Latino Heritage Month's Keynote Speaker Dr. Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga special presentation to SPA 310

Thursday, September 26th had a special presenter for SPA 310 "Latinx Culture and Literature" students: Dr. Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga, the keynote speaker for the annual EKU Latino Heritage Month and Chautauqua Lecture Series.  Her keynote address: "Cultura, Testimonios, Art and Resistance" will be Thurs Sept 26th at 7:30 PM in O'Donnell Hall in the Whitlock Building.  

Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga is Assistant Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at the University of San Francisco and Faculty Coordinator for the Masters in Counseling MFT program at the San Jose Campus. She has a doctorate in Education and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with eighteen years of experience working in community mental health, with a specialization in child trauma and Latino Mental Health. Belinda has extensive experience in county mental health where she worked in Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall mental health and San Mateo County Pre to Three High Risk Infant Mental health team. Dr. Hernandez-Arriaga also spent a significant time working at University of California Berkeley, Tang Social Services team, where her focus was working with student families, and she served for eight years as adjunct faculty at Santa Clara University. She co-founded and is part of the Latino Advisory Council in Half Moon Bay. Belinda has done extensive work on the coast working with farmworker families and their children, in her community practice her focus is on immigration trauma, u-visas, asylum and has worked with refugee children of San Mateo County.

Dr. Hernandez-Arriaga is Founder and Chief Executive Director of Ayudando Latinos A Soñar(www.alashmb.org), a Latino cultural arts, education and social justice program dedicated to working with rural youth and families living on coastside. Her current research is focused on understanding the emotional, psychological and traumatic experiences that impact undocumented and mixed status Latino youth. Belinda’s work also focuses on understanding the cultural arts as a healing space for this community of children. Belinda is committed to social justice advocacy and multicultural practices in counseling that gives voice to underground communities and expand indigenous cultural practices in the field of counseling. She and her husband have three young daughters and live in the coastal community of Half Moon Bay.

Sponsored by the Department of Languages, Cultures and Humanities, the Department of Psychology, the Department of Anthropology, Sociology and Social Work, the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences, the Office of Diversity and the Honors Program.  The Chautauqua Lecture Series is operated by the EKU Honors Program and housed in the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences. For more information about the 2019-20 Chautauqua Series at EKU, visit chautauqua.eku.edu, find us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @EKUChautauqua, or contact Chautauqua Lecture Coordinator Dr. Erik Liddell at erik.liddell@eku.edu.

Published on September 26, 2019