Hispanic Outlook

Emma Sepulveda

It was Tuesday, Sept. 11, but not the one that changed Americans’ way of life. This Sept. 11 occurred 28 years before the Twin Towers and the U.S. Pentagon were attacked. The events of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 1973, changed the way of life for Chileans. On that day, Augusto Pinochet seized control of Chile. “I was in my fifth year at the University of Chile in Santiago. The university closed immediately following the military coup, and I was not allowed to finish the three months I had left to obtain my degree,” says Emma Sepúlveda-Pulvirenti, Ph.D., foundation professor and director of the Latino Research Center at the University of Nevada-Reno.

Sepúlveda immigrated to Chile from Argentina with her family at age 7 to escape the political turmoil of the Juan Perón years. Her mother was Argentinian; her father, originally from Chile. She became a Chilean citizen at 18, and during her college years was always eager to join youth groups that participated in political campaigns, union organizing and literacy campaigns in shanty towns. But before she could complete her education in Chile, she was forced to move yet again. Following the Pinochet military coup, she headed for the United States. “I left Chile and came to the U.S., as many immigrants do, with nothing more than a suitcase full of hope and searching for the so-called American Dream,” she says.

When she arrived in the U.S., she was considered a woman of color; in Chile, she was called White. Speaking no English and considered second-class, she worked in a Mexican restaurant for about a dollar per hour. “I was defined long before I could define myself in the U.S. I was regularly called wetback, beaner, greaser and many other names,” she says. She taught herself English, worked at night and attended college during the day. Before long, she earned a Ph.D. from the University of California-Davis. Now, rather than slinging epithets, people call her professor, political activist, political candidate, poet, author, columnist, photographer, literary critic and art entrepreneur. And last year, she added another descriptor to this list: commissioner. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, Democrat of Nevada, who has long known Sepúlveda, appointed her to a 23-person commission to study the feasibility of a National Latino Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The commission is also charged with creating a plan for such a museum, which would be dedicated to portraying the art, history and culture of the Latino population of the United States. The commission members were appointed by President Obama and House and Senate leaders.

“It was a great honor to be nominated for the commission by the Majority Leader. I was also humbly surprised because there are many Latinos in our state who are equally or more qualified for this commission. The trust he put in me for such an important task is something I will always treasure among my greatest accomplishments,” she says.

The American story is a wonderful example of many moments in time, accomplishments and names, she says. It is also a story of glories and defeats, cultures and races, and generations and places – and Latinos are part of every aspect of that story. “Now we need to narrate those experiences in a place where the old and the new generations can see it and relive it with the same sense of pride that took place through the historical life of this great nation. “At a more personal level, I want to be able to walk one day in a museum in Washington, D.C., with my grandchildren and show them how my heritage is as much part of their past as it will be of their future.”

Sepúlveda says that Reid is no stranger to the Latino community, that she has worked with him over many years, and that, in 1994, he encouraged her to run for a Senate seat and supported her throughout what she describes as a vitriolic campaign. Reid has mentored countless Latinos, she says, not just in politics, but in a wide range of professions. “I have been part of several Latino summits organized by him in Nevada and Washington, D.C., for decades – summits that have dealt with every issue from health care to education.” Sepúlveda believes she was selected for the museum commission because she is a photographer, trustee at the Nevada Museum of Art, co-owner of a small art gallery, and has written about and been a political activist for Latino culture. Sepúlveda traces her political activism back to her days as a graduate student at the University of California. While pursuing her doctorate, she began working with the Central American political refugees in the U.S., shuttling between California and Chile to help the mothers of the “disappeared” – women whose family members vanished during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. “My first books where about those experiences. Those were the two most inspiring causes that motivated me to become an activist,” she says. In subsequent years, Sepúlveda worked tirelessly for the rights of immigrants in several Latino organizations. Witnessing the huge inequalities and disparities in immigration policy motivated her to be the first Latina to run for the Nevada Senate in 1994. Although her run was unsuccessful, she founded a nonprofit organization called Latinos for Political Education (LAPE) to promote the political empowerment of Latinos. LAPE registered a record number of Latinos and trained Latinos to run for political office.

