Spanish department students present I.S. and other capstone projects at “Simposio Hispano-Latino”

Kiera McGuire and Sarah Buchholtz

Features Editors

On Sat., March 1, The College of Wooster hosted “Simposio Hispano-Latino,” which brought together upperclassmen Spanish students from DePauw University, Kenyon College, Ohio Wesleyan University, Oberlin College and Wooster. The presentation schedule, which lasted all day, gave students the chance to share their research projects with peers from different institutions across Ohio and Indiana.

This event was the first of its kind, bringing together a community of students, faculty, family and friends to share Spanish academia. 

“We started preparations in early January, and I contacted colleagues in the Spanish departments to see if they had seniors working on capstone projects,” said Brian Cope, associate professor of Spanish and Raymond and Carolyn Dix Chair of Spanish at The College of Wooster. “They sent me names of their students, and we sent them invitations to participate.”

The presenters included six Wooster students, three DePauw students, one Kenyon student, one Ohio Wesleyan student and three Oberlin students. The presentations were divided into four panels, each with a specific theme: “Literatura e identidad” (Literature and identity), “Idioma y Sistema” (Language and system), “Resistencia en sociedades” (Resistance in societies) and “Entrelazos fascinantes” (Fascinating intersections). 

Each panel included two to four students from each of the five schools — each student had 20 minutes to present their topic and current findings. Moderators for the panels included Kenyon College’s Diego del Rio Arrillaga, assistant professor of Spanish; Oberlin College’s Patty Tovar, visiting assistant professor of Hispanic Studies; DePauw University’s Alejandro Puga, professor of Hispanic Studies and Assistant Professor of Spanish Rebecka Garonzik from Wooster. After every panel there was time for questions. 

Before presentations began, attendees gathered in Kauke Hall’s second floor common room for a breakfast provided by Panera Bread, consisting of coffee, hot chocolate and bagels. Cope introduced the participants and faculty, detailing the day’s events. 

Wooster’s Emily Sturr ’25 started off the presentations at 10 a.m. Her presentation, titled “Todas las que sembraron: La construcción del género por parte de las mujeres maya k’iche’ post inmigración,” dove into the research of how gender roles are constructed and preserved within Mayan K’iche’ communities through a series of four interviews. Drawing upon methodology from Mayan literature, the International Mayan Project and experiences in central San Jose, Sturr provided background to Mayan gender construction. She cited Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Mayan artists, such as José Flores Chamalé and the Mayan League, a Mayan women- and youth-led organization. 

“I think that it’s very important to understand how gender interacts with other systems of power, such as immigration status, nationality and in this case race,” Sturr said. “Gender is an intersectional topic that you can’t separate all these things out [of].”

Panel one ended with three more projects: Rebecca Kluesner and Anna Hopson of DePauw and Clare Purdy of Kenyon, discussing topics ranging from transnational literature stories to perspectives on machismo and feminism. 

In the second panel, which focused on language and systems, Walker Johnson ’25 discussed Spanglish, which combines Spanish and English. His project, titled “Traducción de Spanglish con mBart50 y Helsinki Modelos de Lenguaje Grande (Large Language Models),” highlighted the common language models mBART-50, a multilingual Sequence-to-Sequence model, and Helsinki, an open-source translation service, to demonstrate how Spanglish can be translated. 

The other three students in this panel were Hannah Fields from DePauw, Kelly Farran from Ohio Wesleyan and Daniela Jiménez Ochoa from Oberlin, who focused on topics about language barriers and lack of Spanish language translation. 

After a lunch break, the third panel opened with Maggie Stieby ’25’s presentation, titled “Resistencia en la repetición: la interacción de los performances públicos y el apoyo digital en la luch contra la violencia de género en Argentina y Chile.” This presentation highlighted the influence performance-based digital activism had on public policy, drawing upon two feminist movements in Argentina and Chile.

“Latin American activism is a bit different than the United States,” Stieby said. “I’m going to work in South America after Wooster, so I think it’s important that I understand the political and social dynamics of the countries that I will be integrated into.”

Ella Erdahl and Anna Pastore from Oberlin followed her presentation. Erdahl discussed the role of poetry in fighting for identity, while Pastore’s topic examined resistance to Arizona HB 2281 in the Tucson, Arizona Unified School District, which banned ethnic studies classes in the whole state. 

Dama Ortega ’25 closed out panel three with her project titled “El ciclo indígena la Resistencia: un análisis de lamento, protesta y resistencia en la poesía indígena del Ecuador, a través de un estudio interpretativo de seis poemas representativos.” Ortega utilized Indigenous poems to underline women’s and Indigenous peoples’ resistance, calling for “more Indigenous authors” within the academic realm.

The fourth and final panel was made up of two Wooster students: JP Timken ’25 and Rayan Dos Passos ’25. They both explored socio-structural inequities that disadvantage Latino populations. Timken went first with the presentation “Effects of Glyphosate Treatment on C. elegans health: Implications for Migrant Communities with Elevated Exposure,” which highlighted the prevalence of the pesticide glyphosate within migrant communities. The presentation described the acute and chronic illnesses the pesticide causes, including cancer, asthma and vomiting. The presentation acknowledged that the pesticide issue was initially raised by the United Farm Workers, founded by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta.

Dos Passos’ presentation followed, discussing the inequality of food aid between the U.S. and Mexico. He cited Public Law 480, known as “Food for Peace” — which allows the U.S. to send food and agricultural products to ally nations — along with data sources from U.S.-Mexico trade reports, USAID records and economic indicators. Researching for this I.S. presentation, titled “Comercio y Dependencia Económica: El impacto de la ayuda alimentaria de EE.UU. en el comercio bilateral con México,” helped Dos Passos understand inequality between the two countries. 

“It was nice for me to understand how this inequality happens,” shared Dos Passos.

After the four panels were completed, everyone reconvened in Kauke’s second floor common area for dinner and a game of charades. Ortega received special recognition at the end of the night for her dedication and leadership in the Spanish department, and — according to Cope’s closing remarks — for creating “the vision for the event.” All other participants received certificates, while the moderating professors and volunteers received custom thank-you cookies.

“I would like to see [this event] continue,” Cope said. “Our programs are relatively small…so we would definitely like to see more of these events that bring students together in an effort to share work and create community.”

This event was funded by the Department of Spanish and the Cultural Events Committee. To hear more about the Spanish department, check out their Instagram @wooster.spanish.