Carnegie Mellon University
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Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez

Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez

Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies with a Courtesy Appointment in English

Address
Department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics
4980 Margaret Morrison St
Posner Hall 341
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Education

Ph.D, Hispanic Literatures and Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley
M.A., Spanish, University of Hawaii, Manoa
B.A., Spanish, University of Hawaii

Bio

Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez was born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in New York City. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and her research interests include Cuban, U.S. Latino, and Latin American Jewish and Sephardic literary and cultural studies.

She is currently completing Cuban to the Core: How Performance, Politics, and Place-Making Shaped the Future of Cuba in South Florida, 1886–1960. Her books include Spanish and Empire, En otra voz: Antología de la literatura hispana de los Estados Unidos, and Herencia: The Anthology of U.S. Latino Literature in the United States. Recent articles include “Latin Place Making in the Late 19th & Early 20th Centuries: Cuban Émigrés and Their Transnational Impact in Tampa, FL”; “Tablas sin fronteras: ‘leyendo a Cuba’ en el teatro cubano de Tampa en los 1920”; and “Language & the Promised Land: Passage & Migration to a 'Third Place.’”

In Pittsburgh, in addition to her role as a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon, she is the executive director of Coro Latinoamericano and its CORITO children’s choir, co-president of the Latin American Cultural Union, and a writer and co-anchor for Barrio Latino, a Spanish-language community affairs radio program. She also served for two years on the Development Committee of the Casa San José Board of Directors and co-founded the Hispanic children’s outreach program CIRCULO with two CMU colleagues in 2007.

  • Cuban Studies
  • Latino Studies
  • Sephardic Studies
  • Translation
  • Community-based Teaching and Research
  • Diaspora Crossings and Contested Identities in AfricAmérica
  • Transformative Learning through Cross-Cultural Analysis
  • Translation Workshop I
  • Studies in Spanish & Latin American Literature & Culture: Colonialism & collateral damage in the Hispanic Caribbean: A comparative view of Cuba and Puerto Rico.
  • Contemporary Latin American Texts: Revision, Rewriting and Representation.
  • The Mark Gelfand Award for Educational Outreach, 2011
  • Outstanding Role Model, Pan-Hellenic Council, Carnegie Mellon, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008
  • Fellow, Jacob Marcus Rader Center, American Jewish Archives, 2004
  • “Working Group on Cuban Deliberative Democracy: Capacity Building for Independent Cuban Civic Leaders and Practitioners of Deliberative Democracy.” National Endowment for Democracy. Washington, D.C. (2018).
  • “One Book at a Time: Reading, Identity, and Social Competence for Latino Children & Youth in Beechview.” Pittsburgh Foundation (2018).
  • Co-President, Latin American Cultural Union
  • Executive Director, Coro Latinoamericano-Pittsburgh
  • Founder and President, CubaCivica
  • Co-Founder, Círculo Juvenil de Cultura
  • Member, Editorial Board, Latinx Pasados: A Journal of Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Project (and several others)

Book Chapters

Achugar, Mariana, Felipe Gómez, and Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez. “Círculo Juvenil de Cultura: A Ten-Year Experiment in Service Learning and Community Engagement.” Languages in Communities: Perspectives for Language Education, edited by Adrián Gras-Velázquez, Routledge, 2019, pp. 153–172.

Edited Volumes

Kanellos, Nicolás, Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez, et al., editors. En Otra Voz: Antología Histórica de la Literatura Hispana en los Estados Unidos. Arte Público Press, 2002.

Kanellos, Nicolás, Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez, et al., editors. Herencia: A Historical Anthology of U.S. Hispanic Literature. Oxford University Press, 2001.

Journal Articles

Dworkin y Méndez, Kenya C. “Latin Place Making in the Late 19th & Early 20th Centuries: Cuban Émigrés and Their Transnational Impact in Tampa, FL.” ELN: Latinx Lives in a Hemispheric Context, vol. 56, no. 1, Spring 2018, pp. 124–142.

Dworkin y Méndez, Kenya C. “Los Retos del Foto Activismo y su Traslado, Traducción e Interpretación: Una Mirada Privilegiada Hacia Cuba Profunda con Juan Antonio Madrazo.” Voces del Caribe, vol. 10, no. 1, 2018, pp. 539–588.

Department Member Since 1993