We cordially invite you to a CCAS Talk by Cynthia Vázquez:
Title: “We Start at Dusk:” Peon Playing and the (Re)connect of Kumeyaay Transborder Sovereignties on the U.S./Mexico Border
Abstract: The U.S./Mexico border serves as a buffer zone where various state-level legalities are enforced, and it is constantly under surveillance by the U.S. and Mexico governments. Today, state-sponsored surveillance and border settler-colonialities operate in tandem to dispossess tribal nations whose traditional lands overlap multiple settler borders. For the Kumeyaay nation, whose traditional homelands straddle the San Diego-Tijuana region, and whose migratory cycles have been intertwined with generations of knowledge exchange, the border has ruptured their sense of nationhood. Presently, Kumeyaay in Mexico are seeking to reconnect with their counterparts in the U.S. through the reclamation and revitalization of the ancestral game of Peon. Playing Peon is connected to larger questions surrounding language reclamation efforts and Indigenous sovereignties in California and Baja California. How do border tribes assert their sovereignty amid increasing restrictive border policies? How do the Kumeyaay reclaim a game that has been dormant for more than 60 years? This talk will highlight grassroots efforts to reclaim Peon on both sides of the border, transborder reconnections, and the processes in reclaiming Peon. The larger scope of this talk will focus on how Indigenous sovereignties are implemented and practiced on the border historically and presently based off of my ten year community and tribally approved based research.
Biography: Dr. Vazquez is a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the American Indian Studies Center at UCLA. She received her doctorate from UC San Diego in Ethnic Studies with a graduate specialization in Critical Gender Studies. Trained as an interdisciplinary scholar in humanities and social sciences, her research is situated at the nexus of critical theories of Indigenous transborder migrations, Indigeneity, settler-colonialism, binational schooling, Indigenous & border epistemologies, and Latinidad. Her pronouns are she/her/hers. Born in LA, brought up in Las Vegas, she’s called San Diego her home for ten years. Cynthia identifies as Xicana and is deeply involved in relationship making with artists and local tribal community based on land pedagogies, liberatory practices, and resistance.
Date: Tuesday, December 5th, 2023
Time: 3:30 – 5:00 pm
Location: Kaplan Hall, A48
