NEW YORK CITY SPEAKERS/PRESENTERS & MODERATOR

The Power of Art, Service, and Counsel to Remedy Gender Based Violence.

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MODERATOR

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LaDean Peterson

Educator

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LaDean Peterson is a life-long educator with 26 years of teaching at the Collegiate and Secondary levels. She has taught literature, writing, English and French in a range of Institutions in Iowa and North Carolina including The University of Northern Iowa, Buena Vista University, Marshalltown CC, and Asheville-Buncombe CC.

 

One of her areas of expertise is Human Relations, which she taught extensively at Northern Iowa as part of a teacher certification and accreditation program developed for the Iowa State Board of Education.  The knowledge she imparted in those classes taught aspiring teachers to recognize and deal with overt and subtle forms of oppression; how prejudice, sexism and racism occur in a range of situations; and how these can undermine classroom and work settings in any industry without proper and timely intervention and remediation. 

 

LaDean has retired from active teaching but remains fervently attached to an academic environment. She keeps her mind sharp by taking courses at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of North Carolina, Asheville. 

 

 She serves as President of the Asheville NC Branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). “AAUW Empowering Women – Since 1881”

 

MA, BA Kansas State University, Manhattan.

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SPEAKERS

 

Karina Aybar-Jacobs

Women's Empowerment Psychotherapist and Coach

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Karina Aybar-Jacobs is a psychotherapist, certified professional coach, speaker, and trainer in New York City. Her motto is: “Building Women’s Resilience Through Vulnerability”.

 

For 14 years, she has contributed to women’s empowerment and continues to impact policies that benefit women and their families. She is a steering committee member of the Brides March Against Domestic Violence, an annual event where hundreds of women dressed in wedding gowns march in different cities to raise awareness about the devastating effects of domestic violence.

 

She serves on a number of boards and collectives dedicated to increasing political power and influence in all issues pertaining to women, mental health, and immigrant communities within the Metro New York City area.

 

Karina actively trains organizations to ensure more equitable and just practices via her workshops around intimate partner abuse and gender equity, sexual harassment, self-care, team building, and helps to dissolve the stigma surrounding mental health. She is a sought-after expert for training programs that teach beauty professionals--instrumental and important members of the community--who through nuanced interactions with their clients can help identify intimate partner abuse and provide assistance to help survivors connect to resources.

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Caroline Davis, Esq.

Senior Staff Attorney, Her Justice

 

Caroline joined Her Justice in 2019. She provides legal advice and counsel to women in poverty in NYC seeking assistance with divorce, custody, child support and order of protection proceedings.

 

Caroline also mentors pro bono attorneys in uncontested divorces as well as litigated divorces and family court proceedings. Caroline maintains a caseload of her own uncontested and litigated divorces as well as several family court matters. She also offers brief services to clients including drafting stipulations, pleadings and petitions. Caroline offers several uncontested divorce trainings for Pro Bono attorneys each year for CLE credit.

 

Previously, Caroline was in private practice in the areas of family and matrimonial law and has litigated extensively in the five boroughs and Westchester and Nassau counties since 2015. After graduating from law school in 2010, Caroline spent the first several years of her career working in criminal defense litigation.

 

JD City University of New York School of Law

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Mariama Diallo

Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Sanctuary for Families

 

Mariama Diallo is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) who practices in New York City.

 

Currently, Mariama is a Co-Program Director at Sanctuary for Families. Her primary role is to provide clinical supervision to clinicians and to carry out group therapy sessions to trauma-informed individual survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, civil wars/genocide, and other types of gender violence, including female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced marriage.

 

Mariama also conducts research projects and develops curricula and other training materials for a variety of other health-related pedagogies and practices.

 

Another important element of her work is conducting outreach and education efforts within a variety of New York City communities, principally about issues that relate to FGM, forced marriage, and domestic violence. Many of these professional training workshops are aimed at doctors, nurses, social workers, and schoolteachers, i.e., all those who have extensive contact with the public.  

 

DSW  Rutgers University

MSW  Columbia University

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Kathy Engel

Poet, Essayist, Educator, Organizer and Cultural Worker

 

Kathy Engel is Associate Arts Professor in The Department of Art and Public Policy at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.

 

For over 40 years Kathy has worked in many of the major social justice, peace, and human rights movements in the U.S. and around the world. In 1983 she co-founded MADRE, an international women’s human rights group, which she directed for five years. She co-founded the Hayground School, East End Women in Black, Kickass Artists, Poets for Ayiti; and, with the poet Alexis De Veaux, Lyrical Democracies and The Center for Poetic Healing.

 

Kathy is co-founder and former president of Riptide Communications, a consulting firm set up in 1989 to service social change organizations.

