By Liz Gray

College-wide Reading’s year focused on About Us: Essays from the Disability Series of the New York Times (edited by Peter Catapano and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson) and our theme of Disability/Ableism is already off to a great start.

To begin this year, we’re offering a series of film discussions that will take place via Zoom. The first one will be co-led by our Office of Disability Services Director Ann Binder and Assistant Director Kelly Kiefer on Oct. 6 at 2 p.m.. The Zoom meeting and passcode will be posted in an announcement in Canvas, but you can also get them by emailing egray6@dccc.edu.

In the month of September, we co-hosted an event with the Diversity Programming Committee that had to be rescheduled from the spring semester: A Conversation with Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, creator of La Borinqueña (in honor of the start of Latinx Heritage month).

Miranda-Rodriguez created the first Afro-Indigenous female superhero from Puerto Rico just four months before Hurricane Maria hit the island in 2017. His presentation described his creative process, which was grounded in both the history of Puerto Rico as a territory of the United States, and his sense of activism.

After Miranda-Rodriguez’ presentation, DCCC English professor Fernando Benavidez interviewed him about his life and his work. Then our Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Simmee Myers asked Edgardo some questions that had been submitted by the students in attendance. The event was lively and informative; a full recording is available through the Office of Diversity and Inclusion or by request via the email above.

Stay tuned for our next big announcement in October regarding a multimedia response contest for students!

Contact Liz Gray at communitarian@mail.dccc.edu