2021 FLCI | California State University Monterey Bay

World Languages and Cultures

2021 Festival of Languages, Cultures, and Ideas

Spring 2021 Theme: Global Communities: Reconnecting in Times of Struggle

FLCI 2021 Guest Speakers and Presentation Information

John Tateishi

Book Talk - Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese America Reparations, Thursday Mar. 11, 2021, 4:00pm - 5:00pm

John Tateishi was almost three years old when he and his family were forcibly removed from their home in Los Angeles and imprisoned at Manzanar, one of ten American-style concentration camps in which the entire Japanese American population was incarcerated during WWII. Mr. Tateishi launched the Japanese American Citizens League’s (JACL) redress campaign in 1978 and directed the public affairs and legislative strategies of the campaign until 1986, two years before the campaign ultimately culminated with the signing of the Civil Liberties Act. Ten years later, as the JACL’s National Director, he brought the JACL onto the national stage after 9/11 as an important national voice challenging the Bush administration’s policies that targeted Arab and Muslim communities and undermined the civil liberties of all Americans.

Faculty facilitator: Dr. Dustin Wright

Lucha Corpi

L. Corpi Confessions of a book burner cover art

Lucha Corpi, Confessions of a Book Burner

A Reading and Conversation with Lucha Corpi, Thursday, Mar 25, 3-4:00 pm

Bio: Lucha Corpi is a retired Adult Education teacher in the Oakland Unified School District. She is also the author of two collections of poetry (Spanish with English translations); two bilingual children's books; a novel; and five crime novels (English) featuring P.I. Gloria Damasco; a book of personal essays and family stories (English). She has been recognized with multiple awards/fellowships including the National Endowment for the Arts, Oakland Cultural Arts, PEN-Oakland, International Latino Books awards.

Faculty facilitator: Dr. Carolyn Gonzalez

Jennifer Leeman

Becoming Hispanic: Sociolinguistic perspectives on the classification of Latinxs in the US Census, Thursday, April 8, 3-4:00 pm (Zoom registration to follow)

Leeman has published on the racialization of Latinxs in the US; multilingualism in the built environment; language and race in censuses; identities and ideologies in heritage language education, and critical pedagogy in the teaching of Spanish. Recent publications include articles in the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Latino Studies, and the Journal of Language, Identity & Education; as well the monograph Speaking Spanish in the US: The Sociopolitics of Language, co-authored with Janet Fuller (a Spanish language edition will be published by Multilingual Matters in 2021).

Leeman currently serves on the Executive Committee of the American Association of Applied Linguistics as well as the editorial boards of the journals Language Policy, Linguistic Landscape, Spanish as a Heritage Language, and Spanish in Context.

Bio: Jennifer Leeman is Professor of Spanish Linguistics at George Mason University, where her teaching and research focus on the sociopolitics of language, multilingualism, Spanish in the US, and the teaching of Spanish as a heritage language. Her work is interdisciplinary, and draws from the fields of Latinx studies, linguistic anthropology, and sociolinguistics as well as critical applied linguistics.

Faculty facilitator: Dr. Rebecca Pozzi

Walt Wolfram

Talking Black in America, Thursday, April 22, 3-5:00 pm (Zoom registration to follow)

About the film and filmmaker: Talking Black in America addresses African American English and language-based discrimination. We have invited the filmmaker, Dr. Walt Wolfram, to screen this film (1 hour), discuss it (30 minutes), and engage in a Q&A (30 minutes).

Bio: Dr. Wolfram is the William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor at North Carolina State University. He is a leader in the study of social and ethnic dialects, and has pioneered the study of urban African American English, supporting the legitimacy of African American English as a systematic language system.

Faculty facilitator: Dr. Rebecca Pozzi

Tozaburo Yanagiya

"The Art of Rakugo: Traditional Japanese Entertainment", Thursday, May 6, 2021, 3-4:00 pm (Zoom registration to follow)

Please join us for a rare opportunity to experience traditional Japanese Storytelling! Mr. Yanagiya will be offering a workshop on Rakugo gestures and techniques in English, followed by a performance of a famous Rakugo story in Japanese with English captioning. Rakugo is a form of traditional Japanese storytelling that is often performed as a comedy using two props; a fan and a hand cloth.

Bio: Tozaburo Yanagiya is an award-winning master of Rakugo, the 400-year-old tradition of Japanese comedic storytelling. He has performed Rakugo in English and Japanese all around the world to increase awareness and entertain through this lesser-known style of performance art. He is Visiting Associate Professor at the University of East Asia, Japan; and a member of the General Incorporated Association Rakugo Kyokai.

Faculty facilitator: Dr. Yoshiko Saito-Abbott

Mas Hashimoto

Racism and America's Concentration Camps, Thursday Feb. 25, 2021, 4:00pm - 5:00pm

Mas Hashimoto will compare how Japanese American incarceration during World War II and the massive discrimination of Muslims post 9-11 are both founded in hate and racism. Mas Hashimoto was a child when his family was taken from their Watsonville home in 1942. He was sent to a federal prisoner-of-war camp during World War II because of racism, war hysteria, and political leadership failure. Mas taught US History in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District until his retirement. He speaks to groups of students about the wartime experience of Japanese Americans during World War II to ensure that this injustice never repeats itself again.