Goldwin Smith Professor of English Helena María Viramontes brings people and places erased from history to life again. For years, she has focused her lens on the Latino experience in the United States, writing award-winning fiction that draws from her own heritage as a Chicana from Los Angeles. Viramontes is featured in this Cornell Research story.
In her latest novel-in-progress, The Cemetery Boys, she explores the experiences of three generations of East Los Angelenos mired in three different wars. During this exploration, she highlights the mix of ethnicities and marginalized communities that flourished and then faded away in the California of the early-to-mid twentieth century.
“Erasure has always been a concern for me,” she says. “I started thinking about the idea for The Cemetery Boys when my aunt gave me a box of letters that my uncle wrote to her and to his parents while he was in World War II. I thought of how Ken Burns [television documentarian] did not include a single Latino, Chicano, or Hispanic in his documentary on World War II. And there were thousands and thousands of them who served in that war. It really broke my heart.”
Serge Petchenyi/Cornell University
From left, Xi Yang, PhD '10, senior lecturer of finance in the SC Johnson College of Business; Christine Ye; Christine Ye Award recipient Margaret E. Foster, doctoral candidate in communication; Cornelia Ye Award recipient Naman Agrawal, doctoral candidate in neurobiology and behavior; Cornelia Ye; and Derina Samuel, associate director of graduate student development at the Center for Teaching Innovation.
NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
Artist concept of the gas giant planet WD 1856 b orbiting a white dwarf star. The planet is 7 times larger than the Earth-sized white dwarf it orbits. WD 1856 b has methane and hazes in its atmosphere, which would give it a similar color to Saturn's moon Titan. The white dwarf formed from a star that died 5 billion years ago, and has been cooling ever since, giving it an orange colour similar to the Sun.
