“Pajarito” Panel and Performance: Arts, Academics, and Community Knowledge Addressing Contested Histories.

As part of the Living With Injury MOCA exhibit programming, a panel between Safos Dance Company founder, Yvonne Montoya, community activist-academics Elizabeth Yee and Emily Morel, and Historian and exhibition Co-Curator Alisha Vasquez will be in conversation about using arts, academics, and community knowledge to convey contested histories. Following this panel, Safos will perform “Pajarito” including the monologue and Mujerota solo dance. This event is free and open to the public. 

“Pajarito” represents that cataclysmic event of dispossession and the beginning of illnesses related to radiation overexposure for nuevomexicanos. Montoya’s great-great-grandparents, Norberto and Sophia Roybal, were among over three dozen nuevomexicano families evicted from their properties at the advent of the Manhattan Project. This had major ramifications for the entire family, including two sons who were away at war and returned home hoping to work at the ranch—but instead had to leave for California to find employment. The first part of “Pajarito” tells the story of the violent removal of nuevomexicanos from their ranchlands.

Panel from 6:30-7:20
Performance from 7:30pm

Event is FREE and open to the public.

Programming supported in partnership with Southwest Folklife Alliance’s Disability Cultures Folklife program and UC Berkeley Disabled Ecologies.

For more information about SFA’s Disability Cultures Folklife program please reach out to info@SouthwestFolklife.org.