UF Center for Latin American Studies
MALAS student Daniela Lizarazo chats with professor of Latino/a/x Studies Rafael Ramírez Solórzano
October 12 2023
With the start of the 2023-24 academic year, we welcomed three new professors to our Center-based faculty! Dr. Rafael Ramírez Solórzano specializes in Latino/a/x Studies and is teaching the undergraduate course “Introduction to Latinx and Chicanx History” and the graduate course “Queer Trans Expressions in the Americas” this semester. With Dr. Ramírez Solórzano’s arrival, the Center is continuing to provide coursework on these subject areas that are high in student demand.
Dr. Ramírez Solórzano recently sat down for an interview with MALAS 2025 student Daniela Lizarazo. Read more from Daniela and Dr. Ramírez Solórzano’s conversation below!
Daniela Lizarazo: What is your field of work in academia?
Rafael Ramírez Solórzano: I am a social movement historian specifically working on Chicanx, Latinx freedom movements in the U.S. South and Southwest. The way I do investigations is focusing on oral histories. The center of my work is documenting history not only through primary documents such as organizing documents, like flyers, but in many ways to be a social movement historian in the 21st century is capturing so much data and so much information that is being passed down online and on social media. So as a new social movement historian, I archive all those things, along with oral histories.
Daniela: What do you like about oral histories?
Dr. Ramírez Solórzano: I use oral histories because oral histories tend to be longer, so people can go into great detail – about their upbringing, how they grew up in a place or in a space. Much of my work is trying to understand how place and space shape activism and the experiences of these individuals. So, for me to understand these activists, and the people who've been impacted by the issues that activists are organizing around, I use oral histories because they can tell me about their life, from childhood to adulthood, and how it relates to the place and space that they've inhabited and how over time it's changed. I'm also very much interested in relational histories, in how these movements might connect to other activisms that they might not be aware of.
Daniela Lizarazo: What are you most excited for this new position here at UF?
Dr. Ramírez Solórzano: I first came to Florida to document and to follow undocumented youth activism from South Florida all the way up to DC [on the Trail of Dreams] and when I followed that caminata, I met so many good people. So many people from Florida, from Georgia, from the Carolinas. Our gente are here. So I'm excited about meeting our people here in Gainesville and around Gainesville. I'm excited to meet the students and their families. I'm excited to learn from students about their experiences and how their experiences shape our understanding of Latinx and Chicanx history in the United States.
Daniela Lizarazo: What are your teaching styles and goals?
Dr. Ramírez Solórzano: I truly believe in three things. One: everybody can teach; everybody in my seminar can learn from each other. We have the skills and the knowledge to learn from each other. The second one is that I want to make things accessible. My teaching style is for everybody to learn together, to not leave people behind. The third one is really about people bringing different types of knowledge, cultural wealth, to my classes. I want to hear from students: what do you want to learn? What can you bring, what can you share? Let's develop this class together. I want students to build some ownership in these spaces.
I'm excited to teach Queer and Trans Expressions in the Americas because so many of the authors that I am highlighting and uplifting are authors that are creating the field. I'm excited to introduce students to these great thinkers who are cutting edge, who talk from a lived experience and also make things accessible. I'm also teaching the Chicanx and Latinx History class and I'm excited to see that undergraduates are excited about learning about their history. In that class, we're going to create videos of them talking about their family, like oral histories. They are also doing a virtual field trip analysis of St. Augustine; they're learning about Florida's history, Latinx history. For many of them it's new.
Daniela Lizarazo: What do you hope to contribute to the Center for Latin American Studies?
Dr. Ramírez Solórzano: I hope to build the Latinx Studies interest in the program. And with that is to create new classes to support other faculty, not just at the Center, but also at UF who are teaching in other disciplines. I hope to support the graduate students and their efforts to write their theses and to do field research. And also, I hope to get undergraduates excited about the program, so that maybe they complete a minor, then maybe they apply to the MALAS program, and they continue to do work on Latinx Studies in the future.
Thank you Daniela and Dr. Ramírez Solórzano for the interview! Learn more about Dr. Ramírez Solórzano here.
