Portrayals of Andean and Amazonian Indigeneity in Children's Films: Honors Spanish majors Cara Satullo, Emily Montenegro and Juhee Park presented their analyses of Andean and Amazonian indigenous cultural representations in the movies Pachamama, The Road to El Dorado, The Emperor's New Groove and Dora and the Lost City of Gold with special participation of Américo Mendoza Mori (UPenn), who was a Quechua language consultant for Dora and the Lost City of Gold. You can watch The Road to El Dorado and Dora and the Lost City of Gold through Amazon Prime Video. ​Pachamama and The Emperor's New Groove are available on Netflix.

Online Resources

• [radio/podcast] “The Legacy of Dora the Explorer” by NPR’s LatinoUSA, August 14th, 2019
• [interview] “Paramount Pictures hired this Quechua professor to lend authenticity to ‘Dora and the Lost city of Gold’” by Remezcla, August 13th, 2019  with Américo Mendoza-Mori
• [article] "Pachamama" by Variety, June 6th, 2019

Student Analyses and Presentations*

• "Representación indígena en las películas infantiles" by Cara Satullo, undergraduate student at Ohio State 
• "Análisis sobre la película infantil Pachamama" by Juhee Park, undergraduate student at Ohio State 
• "Dora la conquistadora: Los elementos andinos y coloniales en Dora and the Lost City of Gold" by Emily Montenegro, undergraduate student at Ohio State

These materials were developed as part of the Spring 2020 Spanish course, "Indigenous Languages, Literatures and Cultures of Latin America" (SPAN 4565H), taught by Dr. Michelle Wibbelsman. 

For more resources, seeing the Teaching the Andes K-12 Resources Repository from the Center for Latin American Studies. See our news item on this event.

Public Performance

Saint Sebastián/ Tañi kalül mongeley weychan mew
(Mi cuerpo está resistiendo)
2019
Accionado en The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, EE.UU.
La performance “Saint Sebastián/ Tañi kalül mongeley weychan mew (Mi cuerpo está resistiendo) utiliza la imagen de San Sebastián y su relación con el placer y la tortura. Por medio de un texto en audio, se le solicita a la audiencia comenzar a anudar el cuerpo del artista mientras su cuerpo permanece inmóvil, resistiendo.

Saint Sebastián/Tañi kalül mongeley weychan mew
(My body is resisting) 
2019
Performed at The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
The performance “Saint Sebastián/Tañi kalül mongeley weychan mew (My body is resisting)” utilizes the image of Saint Sebastian and his relation with torture and pleasure. By means of an audio text, the audience is asked to start tying and knotting up the artist’s body while his body remains still, resisting.

Artist Talk

Contemporary Mapuche and Chilean artist, Sebastián Calfuqueo Aliste met with OSU students and faculty to discuss his artistic practices and current projects. The group discussed aspects of Calfuqueo’s work, expressed concern over the historical and recent political strike between the Chilean government and Mapuche people, and examined the Andean and Amazonian collection. Issues relating to institutional practices of categorizing and the representing of indigenous art and artists, the use of digital platforms and indigenous art, accessibility issues, and the re-envisioning of exhibition practices were further explored during this session.

These events were co-sponsored by the Global Arts and Humanities, Center for Latin American Studies, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Spanish and Portuguese Colloquium Series, Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, and Livable Futures Project.

Student Reflections

Students who attended Sebastián’s public performance, talks and workshops throughout the residency had many takeaways:

“After watching Sebastián Calfuqueo Aliste’s video performance, I felt many emotions. I was saddened by the response of those in the market who said many derogatory slurs to him; I was also proud of him for standing up for himself and not letting the negativity get to him: it was a very eye-opening experience. When he began to give examples in person of how one can use their body to express themselves and their gender, I was inspired by all that can be done.”
--Amira Dehmani

“Beforehand I was nervous and assumed [the workshop] would be an uncomfortable situation, but I left the inspired in the sense that I realized being uncomfortable is not always a bad thing. …. Being uncomfortable is a part of growing, and if the end result is learning to use your body to declare autonomy then that awkwardness is well worth it. This workshop helped to demonstrate to me that the body is a powerful political tool, and that is why it is so policed.”
--Miles Fulmer

“I am so grateful for this art performance and this class in general. I have started to evaluate things that I have previously accepted as normal.  I plan on incorporating this questioning of normativity in all aspects of my life after this class is over.”
--Sydney Gray

“Going into Calfuqueo’s workshop, I didn’t know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised at how moved I was by his powerful performances. It was real time, interactive art and it allowed the viewer to be fully immersed in the process…. I left the workshop feeling a stronger connection to the feminist agenda, and a desire to bring physical resistance into more areas of my life.”
--Helen Mitchell

“As a queer man of color, Calfuqueo allows his unique experience with intersectional oppression to influence his art. His performance art workshop presented unfamiliar perspectives and newfound uses for the human body.”
--Avery Oberfield

“[This Workshop] taught me a wide range of ways to express individual creative truths using the body. I found it valuable to use my body as a Black woman because it has taken me so long to love and appreciate it and detangling it from the ancestral trauma that still has left its traces on the way Black bodies are viewed today.”
-- Nia Snelling

