CRUCES: Thinking in Public Forum

When: June 14 @ 10am–5:30pm
Where: The Clemente, 107 Suffolk St, NY, NY, 10002

Keynote Speakers: Chat Travieso and Johanna Fernández

Delegates: Oscar Oliver-Didier, Gabriel Hernández Solano, Rev. Juan Carlos Ruiz, Suhaly Bautista-Carolina, Elena Martinez, Marlene Ramirez Cancio, Cristina Pérez Jiménez, Lizania Cruz, Dylan Gamboa, Jorge Matos, Ligia Guallpa, Monxo López, Yazmany Arboleda

Artistic Keynote Performance: Shaun Leonardo

​The CRUCES: Thinking in Public Forum is a daylong convening of cultural workers, artists, community leaders, scholars, and neighbors, designed as an open, participant-driven space for collective inquiry and exchange. As the culminating event of Sembradas (Phase 1 of Historias), this forum inaugurates CRUCES (Crossings), a signature series of public convenings dedicated to fostering dialogue and collaboration within and beyond the Latinx community. Rooted in the principles of knowledge justice, the forum surfaces collective, situated knowledge and responds to the intentional erasure of culture-specific histories by centering public storytelling, memory work, and shared authorship as vital practices of resistance.

Inspired by unconference models, the event invites unstructured dialogue across three core frameworks:

Democratizing Scholarship – Advancing inclusive knowledge-making by cultivating scholarship as a communal and iterative process that values co-creation and mutual learning.

Community-Based Research – Grounding inquiry in lived experience, memory, and intergenerational dialogue to expand the boundaries of knowledge production and foster deeper exchange between communities and institutions.

Formats for Collective Thinking – Nurturing participatory methodologies such as creative archiving, mapping, annotation and oral traditions to serve communities in this political moment.

This forum offers a space to reimagine authorship and cultural stewardship—where Latinx and allied communities are not merely subjects of study, but active participants in shaping the narratives that define them. Together, these projects invite reflection on who gathers knowledge, for what purposes, and under whose authority—while generating meaningful, community-rooted insights into Latinx cultural life in New York City.

In doing so, Historias poses a central question: How can we collectively build knowledge infrastructures that honor the complexity, creativity, and enduring contributions of Latinx communities across this city?

Schedule:

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM | Central Convening & Keynote Framing with Johanna Fernandez and Chat Travieso
11:15 AM – 12:15 PM | Morning Breakout Sessions: Tracing the Past
12:10 PM – 1:15 PM | Midday Share-Backs & Lunch
1:15 – 1:45 PM | Participatory Keynote Performance with Shaun Leonardo
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Afternoon Breakout Sessions: Imagining the Future
3:15 PM – 4:15 PM | Closing Share-Back & Collective Synthesis
4:15 PM – 5:30 PM | DOT Karaoke Session + Afterparty

*all passes include community lunch!

*The Clemente is proud to be in the process of a major capital project to bring our historic building into ADA compliance for greater accessibility for all. In the meantime, please note that our building is inaccessible for wheelchair users and potentially other mobility impairments. Don't hesitate to contact info@theclementecenter.org for questions or accessibility requests; we will do our best to accommodate.

Posted In: upcoming
Tagged: Historias