couple of years, Valdivia has paid much attention to Quinceañeras. Two years ago, she helped curate the exhibit “Quinceañeras: Celebration, Joy, and Ethnic Pride” at UIUC’s Spurlock Museum of World Cultures. This exhibit highlighted the joy of the celebration and situates popular culture’s portrayal of the practice in a broader context. Since then, she has continued to work on the subject. Her piece “Visibilizing Quinceañeras as a Generational and Ethnic Bridge: Flashpoints of Latina Girlhoods,” was featured in the recently published The Routledge Companion to Girls’ Studies.
Drawing from her years of work on the topic, Valdivia will do it during her visit to ISU. In this talk, Valdivia analyzes Quinceañeras in the media, noting how this coming-of-age tradition has become a trope of authenticity that signifies the presence of Latina girls and Latinidad as an ethnicity transitioning from emergent to mainstream.
Valdiva’s talk is made possible by the sponsorship of the Organization of Latinx Employees (OLE), the Latin American and Latina/o Studies Program, the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, the School of Communication, and the Department of Languages, Literature, and Cultures.