 

Among the many projects she has been instrumental in organizing are: No More Witch Hunts, a national day of resistance; talkingnicaragua, a dramatization about U.S. policy in Nicaragua; Moving Towards Home, a reading supported by UNICEF that involved Lebanese, Palestinian and Israeli poets; Stand with Sisters for Economic Dignity; Who I Will Be, a performance piece with formerly incarcerated women; Imagining Peace, created in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the impending U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq; Re-Plant Haiti, a performance at Carnegie Hall in support of environmental and agricultural recovery following the floods in Gonaive, Haiti. She has also worked with Amnesty International, the NAACP Death Penalty Project, and The Center for Constitutional Rights against racist police brutality and killings. Kathy was proactive in helping to organize efforts that led to a last minute stay of execution for Death Row inmate Shaka Sankofa, and worked on a campaign to support HIV positive Haitian refugees held at Guantánamo Bay.

 

Kathy’s poems, essays, and reviews have been published and anthologized widely. Books include Ruth’s Skirts (IKON, 2007); The Kitchen, in collaboration with artist Germán Pérez (Yaboa Press, 2011); and We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon, co-edited with Kamal Boullata (Interlink Books, 2007). Her latest poetry collection, The Lost Brother Alphabet, was published by Get Fresh Books in 2020.

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Leticia Robles-Moreno

Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies, Department of Theatre & Dance, Muhlenberg College

 

Dr. Leticia Robles-Moreno’s area of research is focused on how theatre groups of “creación colectiva,” (collective creation) as well as artivist collectives in the Americas, particularly in Perú, Colombia, and Ecuador, develop networked practices as strategies of resistance and survival from a combined perspective of Performance Studies, Memory, and Affect Studies, and generate alternative political subjectivities, communities, and spaces of belonging in times of socio-political uprising.

 

Her book project Becoming Collective: Cartographies of Resistance in the Americas analyzes the political aesthetics of theatre, art, and activism as modes of anti-neoliberal and intersectional bodily coexistence from a combined perspective of Performance Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Affect Studies. She was awarded the Deena Burton Memorial Award for Outstanding Dissertation Research.

 

Dr. Robles-Moreno has published scholarly articles in Latin American Theatre Review, Contemporary Theatre Review, e-misférica, and Conjunto, and has upcoming essays in Great North American Directors, edited by Jim Peck, and Spectacular Uprisings: Gender, Sexuality, and Art in Latin America and the Caribbean, edited by Katherine Zien and Brenda Werth.

 

PhD  New York University, Performance Studies.

MA  University of Colorado Boulder, Latin American Literature

BA  Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Linguistics and Literature

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Saviana Stanescu

Playwright, Associate Professor, BA in Theatre Studies Program Director, Ithaca College

 

Saviana Stanescu is a cutting-edge award-winning Romanian-American playwright, poet, and ARTivist who is based in New York.  She is an Associate Professor of Playwriting and Contemporary Theatre at Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY.  In addition, she currently serves as the BA Director of Theatre Studies.

 

She is the author of Aliens with Extraordinary Skills, Ants, Lenin’s Shoe, Hurt, Useless, Toys, and other plays centering on the immigrant experience. Saviana has received much acclaim and many distinctions including: New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Play (Waxing West) and UNITER Award for Best Romanian Play of the Year (Inflatable Apocalypse). Saviana has published over 20 books of plays and poetry. She has written in English and Romanian and has been translated and produced around the world.

 

Other honors: Fulbright Grant, Indie Theatre Hall of Fame, John Golden Award, KulturKontakt award, Marulic Prize for Best Radiodrama. 

 

Saviana's plays have been developed/produced Off-Broadway at:  Women’s Project, La MaMa, 59E59, NYTW, EST, HERE, New Georges, The New Group, Lark; regionally at the Hangar Theatre, Cherry Artspace, Civic Ensemble, Know Theatre, B Street Theatre, Traveling Jewish Theatre; and globally at Teatro La Capilla in Mexico City, Teatrul Odeon in Bucharest, Dramalabbet in Stockholm, among other venues.

 

MA  New York University, Performance Studies

MFA  New York University, Rita and Burton Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing

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EL PASO / CIUDAD JUAREZ SPEAKERS/PRESENTERS & MODERATOR

Healing Wounds Through Resistance and Resilience.

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MODERATOR

 

Socorro Tabuenca

Writer, Professor

 

María Socorro Tabuenca is Professor of Spanish and former chair of the Department of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Texas, El Paso.

 

She is the author of Mujeres y Fronteras: Una Perspectiva de Género (1998), and co-author of Border Women: Writing from La Frontera (Debra Castillo, 2002), She is also co-editor of Bordeando la Violencia Contra las Mujeres en la Frontera Norte de México (Julia Monárrez Fragoso, 2007), and Camelia La Texana y Otras Mujeres de la Narcocultura (Juan Carlos Ramírez Pimienta, 2016).

