Part of understanding race in America means understanding that anti-Blackness, ethnic discrimination, and colonialism are global issues. Acknowledging and addressing structural inequalities in the cultures that Division of World Language, Literatures, and Cultures and its constituent units represent, and how they advantage some and disadvantage others, is an essential part of our curricula and research programs, and innovative learning takes place in many forms. We look forward to a multidisciplinary dialogue and exchange of ideas concerning global ethnic and antiracism studies.

María Márquez Ponce’s current internship centers upon Latinx immigrants’ and Native Americans’ stories and experiences in Iowa, and she has seen her personal and scholarly interests collide. After sorting archival materials and establishing a timeline for cultural events affiliated with the Latino Native American Cultural Center (LNACC), she’s started reaching out to affiliated students, faculty, staff, and alumni from past years.

The University of Iowa is meeting a pressing need for undergraduate training in translation with a new Bachelor of Arts in Translation. Drawing on the university’s recognized strength in writing and communication, the degree will be the first BA in Translation to be offered at a Research 1 university in the U.S. The new major builds on the success of Iowa’s undergraduate minor in Translation for Global Literacy and responds to increasing demand for translation skills in an increasingly international job market. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, employment of interpreters and translators is projected to grow 24% from 2020 to 2030, much faster than the average for all occupations.

On February 23, 1944, a 15-year-old girl gazed from an attic window at the topmost branches of a tree. In her diary, she wrote, “I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind. As long as this exists…and I may live to see it, this sunshine, these cloudless skies, while this lasts, I cannot be unhappy.” The girl was Anne Frank. She would die in a concentration camp less than a year after penning that entry. Decades later, the tree succumbed to old age; before it was removed, however, germinated chestnuts were collected, saplings sprouted, and Anne’s trees now grow all over Europe. Only a dozen so-called Anne Frank trees are rooted on U.S. soil, including at the Boston Commons and a 9/11 memorial park in New York City. The thirteenth will be planted on the University of Iowa Pentacrest on April 29, 2022. The tree was awarded to our campus and community in recognition of our literary heritage, for the UI’s excellence in tree stewardship, and in observation of the Pentacrest’s long history as a space of peaceful youth activism.

A symposium organized by the Division of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures (DWLLC) at the University of Iowa, supported by an International Programs Major Projects Grant. Following the resurgence of protests against racialized police violence since May 2020, citizens, activists, artists, and academic communities across the globe have renewed efforts to reflect on and respond to issues of race and ethnicity and racial and ethnic discrimination. The Division of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures has joined these efforts.