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This course will use food as a lens to examine the connections between diasporic Indigenous communities of Guam and Mexico as a result of Spanish colonization. Students will engage in hands-on food-based activities, which include preparing and cooking food with indigenous roots to Mexico and Guam, and selecting and purchasing ingredients from local establishments. Along the way, students will learn some Spanish, Nahuatl and CHamoru vocabulary used in the kitchen. In addition, we will read and analyze a range of texts and resources, including cookbooks, film, and food-based literature. All in all, this class highlights that food is central in the ways Indigenous identities travel, adapt, and fuse, and with that we show that Indigenous peoples are a critical part of an evolving global community.

Panama’s vibrant cultural mosaic reflects the multiple migratory epistemologies of peoples across the North, Central & South America. Our course will be a hands-on exploration of the rich sonic and culinary tapestries that make up the nation, where the sounds and cuisines of Panama’s Indigenous populations and African immigrants combined with the music of its Andalusian settlers to create a unique set of soundscapes and culinary cultures. After our introduction to the capital city, we travel across the country: exploring Panamanian Jazz, salsa, reggaeton, and folk music, traversing Caribbean beaches that carry the sounds of Afro-Antillean music cultures, to the coffee-growing highlands that are home to the Ngobe Buglé Indigenous group, and finally to the Azuero peninsula—the heartland of Panama’s traditional típico music. 1 unit – L. Carrizo