Juan A. Lainez Iscoa
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Juan's prose positively sizzles. It was always an absolute pleasure to read his papers. His thoughtful comments always moved the discussion in productive and unexpected ways. He is an iconoclastic thinker, and deeply committed to building vibrant intellectual communities. His fellow students appreciated and respected him, and sought him out for help on papers and projects.
Like many of the students who took Migrant Lives and Labor in the Upper Valley with me, Juan was apprehensive about "playing into white saviorism" to the members of the dairy farmworker community whom our course serves. By the end of the course, however, Juan articulated in his critical reflection essay that by collaborating with these farmworkers and their families, he came to understand the complexities of community engagement. He learned much about his community partners' past and present, as well as their individual characteristics and hopes for the future. Juan gained much insight into the hard realities that migrants face just beyond the privileged confines of the Dartmouth campus. Thanks to Juan's participation in this course, he helped to mitigate the social isolation that many dairy farmworkers experience in New Hampshire and Vermont.
Maddie is a joy to work with. We have been meeting remotely this term to cover our Crossing Over: Latino Roots and Traditions course. All of our course meetings have been in small groups. In response to our readings as well as her course-mates, Maddie has been kind, generous, and emotive. She is sharp, organized, and focused. Most impressive to me, though, has been her ability to credit her course-mates' ideas even in course discussion. She never misses an opportunity to give credit and praise to the thoughtful ideas of others.
Maddie was a standout even as a second year student when she took my course on Twentieth Century Art from Latin America. As an enthusiastic voice all term, Maddie helped to elevate class discussion about even the most esoteric propositions. Her incisive questions and sharp eye kept me alert to how gender/sexuality, and non-binary expressions in particular, could be better centered in our discussions. Her passion for the world-making potential of art really came through when she led her exhibition group in an outstanding presentation of the exhibition Mundos Alternos: Art and Science Fiction in the Americas for their final project.