“The performance art workshop with Sebastián Calfuqueo left me feeling inspired to expand my understanding of feminism and the way that I relate to my body in a feminist context…. Through Sebastian’s instruction, I learned how the use of body in performance art is an act of defiance, an act of reclaiming something that society often uses against you.”
--Francesca Varga

“Through participating in this workshop I learned a lot more about my body and its boundaries but also made me more aware in many ways of how I use body language everyday and how people might interpret it.”
--Nicole Abrams

“Performing my own feminist art taught me about how to take actions that are seemingly meaningless and give them a meaning.”
--Evan Auburn

“Sebastián did a wonderful job with giving each of us little tools to resist in our daily lives, and I have already begun to be resistant with my body.”
--Nicole Case

Faculty Conference Presentation

Guisela Latorre presented how she reflected in her course on Sebastián's visit in her presentation at the International Symposium on Indigenous Languages and Cultures of Latin America in 2021 entitled Indigenous Practice in the Feminist Classroom: The Performance Pedagogies of Sebastián Calfuqueo Aliste.

Related content

• Ohio Habla Podcast with Sebastián Calfuqueo Aliste
• America Landina Podcast | Interseccionalidad(e) and Herencia Mapuche with Sebastián Calfuqueo Aliste

• Spring 2021: Spanish 2332 Introduction to Andean and Amazonian Cultures
• Autumn 2020: Spanish 4515 Andean Art, Culture and Society 
• Autumn 2020: Spanish 2208.22/7780.22 Andean Music Ensemble
• Spring 2020: Spanish 4565H Latin American Indigenous Literatures and Cultures

The Quechua Learning Community at Ohio State/ La Comunidad Quechua en Ohio State

The Quechua Learning Community is a growing language and culture program at Ohio State. Indigenous practices and vision form an integral part of this community and its activities.

La comunidad Quechua en Ohio State es un programa de lengua y cultura que va creciendo e incorporando miembros. La visión indígena está presente en la conformación de esta comunidad y todas sus actividades.

For instance, the muyu (circle) gathers community partners as participants and contributors to the organizational vision of the program, respecting the individual characteristics and uniqueness of each participating institution.

Por ejemplo, el muyu (círculo); haciendo que las instituciones presentes en esta comunidad séan parte primordial para la organización del programa, respetando las características e individualidades de cada institución participante. 

Ayñi (mutual help) is a principle that guides the active role each participating institution takes and how we go about strengthening our respective programs in a reciprocal way.

El ayñi (ayuda mutua); donde todas las instituciones participantes toman un rol activo, para el fortalecimiento del programa de manera recíproca.

The Quechua Learning Community at Ohio State is a vibrant program that brings language and cultural learning into a variety of spaces across campus in applied and cross-curricular fashion.

La comunidad Quechua en Ohio State, se perfila como un programa vibrante, que lleva la lengua y cultura a todos los ámbitos posibles. 

Our Quechua Learning Community/Nuestra Comunidad Quechua:
The Ohio State University
University of Chicago
Purdue University
Penn State University
East Carolina University
Northwestern University

Quechua Alliance Meeting

In November of 2019 The Ohio State University hosted the fifth Annual Quechua Alliance Meeting, an event that gathers Quechua language speakers and students from across the United States and abroad in an applied forum that fosters the exchange of ideas about Andean language and culture in Quechua.

¡Imaynalla masikuna!
En noviembre de 2019 la Universidad Estatal de Ohio recibió al 5to Congreso Anual de la Alianza Quechua, un evento que reúne a quechua hablantes y estudiantes de la lengua y la cultura andina a nivel nacional e internacional en un intercambio de ideas y prácticas en quechua.

On this occasion, we want to share the Quechua raymi as a celebration of our fifth meeting of the Alliance where scholars, students, friends, Quechua language speakers and others share a profound respect for the culture and the desire to learn Quechua.

En esta oportunidad, queremos compartir el raymi (la fiesta) quechua, una fiesta que muestra la alianza entre miembros de la comunidad; donde académicos, estudiantes, población, amigos, hablantes y más, compartimos este respeto y las ganas de aprender el Quechua. 

Quechua Que Pasa News Article: Synchronous Online and In-Person Instruction

Read about how Elvia Andía Grágeda here at Ohio State taught her Quechua language by livestreaming the instruction to Oberlin College and Indiana University via video conferencing software. You can find additional resources for the Study of Quechua from Ohio State University.

Sumac Puringashpa: Walking the Meaningful Path: Coming and Going in Andean and Amazonian World Views

Sumac Puringashpa: Walking the Meaningful Path: Coming and Going in Andean and Amazonian World Views is a virtual reality project in progress created by the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD), Center for Latin American Studies and Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the Ohio State University. This video, in which you explore the sights, sounds, and artifacts of the Andean and Amazonian world through virtual reality, can be seen below. It provides a glimpse of the methods and research questions we are exploring.

Portals to the past and present: Instructional pedagogy with primary sources

On February 8th, 2020, several members of the K'acha Willaykuna  Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Arts and Humanities Collaboration presented at the ONE Community Conference: Inspiring a Community of Changemakers concerning how K-12 educators can incorporate Latin American indigenous cultures and knowledge. For an interactive research guide, download the file below.