Start Date: Mar 2, 2023
End Date: Mar 2, 2023
From: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Free Event - Join us for a discussion with Dr. Jonna Perrillo and Verónica Carbajal about how white supremacy shaped Manhattan Heights, one of El Paso’s historic neighborhoods. The talk will examine how institutionalized racism enabled the area to become a locus of power for white El Pasoans and an ideal place for Nazi scientists to settle during Operation Paperclip. Dr. Perrillo and Carbajal will also explore how what happened in Manhattan Heights reflects larger narratives of inequality in our region. This “Merienda Talk” is part of our current exhibit “Neighborhoods & Shared Memories: Manhattan Heights,” which traces the area’s evolution from a working class neighborhood of adobe homes at the turn of the century into one of El Paso’s most exclusive neighborhoods in the 1930s.
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Meet the speakers:
Jonna Perrillo has been an education historian and a professor of English Education at the University of Texas of El Paso since 2005. Her scholarship focuses on the history of schools and citizenship, both in the sense of how schools define and translate citizenship values and how they enfranchise or disenfranchise students and teachers. She is the author of two books: Uncivil Rights: Teachers, Unions, and the Battle for School Equity (winner of the New Scholar Book Award from the American Education Research Association) and Educating the Enemy: Teaching Nazis and Mexicans in the Cold War Borderlands (winner of the Border Regional Library Association’s Southwest Book Award and the Bolton-Cutter Prize from the Western History Association). She also writes opinion pieces advocating for school equity and reform issues. Her work has been featured in Time magazine, the Washington Post, the Boston Review, El Paso Matters, and on National Public Radio.
Verónica Carbajal is a fourth generation fronteriza. Verónica was born in El Paso, just blocks from where her great-grandparents started their family in the Chamizal neighborhood. She was raised in Cd. Juarez, down the street from where her great-grandparents moved in order to fulfill their dream of owning a home. Like her great-grandfather, grandfather and thousands of border residents, she and her mom commuted from Cd. Juarez to El Paso, where Verónica attended public school and her mom worked. Verónica has devoted her life to social justice, particularly, environmental justice, fair and affordable housing, historic and cultural preservation, and animal rights. She has been a lawyer at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Inc. since 2004. Verónica graduated from Brown University in 1998 with two concentrations: Environmental Studies and Ethnic Studies and The University of Texas School of Law in 2004. Her community work includes serving as President of Justicia Fronteriza, a Political Action Committee, that supports progressive candidates and El Pasoans for Fair Elections, SPAC, which is working on ballot initiatives to democratize city elections with campaign finance limits, public financing for grassroots candidates and ranked choice voting. Verónica is also a children’s book author.
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Merienda Talks are a free ongoing series at the El Paso Museum of History that explore current exhibits through informal conversation with experts. In Mexico, “merienda” is a time to share conversation with friends over a bite to eat. In the spirit of merienda, our talks bring the public and professionals together to discover exhibits through discussion