Being a political activist is not for the faint of heart. Sepúlveda has received her share of death threats over the years. “I do get terrible hate mail, and I have gotten death threats, and that is difficult to live with. But when you decide to defend what for so many are unpopular causes, and you step up and give your opinion publicly, you are going to have to accept that people are going to attack you. I only wish it was with more civility.” Sepúlveda says that she senses an atmosphere of hate against everyone and everything that is different today in the U.S. And for those like her who are in the trenches, it’s difficult to take those threats day after day and not succumb to the fear, she says. Along with a palpable atmosphere of hate, Sepúlveda also senses a huge wave of anti-immigration sentiment in the U.S. Recently, she shared with her students a piece of hate mail that appeared on an Internet site. One of the Latinas in the class had this to say: “They are constantly attacking us. You are an immigrant and a Latina columnist writing opinion pieces defending, at times, the rights of immigrants. What can you expect? Unfortunately, you are going to be the target of those brutal attacks, and there is nothing you can do about that.” Sepúlveda agrees with her.

Throughout her life, Sepúlveda has been concerned about the injustices that confront many people and has championed the peoples’ causes by working to empower the Latino community through programs, advocacy, voter registration, caucus and convention participation. These days, she finds herself most concerned with education and war. Too little is being invested in education, she says. And although the U.S. is currently engaged in two wars, because they are so far away, Americans live as though this country is not at war. But education and war are not the only two issues on her mind. “I am upset that politicians are more concerned about the new elections than the new generations. They are involved in partisan fights instead of finding solutions for the economic crisis, a broken immigration system, the environment and so many other issues that need immediate solutions,” she says. Author or co-author of 22 books, Sepúlveda has written poetry, fiction and nonfiction, in both Spanish and English. One of her books details her unsuccessful campaign for the Nevada State Senate in 1994, another collects her columns from the Reno Gazette-Journal. She also edited We, Chile: Personal Testimonies of the Chilean Arpilleristas, a compilation of accounts by women whose family members “disappeared” during the Pinochet dictatorship. Published in Chile last year, her latest book, Gringosincrasias: U.S. from Inside Out, is a collection of humorous narratives describing the absurdities of current American life. Beyond that, Sepúlveda is finishing up the last edits on a novel and is also working on another nonfiction book about Latinos in the U.S. Sepúlveda’s long road of activism has led her, along with other Latinos, to the University of Nevada, where she was instrumental in creating the Latino Research Center and serves as its director.

“There is a clear need in Nevada, as well as other states in the nation, for research that sheds light on the impact of Latinos in every area of study,” she says. The university created the Latino Research Center to not only conduct, publish and disseminate research about Latinos in the U.S., but also to promote education and leadership among Latino youth. To provide others a glimpse into the Latino world, the center distributed more than 500 cameras to Latinos in Nevada and instructed them to capture images of life in their communities. When Sepúlveda viewed the photographs taken, she was astounded. She printed every single image from all 500 cameras and coordinated the exhibition of selected works. She is now working with a designer and writing text to accompany the photographs in a book. The project, “Nosotros por Nosotros,” has been presented in many galleries and museums throughout Nevada and is now a traveling exhibit. Among the research projects conducted by the Latino Research Center, the publication of the Border-Lines Journal has become an enormous tool allowing those concerns and those voices to be heard. The research being provided will help educators, the business community, labor leaders and policymakers address issues related to Latinos in Nevada and across the country.

Among her other accomplishments, in 1993 she was awarded the Thornton Peace Prize by the University of Nevada-Reno for her work with Chilean women’s groups. In 1994, she was appointed to the United States Hispanic Task Force, which advises the U.S. Senate. In 1995, she founded the nonprofit Latinos for Political Education and has chaired Nevada Hispanic Services. She became a columnist for the Reno Gazette-Journal in 1996 and in 1997 received the first Woman of the Year Award for Literature from the GEMS International Television Network. In 1998, the Nevada Women’s Fund recognized her as a Woman of Achievement. In 2000, she received the Silver Pen Award sponsored by the Friends of the University Library. She has participated as a panelist on C-SPAN’s First Person Festival of Memoir in the Arts, co-sponsored by the World Affairs Council and the Blue Sky Arts Foundation. Actress Yolanda Vásquez read Sepúlveda’s poem, “September 11th 1973, Santiago Chile,” as part of the Words and Music program on BBC Radio. And in November 2009, she received the Mujer Award from the National Hispanic Leadership Institute in recognition of her national and international human rights activism and academic scholarship.

Sepúlveda seems to gain comfort in activism, writing and teaching, which she says have walked with her these long roads, nurturing one another along the way. “I have lived what I teach, and I have always tried to write what I have lived,” she says.

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FEATURED ARTICLE – SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

Author, Activist and Academic Emma Sepulveda Named to Latino Museum Commission