Who We Are:
We are students of the Liberal Arts Action Lab, which is a partnership between Trinity College and Capital Community College. Here, students of both institutions get to come together to work on group research projects that strive to engage students in Hartford to work together to create a positive and long lasting impact on the community.
The LatinX Theater Research Team:
Jackie Monzon
School: Trinity College
Year: Junior
Major(s): Educational Studies & Human Rights
Project Interest: I was interested in the Action Lab and more specifically in the LatinX Theater project because I wanted to find a way to branch of Trinity’s campus and get more involved with the Hartford community. The LatinX Theater project was interesting to me because I myself identify as Hispanic, and wanted to learn more about how we could further involve the Hartford Stage with the LatinX community.
Jennifer Medina
School: Capital Community College
Year: Sophomore
Major(s): Liberal Arts
Project Interest: This project is important to me because as a Latina it gave me the opportunity to connect with my community more. When I discovered that this project had the potential to connect the Latin Community with theater for the first time and create bilingual programming I knew that this was the right project for me.
Joyce Figueroa
School: Capital Community College
Year: Freshman
Major(s): Social Work
Project Interest: I was interested in the Action Lab and this particular project because I am Hispanic and grew up in the city of Hartford. I volunteer around Hartford and see day to day what my community struggles with and is passionate about. Being a part of creating and sharing meaningful research that can change and benefit my home is important to me and is actually what I want to do with my life after graduating from college.
About our Community Partner: The Hartford Stage
The Hartford Stage was founded in 1963, and it is an important institution in the life of both Hartford and Connecticut. It serves as a home for various artists from the area and also from around the world. Community partnerships, educational programs, and humanities initiatives are very important to the Hartford Stage. Recently, the Hartford Stage hired Melia Bensussen, who grew up in Mexico, as their new artistic director. The Hartford Stage is looking forward to working with her and using this great opportunity to curate different ways of becoming more involved with the LatinX community.
Why We Use the Term “LatinX”
The term “LatinX” originally started in 2004, but started to become popular in 2014. The term has emerged among a younger and more progressive population, and the term is used to represent inclusiveness and recognize the diversity within Hispanic cultures. This term does not refer to specific genders, its purpose is to be inclusive of every person. However, there are many Latin Americans that do not feel as they can identify with the term “LatinX”, because some feel that it goes against traditional gender roles. Other people oppose the term because of the letter “X”, as it does not follow the traditional language norms.
For the purpose of our research, we decided to use the term “LatinX, because we feel that it is the most inclusive term. When starting our research process, we faced challenges coming up with a term that everyone could identify with. By using the term LatinX, we are including all Latin American racial backgrounds, and all genders/people that identify as trans, queer, a-gender, non-binary, gender non-conforming, or gender fluid. Since we are focusing on a specific population and race for our project, we wanted to be as inclusive and respectful of all people as possible.