On April 4, 2020 Jose Diaz a masters student in NYU’s social and cultural analysis program and student services coordinator for the NYU prison education program was released from Rikers Island after being put there on a technicality. It was through an epic effort lead by the director of NYU’s prison education program Dr. Kaitlin Noss worked to bring together a number of organizations who joined in the effort to get Jose Diaz released. 

Jose was incarcerated at Rikers on the same day NYC’s Mayor De Blasio publicly stated there would be no more people sent to Rikers. Rikers Island has long been under scrutiny and calls from the public for its shuttering. Rikers is also infamous for being a warehouse for black and brown folk who are there in one of the US’s most notorious prisons because they are unable to pay their bond.

Join myself, Drs. Kaitlin Noss and Zoe Hammer, along with Jose Diaz for a far ranging conversation about the conditions inside Rikers Island, the far reaching implications of quarantine for Black and Brown communities and what Latino Studies brings the table in terms of understanding and making sense of the era of Covid19.

For another excellent discussion from Jose Diaz check out this podcast by the Beyond-Prisons.com crew.

https://www.beyond-prisons.com/home/released-from-rikers-island-nyu-student-speaks-out-about-covid-19

Bad Ass Latinas are in full effect on The Reality Dysfunction in this episode. We are talking to NYC education activists Lilah Mejia, Naomi Pena and Los Angeles area teacher activist Consuelo Frausto, about the complexities of navigating the public education system as women of color and outspoken advocates for their children and children in general. These women are destroying through their organizing and advocacy work the long held stereotypes of the submissive, compliant Latina. Although as many of us already know that stereotype is one dramatically out of touch within the reality of the Latinidad.   

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Naomi Pena - @naomi325

Lilah Mejia - @motherLeeEarth7 

Alex Lozada - @alexandralozada

Ernesto Mireles - @ErnestoMireles

Greetings Dysfunctionals, we're back again with another episode of The Reality Dysfunction. This time I am talking with a dear friend Marc Pinate. Marc is the director of the Borderlands Theatre Company in Tucson, AZ. I met Marc years ago when he was touring with his band Grito Serpentino. He is, and has been a Xicano rock star, guerilla theatre actor, and national slam poet champion. He is a father and husband. Currently, Marc is creating large-scale “creative place” projects in Tucson and Nogales. He talks about place making what it means in the Xicano context and his current book project.

Check out Borderlands Theatre Company.

Follow me on Twitter: @ernestomireles

Another episode of The Reality Dysfunction’s CoronaVirus WTF! Series. Join our cast of experts as we discuss Xicano Latino image and representation in education, media and literature. The recent American Dirt kerfuffle is just one recent example of how we as a community continue to be defined by the ideologies of settler colonialism and proxy narratives. A conversation about what we might be able to do as a community to take back our image and power.

Biden or Bernie? What does our panel of Xicano/Latino experts say on the matter? Only one way to find out! Listen now!

First in a series of conversations bringing different voices from the Latino community around the in to talk about daily life in a pandemic. Our goal is to publish daily.  

This is an older recording from last fall. I just forgot about it and am now posting. Excellent conversation about performance art, understanding the body and some about afro pessimism. 

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction Dr. Ernesto Mireles and Alex Yanish speak with Berte Reyes a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Arizona in the Rhetoric, Composition and teaching of English program. In this episode we will talk about the nature of hate and how video games are being used as a recruiting tool by the far right. 

Milta Ortiz is smart, passionate about her community and showcases her commitment through the arts. Ortiz is a bilingual, bi cultural playwright, poet, and performer born in El Salvador. She moved to the United States at the age of eight and was raised in Northern California. She currently a director of the Borderlands Theater Company in Tucson, AZ., where she lives with her family. 

I had some trouble with the recording so the first couple of sentences are a little garbled but its fine after that. 

Here is the Wikipedia page for Milta.

Please share widely and feel free to leave comments. If you want to contact me directly you can do that on Twitter @ernestomireles. 

In this episode of The Reality Dysfunction Dr. Ernesto Mireles and Oscar Medina a recent Ph.D. student in Sustainable Education and a high school teacher in Tucson, AZ., talk about their own educational journey and how bringing Indigenous epistemologies to Raza students is helping to heal the inter-generational trauma of settler colonialism. 

https://changemakerhighschool.org/

https://www.facebook.com/Praxis2019/

Please DM me on Twitter @ernestomireles