 

Her publications include articles and book chapters in national and international journals on: border Mexican women writers; borders’ theories and discourses; Chicana/o film and literature; representations of Juárez Femicide, and women representations in narco-cultural productions.

 

She is currently working on two books regarding Northern Mexico women writers and on femicide in the Juárez region in cultural productions.

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SPEAKERS

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Cynthia Bejarano

Regents Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies.

 

Cynthia Bejarano is a Regents Professor in the Interdisciplinary Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at New Mexico State University. 

 

Her research and advocacy inquiries include concerns over social justice obstructions at the U.S.-Mexico border regarding migration and human rights, immigrant youth, and gender-based violence and its increased militarization. 

 

With Rosa-Linda Fregoso she co-edited Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Américas, (also published in Spanish by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México).  In 2014, she served as a tribunal judge for the Tribunal Permanente de los Pueblos: “Feminicidio y Violencias Contra la Mujer” in Chihuahua City, Chihuahua, Mexico. She also co-founded Amigos de las Mujeres de Juárez, an organization that worked from 2001 to 2010 to end violence against women in Chihuahua and the borderlands.

 

She is currently co-creating with Dr. Sylvia Fernández: "Archiving Feminicide," a digital humanities project that documents, contextualizes, and makes digitally accessible the activist and feminist participation of the first local feminist movements in the Paso del Norte Region from a feminist and transborder approach. This project is in collaboration with Dr. Julia Monárrez Fragoso and Dr. Luis Cervera from institutions in Ciudad Juárez.

 

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Verónica Corchado Espinoza

Defensora de Derechos Humanos, Feminista y Promotora Cultural

 

Verónica Corchado Espinoza es titular del Instituto Municipal de la Mujer Juarense desde el cual impulsa el Corredor Seguro para las Mujeres en el Centro Histórico.

 

Creadora del taller de resiliencia através de arte mosaico para trabajar duelos y situaciones de pérdida. En 2015 realizó el primer taller con tres familias de mujeres desaparecidas y asesinadas, enseñando como se podía tallar la lápida con los rostros de las hijas perdidas.

 

En 2010, junto con otras defensoras de Derechos Humanos, concreta la Colectiva Arte, Comunidad y Equidad A.C., una organización que trabaja con mujeres, colectivxs y comunidades para crear programas de intervención cultural y comunitaria através del arte y la cultura mediante una óptica feminista.

 

Es integrante del Consejo editorial Mi vida en Juárez: Voces de las Mujeres, libro testimonial que convoca a mujeres para que narren su historia.

 

Verónica imparte también talleres vivenciales de reflexión sobre la vida de las mujeres en Ciudad Juárez. Es formadora y animadora de procesos juveniles y culturales en distintas colonias, dentro de las cuales se incluyen murales colectivos, procesos creativos de memoria colectiva, y fotografía.

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Perla de la Rosa

Mujer de Teatro, Directora Artística de Telón de Arena

 

Teatrista por más de 40 añ0s. Actriz, Directora de Teatro, Dramaturga y Directora Artística de Telón de Arena.

 

Ha escrito varias piezas teatrales como: Antígona, Las Voces Que Incendian el Desierto; 

Justicia Negada; El Enemigo; y Un Grito en el Desierto. Todas éstas traducidas al Inglés, Alemán e Italiano.

 

Sus obras de Teatro han sido publicadas en diversas publicaciones y libros de colección. También ha publicado varias de sus obras.

 

En 2004 ganó el Premio Ariel de la Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas (AMACC) por su actuación en la película Mil Nubes de Paz, escrita y dirigida por Julián Hernández.

 

Cursó la Maestría en Cultura e Investigación Literarias.

 

En 2009 recibió el Premio Aurora Reyes por sus contribuciones a las artes escénicas en el Estado de Chihuahua.

 

En 2016 obtuvo la presea Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda por sus contribuciones al mérito cultural de Chihuahua.

 

En 2020 recibió la presea de Mérito Artístico otorgado por el Municipio de (Ciudad) Juárez.

 

Tiene membresía en el Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte desde el 2003.

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Lety López

Trabajadora Social, Asuntos de Frontera y Migración

 

Lety López ha participado en conferencias, cursos y foros sobre la problemática de la migración, de los menores en situaciónes de riesgo, y temas sobre problemas sociales, sobre todo en la frontera. Tiene amplia y larga experiencia en manejos de caso, manejos de grupo e interacción comunitaria.

 

Ha concedido entrevistas en radio, televisión y prensa escrita.

