Last week, Doreen Hernández and Belkys Torres were announced as the inaugural recipients of the Michele Reid-Vazquez Commitment to Community Award from the Center for Ethnic Studies Research (CESR).
The award is the namesake of Reid-Vazquez, a former associate professor in the Department of Africana Studies who was also the faculty advisor for the Latinx Student Association and the founding director of the CESR. A place where “access and opportunity connect,” the center provides students and faculty with community-building spaces and opportunities through collaborative research, professional development and investigative projects. Each explores race and ethnicity within communities central to ethnic studies, including the diasporas of Latinx, Asian American, Indigenous and African American/U.S. African diasporas peoples.