Memoria Decolonial at the American Studies Association’s (ASA) 2025 Annual Conference
Memoria Decolonial is proud to be one of the sponsors and partners of the 2025 American Studies Association’s annual conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We will be participating in numerous activities, panels, and roundtables, as well as providing detours to attendees which are all SOLD OUT.
Starting off Wednesday, November 19th, ASA and Humanidades Puerto Rico will be hosting Public Humanities Day in the barrio of Ballajá, a prominent site of one of our Detours, San Juan (Extra)muros. The day brings together programming that celebrates the intersection of scholarship and community engagement. Join us for the following activities:
12:00 – 2:00 PM - Cemetery Public History and Digital Humanities Project: An invitation-only launch of a collaboration between Humanidades Puerto Rico and Memoria Decolonial.
In conjunction with ASA’s Public Humanities Day, Memoria Decolonial and Humanidades Puerto Rico invite historians, archivists, public historians, digital humanists, and allied scholars to a focused planning session for a collaborative digital and public-history project that uses the Santa María Magdalena de Pazzi Cemetery to explore Puerto Rican issues past and present. The potential project aims to link the hundreds of EnciclopediaPR biographies authored by Humanidades Puerto Rico to the cemetery through a digital mapping initiative, and to develop interpretive public-humanities pathways—building on Memoria Decolonial’s Detours—as critical reflections on Puerto Rican heritage, identity, and history.
The Santa María Magdalena de Pazzi Cemetery is one of the most breathtaking heritage sites in all of Puerto Rico. Established in 1814 outside the city walls, it is the resting place of iconic musicians, visual artists, poets, and politicians. Pro-independence, commonwealth, and statehood figures lie beneath the same ground, alongside 19th-century abolitionists, Spanish governors, and the colony’s letrado elite. Nestled beside the historically marginalized community of La Perla, the cemetery is more than a national mnument; it is a living site of mourning, remembrance, and community memory—a powerful prism through which to study Puerto Rico’s social, cultural, and political development.
4:00 – 5:00 PM - Workshop: Community-Led Cultural Spaces: The Story of El Batey Comunitario de La Plaza de El Negro – Join our allies and collaborators from La Perla for this workshop.
4:00 – 7:00 PM - Community of Practice Digital Archiving & Public Humanities Projects: An invitation-based gathering of anti-racist, anti-colonial digital archiving and public humanities initiatives with opportunities for learning and collaboration. We are excited to join CENTRO, AHV, UPR Caribe Digital, Humanidades Puerto Rico, and other digital / public humanities initiatives to discuss the future of humanities work.
Later in the week, our team will be participating in the following panels and roundtables:
Scheduling Details: Thu, November 20, 3:00pm - 4:30pm in 102-A (AV)
Session Title: Solidarity Against Settler Displacement in Puerto Rico
Session Members:
Invasive Matter(s): Matterphorical Performances of Puerto Rican Colonial Displacement and the Coqui
Vanessa Sanders Taboada, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill;
Challenging "Muerto Rico": Cooperativas and the Movement for a Solidary Economy in Puerto Rico
Miranda Martinez, The Ohio State University;
Colonial subjects and their “fellow Americans”: Decolonization, statehood, and settler futures
Rafael Capó García, The University of Puerto Rico;
Chair: Bridget Kevane, bkevane@montana.edu, Montana State University
Scheduling Details: Sat, November 22, 11:30am - 1:00pm in 206 (AV)
Session Title: Detours in the Elsewheres of American Empire: Hawai‘i, Puerto Rico, and Palestine
Session Members:
Chair: Vernadette Gonzalez, vernadette@berkeley.edu, University of California-Berkeley
Panelist: Rafael Capó García, rcapogarcia@gmail.com, The University of Puerto Rico
Panelist: Jennifer Kelly, jlkelly@ucsc.edu, University of California-Santa Cruz
Panelist: Marisol Lebron, mlebron9@gmail.com, University of California-Santa Cruz
Panelist: Lila Sharif, lila.a.sharif@gmail.com, Arizona State University-Tempe
Comment: Vernadette Gonzalez, vernadette@berkeley.edu, University of California-Berkeley
Scheduling Details: Sat, November 22, 9:45am - 11:15am in 208-C (Analog)
Session Title: Contando historias, reclamando futuros: Community-led Public History and Participatory Action Research in Vieques, Puerto Rico
Session Members:
Chair: Rafael Capó García, rcapogarcia@gmail.com, The University of Puerto Rico
Panelist: Ilandra Guadalupe Maldonado, iogm@ahvpr.org,
Panelist: Alexandra Connelly Reyes, Azcr@ahvpr.org,
Panelist: Charissa Crispín Torres, cctbieke@gmail.com,
Comment: Marie Cruz Soto, m.cruzsoto@ahvpr.org, New York University
Scheduling Details: Sat, November 22, 3:00pm - 4:30pm in 104-A (AV)
Session Title: Memoria Decolonial Workshop - How to build a (De)tour
Session Members:
Chair: Rafael Capó García, rcapogarcia@gmail.com, The University of Puerto Rico
Scheduling Details: Sat, November 22, 3:00pm - 4:30pm in 101-B (AV)
Session Title: The Racial Politics of Public Memorials and Grassroots Remembrance
Session Members:
Rashad Arman Timmons, University of California-Santa Barbara - Haunting Interruptions: Race, Infrastructural Violence, and Spatial Memory in Ferguson, Missouri, USA
Caleb E Dawson, University of California-Santa Barbara, Ellen Berrey, University of Toronto, Alex Hanna, Kendal T Kandasamy, University of Toronto - The Expansive and Corrective Power of Grassroots Memorialization: Lessons from College Student Activists in the U.S. and Canada
Sofía Martínez Rivera, Memoria (De)colonial - Interrupting colonial narratives: Public Humanities and Participatory Pedagogies in Puerto Rico
Ayana Flewellen, Stanford University - The Politics of Heritage in the US Virgin Islands: Reclaiming Afro-Caribbean Histories on Landscapes of Contestation in St. Croix
COMMENT: Tianna Bruno, University of California Berkeley
