Latino/a/x Communities Conference

Location: Online: Registration required to receive the Zoom link: https://acortar.link/escrituradisca2026  

2:00pm – 3:30pm Latinx Writing in Crip Spacetime (in Spanish) / “Escritura en tiempoespacio disca”   

Hosts: Dr. Iliana Pagán-Teitelbaum and guest speaker Maria R. Palacios 
An online creative writing workshop in Spanish for disabled writers and their allies. Hosted by author and filmmaker Dr. Iliana Pagán-Teitelbaum with renowned poet and Sins Invalid disability justice activist Maria R. Palacios, also known as the Goddess on Wheels.  

Explore creative writing in Spanish in a supportive crip spacetime environment. For disabled and/or chronically ill writers and their allies, at any stage of their writing journey, from beginners to advanced, who want to develop their creative voice in Spanish.  

Location: Sykes Ballroom A  

1:00pm – 3:00pm   Workshop for WCU Latin Jazz Ensemble Class/Jam Session
(if not enrolled in class, sign up with Professor Jacob Kelberman). Host: Professor Jake Kelberman & Latin Jazz Ensemble Students – Music from the Heart of the Andes!  Workshop with SONQO, internationally touring performers bringing to life the various traditions and music heard from Quechua and other Indigenous groups in the South American Mountains; and Philly-based Chilean Musician and Music Educator, Patricio Acevedo.  

3:30pm – 5pm Latino/a/x Communities Conference LAUNCH and WELCOME!    
Welcome! Bienvenidos!  Music & Mingle – WCU Latin Jazz Ensemble, SONQO & Philly musicians performance. Host: Jake Kelberman.  

Enjoy music, great company and refreshments – dancing shoes optional… 

8th Annual Global Hispanic Film Festival at WCU - Virtual Edition 2026! 

The festival is virtual with some in-person events TBA.  Each film streams for a week. Free registration and event info will be on our website at https://www.wcupa.edu/cine  

Festival dates are September 28 - November 2, 2026.  See WCU website for more details.  

Paralleling the conference this entire week September 28 - October 4, 2026:   
“Home is Somewhere Else.” https://pragda.com/film/home-is-somewhere-else/
Home Is Somewhere Else shares the rich complexity of the emotional experiences of immigrant children and families to better understand and empathize with them. It invites discussion about the need for a new US migratory model based on respect for human rights for all.  

An estimated 11 million undocumented migrants are living in the United States under the constant threat of sudden deportation. What is it like to grow up in such a situation?  
In this documentary animation, three young immigrants tell their stories. Voiced by the actual children and their families, the stories are woven together by spoken word poet José Eduardo Aguilar, also known as Lalo “El Deportee,” the film’s host and MC. 
For more information contact: Dr. Iliana Pagán-Teitelbaum, ipagan@wcupa.edu or Dr. Tia Malkin-Fontecchio, tmalkin@wcupa.edu    

LOCATION: Sykes Ballroom A 
8:30am Registration, Coffee and continental breakfast  
9:15am  Welcome! 
 
9:30am – 10:45am Why is the US attacking immigrant communities? Sociohistorical Psychology and the geopolitics of empire decline."  Dr. Curry Malott, WCU Education Foundations and Policy Studies.  
Host: Dr. Leon Arredondo.  

11:00am – 12:15pm Solito-Solita reflections and discussion by WCU Students and in live discussion with authors of the book via Zoom on a collection of 15 narratives, by Dr. Steven Mayers, an English professor at City College of San Francisco, and Jonathan Freedman, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, offer readers oral histories told by some of the “thousands of children... trekking from Central America to El Norte.”
Host: Dr. Ana Sanchez. 

12:30-1:45pm Mayuri Mendoza, Author of Book: Duelo Polizón - (Session in Spanish, interpretation provided via interpreter and headphones).  Venezuelan immigrant and author will present her newly published book about her and other immigrants experiences of loss and rebuilding in the US.  
Hosts: Dr. Linda Stevenson and Dr. Ana Sanchez. 

2-3:30pm   KEYNOTE #1:  Belonging on Whose Terms: Latino Students and the Contradictions of Education in Chester County. Citlalli Ramirez, WCU Educational Foundations and Policy Studies student and teacher in Kennett Square School District:
Host: Dr. Curry Malott.  

4:00pm to 5:30pm: TBA 

6:00pm – 8:00pm LOCATION:  Sykes Theater, ground floor.  Film Screening “The Most Beautiful Deaths in the World.” English and Spanish with English subtitles. Film is through the eyes of artists from the Salvadoran diaspora and about their personal and community transformation rebuilding their lives after fleeing the civil war in El Salvador.  
Post-screening Discussion with Film Producers Quique Aviles, Jose Centeno and Ellie Walton.
Host: Dr. Tia Malkin-Fontecchio.  

LOCATION: Sykes 115.  
8:00 –  Registration, Coffee and continental breakfast 
8:45am  Welcome! 

9:00am – 10:15am [tentative – documentary TBA on/by Indigenous peoples & discussion ]
Host: Dr. Leon Arredondo and Dr. Tia Malkin-Fontecchio.  

11:00am – 12:15pm - La Lucha (The Struggle) Part I: - Kennett Square Migrant Farm Workers Battle for a Union to Defend Labor Rights: Panel Presentation of Project with Luis Tlaseca, John Lavin, Janet Amighi. From their own experiences, presenters will share the story of the strike on a local mushroom farm that led to a nine-year set of battles in the PA courts and local community toward an unprecedented victory to unionize the workers.  
Hosts: Dr. Leon Arredondo & Dr. Linda Stevenson.

12:30 – 1:45pm La Lucha Sigue (The Struggle Continues) Part II: - How are local migrant workers and their families experiencing labor rights (or the lack thereof) in post-union years?  Guest panelists TBA. After thirteen years of union-negotiated contracts on a local mushroom farm, the farm workers union was decertified in 2015.  This set of presentations will explore why this changed, the results, and then legacies of these types of labor movements locally, nationally and internationally since.  
Host: Dr. Linda Stevenson.  

2:00pm – 3:15pm Immigration Issues Part I:  The “Bring Carlos Home” from ICE Detention Story of Community Resilience in Action – Wife/Teacher/Coordinator of ELL, Upper Merion School District, Mrs. Angela Della Valle and community leaders TBA. The presenters of this local man’s story will share about his journey to the United States from Mexico, his decades of life in the U.S., recent detention by ICE and his family and community’s fight for his human rights and fair and just treatment.
Host: Linda Stevenson.

3 – 4:15pm - Sykes Theater –Immigration Issues Part II: Legal Pathways, Human Consequences: Immigration Policy Past and Present.  WCU History Professor Tia Malkin-Fontecchio – Overview of Immigration Policies in the U.S.; and Kennett Square Immigration Lawyer Nancy Ayllon-Ramirez on recent changes.
Host: Dr. Miguel Ceballos.  

4:45-6:30pm  - Latino/a/x Leadership in Local Politics:  What’s at stake in the Fall 2026 Elections?  Sykes 115.  
Nelly Jimenez-Arevalo, Director - Immigrant Affairs, Montgomery County Commissioners Office; and other State and local political leaders TBA.  
Host: Dr. Linda Stevenson.  

More Latino/a/x Communities Events will be forthcoming over the course of the 2026-2027 year!  Stay tuned!!