 

Durante más de 20 años trabajó en Casa YMCA de menores migrantes con el cargo de Directora de albergue en la cual dirigió, administró y coordinó el programa para la obtención de las metas. También ha desempeñado labor como: Trabajadora Social y Asistente en el área de capacitación de la Embotelladora de la Frontera;

Coordinadora de los programas de salud y planificación en áreas rurales de México; y Tutora en el área social de escuelas de mejoramiento social para menores.

 

Estudios Superiores incluyen:

 

Carrera de Trabajo Social, Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACI)

Curso de Especialidad de Salud Comunitaria y Promoción de Desarollo, Centro Latinoamericano de Trabajo Social  (CELATS) Lima, Perú.

Ponente del Foro Nacional Mexicano “Sigamos Abriendo Caminos”

Ha completado cursos y talleres y ha obtenido Diplomados sobre diversos temas del ámbito social.

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María E. López

Reader in Sociology at London Metropolitan University UK

 

Dr María López is Reader in Sociology at the School of Social Sciences and Deputy Director of the Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Center (GDIR) at London Metropolitan University (UK) and Associate Research Member at the Center for Studies on Security, Intelligence and Governance (Mexico).

 

María researches gender and sexual violence in Latin America and the Caribbean and, among other writing, she is the author of the monograph Homosexuality and Invisibility in Revolutionary Cuba (Támesis, 2015) and co-author of the monograph Gender Violence in Twenty-First-Century Latin American Women's Writing (Boydell y Brewer, 2022).

 

She is currently researching for a book on sexual violence on the US-Mexico border.

 

Dr María López es catedrática asociada (Reader) en Sociología de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y subdirectora del Centro de Investigación de Diversidades y Desigualdades Globales (GDIR) de la Universidad Metropolitana de Londres (Reino Unido).

 

Es además investigadora asociada del Centro de Estudios sobre Seguridad, Inteligencia y Gobernanza (México). María investiga las dinámicas de violencia sexual en América Latina y, entre otros escritos, es autora de la monografía Homosexuality and Invisibility in Revolutionary Cuba (Támesis, 2015) y coautora de la monografía Gender Violence in Twenty-First-Century Latin American Women's Writing (Boydell y Brewer, 2022).

 

Actualmente está investigando para un libro sobre violencia sexual en la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México.

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Julia Monárrez Fragoso

Research Professor, Department of Cultural Studies, El Colegio de la Frontera  Norte

 

Julia Monárrez Fragoso is a feminist border academician, who has studied and researched on violence against women, especially feminicide, social justice, and the nuda vida for inhabitants of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. She is Research professor at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte.

 

Among her publications are: Trama de una Injusticia: Feminicidio Sexual Sistémico en Ciudad Juárez; for this work she received the Garcia Cubas Prize for best scientific work. Co-editor with Socorro Tabuenca of Bordeando la Violencia Contra las Mujeres en la Frontera Norte de México; and co-editor with Kathleen Staudt and César Fuentes of Cities and Citizenship at the U.S.-Mexico Border: The Paso del Norte Region. Expert before the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights in the Juárez Feminicide Case González et al. ("Cotton Field") v. Mexico, Case Summary (2009).

Recently, she is working with Dr. Luis E. Cervera and Dr. Martha D. Ornelas (El Colegio de Chihuahua) in the creation of the Geographical Observatory of Violence and Social Justice in Ciudad Juárez. 

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Maria Dolores Núñez Solorio

Magistrada de Circuito Integrante del Sexto Tribunal Colegiado en Materia Penal del Primer Circuito CDMX.

 

Su Señoria Dolores Nuñez desempeña el cargo de Magistrada Federal en la Ciudad de México. Cargos anteriores incluyen Juez Cuarto de Distrito de Amparo en Materia Penal de la Ciudad de México; Juez Séptimo de Distrito en el Estado de Michoacán.

 

Ha realizado estudios de Maestra en Derecho Procesal y Derecho Judicial; Posgrado en Amparo y en Derecho Constitucional; y actualment tiene pendiente titulación como Doctora por la Escuela Libre de Derecho.

 

Ha sido ponente en talleres y congresos de carácter nacional y ha cursado diplomados con certificación en varios aspectos de la ley.  Además cuenta con participación en varios seminarios nacionales, sesiones de capacitación.  diálogos, convenciones, y congresos nacionales e internacionales.

 

La magistrada se suma a esta conversación con el fin de aportar, entre otras cosas, un entendimiento jurídico sobre el grave problema de violencia de género y de feminicidio; por ejemplo, éste visto desde ciertas perspectivas legales, las diferencias judiciales entre un Estado y otro, la cierta autonomía de entidades estatales dentro del marco del alcance federal, el proceso de denuncia, y la ley de amparo en su contexto penal relacionado a los crímenes de género.

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