Pre-show Q&A on the history of Spanish theater in Ybor!

Thurs., April 19, from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m., at the John F. Germany Public Library auditorium.

Dr. Kenya Dworkin y Mendez, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies at Carnegie-Mellon University, will talk about the history and cultural importance of Spanish theater in Ybor City, followed by Q&A from the audience.

BIO:
Dworkin y Mendez received her Ph.D. from the University of Hawai’i. Her current research involves an analysis of the cultural and sociolinguistic survival of a unique Latin community in Ybor City, Florida, through its tradition of Spanish-language and particularly Cuban theater. More specifically, the project also involves an analysis of the U.S. government's WPA Federal Theater Project during the 1930s and 1940s and its assimilatory goals with respect to the Spanish-speaking community in Ybor City. Other projects include 1) a sociolinguistic, ethnographic study of the circumstances surrounding the emigration of Puerto Ricans to Hawai’i; 2) a psycholinguistic and cultural analysis of the literary production of Latino monolingual, bicultural writers; and 3) an analysis of the self- contradicting discourse of identity and independence in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Cuba. She has published in Nuevo Texto Crítico and Lucero: A Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies

For more on past Q&As see this post as well as this post.