by Alejandra Padín-Dujon This speech was given at the renaming ceremony for the college formerly known as Calhoun on April 29, 2016. This is the part of any Yale event where we would usually thank our donors. We’d thank the people whose sacrifice and generosity have given us the bittersweet privilege of studying at this university—of…
Author: Alejandra Padin-Dujon
Turnout for the Turn Up
by Alejandra Padín-Dujon Between 3:30 and 5:00 pm at the Calhoun College buttery on Tuesday, April 26th, POC and indigenous students will welcome the admitted Class of 2020 and initiate Yale’s newest cohort into a culture of student activism. The event, publicized as “POC and Indigenous Turnout for the Turn Up: Building Student Power with the…
A More Perfect Union
by Alejandra Padín-Dujon Betsy Padín,“Tormenta Anunciada (de la serie Coordenadas).” Acrylic on canvas, 46″ x 60″, 2007. I feel vaguely uncomfortable as I sit on a bright couch at La Casa one cold, sunny Saturday, waiting to go on the inaugural Social Justice Tour of Fair Haven with a handful of other students, a local alderman,…
Crow Artist Challenges Erasure, Celebrates Culture at the NACC
by Alejandra Padín-Dujon When Wendy Red Star (Crow Nation of Montana) discovered the cheesy, flagrantly offensive 1980s “White Squaw” adventure-romance novels, she glanced at the cover art and knew she could do better. The Portland-based multimedia artist swapped the heroine’s face for her own. The result? A series of hilariously irreverent covers—this time featuring a real,…
The 14th Amendment Turns 150: Scrutinizing Equal Protection
by Alejandra Padín-Dujon On the 31st of March, a who’s who of America’s foremost Constitutional scholars and Reconstruction historians gathered in Linsly-Chittenden Hall for a panel discussion entitled “Equal Protection: Origins and Legacies of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Drafted in 1866 by the Radical Republican contingency of a U.S. Congress still operating without the eleven Confederate states,…