THEME: Preserving Traditions, Stories, and Customs, Values, of the Mexican and Mexican American Community
The 2016 NACCS Tejas Foco conference is an interdisciplinary conference that is calling for submissions that offer insight into traditions, oral history (leyedas), passed down by our antepasados, customs, dichos, creencias, folkore (i.e., La Llorana, El Cucuy), language (i.e., caló), food, religion (i.e.religious drama pastorela), literature, music (baladas), pastimes (i.e., game of Huachas), folk art (i.e., murals, retablos), folk medicine (sobador/a, curandero/a), education, and Latino/a history and how they affect our everyday lives and identity.
We encourage submissions that seek to address the following, but not limited to, questions:
- What external socioeconomic forces causes us to move away from these customs and traditions?
- What generational factors operate in explaining the dilemma behind our children becoming non-practitioners of nuestra cultura and especially practicing the Spanish language and recognizing the value of bilingualism as an asset?
- How does assimilation into American mainstream culture affect these customs and traditions and how has our culture changed over time?
- What can we do, if anything, to stop the disappearance of customs and traditions? Or is disappearance inevitable and/or necessary to move forward? (Are some customs better left behind?)
- How does the Mexican and Mexican American culture change American national and local cultural practices?
- What is the role that folklore and public culture play in social movements? How do social movements influence Chicano/Mexicano culture?
- How could Mexican and Mexican values serve to enrich contemporary mainstream America?
- How does gender, sexuality and LGBT analyses offer new insights to understanding customs and traditions?
We welcome submissions that offer studies on gender roles, sexuality, and the LGBT community in the Mexican and Mexican American culture. We welcome paper presentations and panel submissions, exhibitions, performances, workshops, poetry readings, and other forms of expressions on the origins of these traditions and customs and how they shaped Mexican American in the past and continue to shape our present. We also welcome proposals that address the Tejano experience in general and does not necessarily fall under the conference theme.
Please send a 200 to 300 word abstract to NACCSTejasFoco2016@gmail.com by December 1st, 2015. Include your name, university affiliation, type of presentation, accommodation needs, and technology requests. Full panel proposals are welcome and encouraged. If submitting an individual proposal, please include a brief list of relevant keywords you employ so that we can organize panels in a more effective manner.