Gia Del Pino, doctoral student in Art & Visual Culture Education, was selected as Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Crossing Latinidades Creative Writing Fellow.
Crossing Latinidades is a consortium of 16 Hispanic-Serving Institutions, including the University of Arizona, funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation. The purpose of the consortium is to leverage strengths and collaborate on research, cultural programming, teaching, and archive sharing in the Latinx humanities and social sciences.
Del Pino is one of six Arizona graduate students selected as Creative Writing Fellows and will participate in a multi-day program of symposia and workshops, where they will learn creative pedagogical approaches that center on antiracist practices. The Fellowship program will also give students an opportunity to network with professional writers and peers from other HSI institutions. Speakers include:
- Former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera
- Anthony Cody from the Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio at Fresno State University
- Felicia Rose Chavez, author of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop
- Renowned poet, translator and language activist Jen/Eleana Hofer
- Renowned poet, playwright and community activist Jasminne Mendez
The Fellowship program gives students the opportunity to:
- Network with peers from other HSI institutions and professional writers
- Learn new creative writing pedagogical approaches
- Take workshops with renowned Latinx writers and teachers
- Develop anti-racist and innovative alternatives to traditional workshop model
- Write and share their work with an audience from the HSI consortium
Del Pino is a visual artist, activist, and artist-teacher who is committed to a socially engaged art praxis. Her research examines systemic and systematic violence and trauma related to immigration policy and its long-lasting and intergenerational effects on families.
She moved to Tucson in August 2019 to continue her passion of working for immigrant rights and justice along the U.S.- Mexico border. Del Pino works as a Program and Data Associate at the Colibri Center for Human Rights. She is and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Art and Visual Culture Education at the School of Art.
She is the proud daughter of immigrants who grew up in predominantly immigrant community in Miami.
While in Gainesville earning her MFA in Art and Technology from the University of Florida, she co-founded and was the lead organizer of a grassroots, immigrant-led organization called Madres Sin Fronteras. The group was created in 2017 in response to the new administration’s hardline anti-immigrant platform. The organization worked to create a set of strategic plans to ensure justice and protections for affected communities and vulnerable families.