Roots and Resilience Across Borders – 2025 Hill-McNair Robinson Lecture

Lecturer: Dr. Yolanda Valencia, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography & Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and Alum from Eastern Washington University (EWU) McNair Scholars Program 

Abstract: Capitalism and colonialism are structured through preying upon our relations. Through law and custom, these relational distortions attempt to make life static, to confine, divide, exclude, and extract. But what does the practice of resilience mean to have roots in the U.S. and Mexico, and across their borders? How do roots–resilience and otherwise–inform where we know from, who we are, and the type of scholarship we co-produce? How might such knowledge travel across borders in the co-creation of livable worlds in places not made for us – minoritized people of color? In this lecture, I draw on my ethnographic research in and across the U.S. Mexico border through the lens of my Mexican-American-Indian community’s wisdom and practices of resilience amidst state-sponsored violence in the US, and I reflect upon my experiences in academia. My research involved over two years of fieldwork, including archival research, testimonios, and ongoing transnational ethnography, that allows to more deeply understand how Mexican communities create places of tranquility and livable life in the face of legal, social, and economic violence and death in the U.S. Practices rooted in logics of communality, solidarity, and reciprocity are essential in protecting and expanding our relations and in making livable worlds. This lecture aims to inspire reflections on the lessons we might draw from our own community’s wisdom as we navigate the academy as a place not made for us, and yet a place where we all belong. 

This event is a part of the annual UMBC McNair and Undergraduate Research National Conference. All are welcomed to join but must register through Google Form. Register at this link: https://forms.gle/HNF98vAXcY4JZvhN6

Undergraduate students may apply to the Retriever Grad Prep Network (RGPN) on a rolling basis for additional opportunities! The application cycle to be a McNair Scholar will open in October.