Research Article
Becoming Seres Puentes: Teresa Leal, the Toxic Tour, and Five Decades of Capacity Building on the U.S.-Mexico Border
Author:
Joni Adamson
Arizona State University, US
About Joni
Joni Adamson is President’s Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Department of English and Director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHI) in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. She lectures internationally, is the author and/or co-editor of eight books, including American Indian Literature, Environmental Justice and Ecocriticism, Keywords for Environmental Studies, and Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies—Conversations from Earth to Cosmos. She has published over 80 articles, chapters, blogs and reviews and was the 2019 Benjamin N. Duke Fellow at the National Humanities Center.
Abstract
This essay examines capacity building on the U.S. - Mexico Border by indigenous, Latino/a/x and People of Color activists working for social and environmental justice. The essay begins with a description of a toxic tour offered at the 1999 American Society of Environmental Historians (ASEH) Annual Conference and ends with insights gathered in a panel discussion with Teresa Leal (Opata) at the 2011 ASEH twelve years later. The essay focuses on Leal’s five decade legacy of empowering women, her community, her fellow activists, and her academic colleagues to ‘become seres puentes or bridge-beings’ who work for equity and intergenerational justice by engaging in performative collective actions such as the toxic tour.
How to Cite:
Adamson, J., 2021. Becoming Seres Puentes: Teresa Leal, the Toxic Tour, and Five Decades of Capacity Building on the U.S.-Mexico Border. Latin American Literary Review, 48(96). DOI: http://doi.org/10.26824/lalr.262
Published on
03 Aug 2021.
Peer Reviewed
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