Central Lakes College will kick off the 24th season of its Cultural Thursdays series at noon Thursday, Sept. 3, through a free webinar to commemorate National Hispanic Month. Speaking will be the event’s founder, Jan Kurtz, a retired CLC Spanish and Latin American Studies instructor.
Kurtz will highlight the revelations, insights and added dimensions she gained when she learned a second language and began exploring the Spanish-speaking world. Through the virtue of being able to communicate in English and Spanish, Kurtz was able to further enhance intellectual and emotional perspectives, both her own and the perspectives of those with whom she interacts, through the crossing of borders into different cultural/linguistic worlds.
In Kurtz’s recently published book, “Northern Shores/ Southern Borders: Revelations of a Bilingual Life," she depicts how a Midwestern, monolingual life, where “pronouncing tortilla correctly made you bilingual and eating one made you multicultural," drastically changed after crossing the Mexican border at age 15.
From realizing that the dogs in Mexico understood more Spanish than she did, to her eye-opening shock when reading of kidnappings and government sponsored massacres in Guatemala - Spanish is the common thread. Kurtz connects our present day immigration policies and overall lack of understanding to the need for historical information and continued activism.
You can purchase the book from the CLC bookstore online: https://tinyurl.com/ycvxus3o. The author is donating proceeds to the Kurtz Spanish Scholarship Fund at the CLC Foundation.
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Register in advance for this webinar: https://tinyurl.com/y5uzt9z3. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
For more information on this event or the Cultural Thursdays Series, contact Tracey Kloeckl-Jiménez at 218-855-8183.
