What does it mean to bear witness? In SPAN 365, students turned to the Latin American testimonial tradition to capture untold stories from the COVID-19 pandemic—blending personal reflection with collective memory.
Presentation by Rachel Beck, Sofia Gonzalez-Bonnett, Natalie Hill, Hannah Marincak, and Katerina Popke.
“Students explored the power of testimony to amplify voices often silenced or marginalized.”
Drawing inspiration from Latin American testimonial works—such as Elena Poniatowska’s La noche de Tlatelolco and Rigoberta Menchú’s I, Rigoberta Menchú—students in Dr. María Adelaida Escobar Trujillo’s “SPAN 365: Spanish-American Literature and Culture since the 1820s” course explored the power of testimony to amplify voices often silenced or marginalized.
Although the individuals interviewed were not necessarily “voiceless” in the traditional sense, the assignment invited students to approach their own stories—and those of others—with the same care, empathy, and responsibility that defines the testimonial genre.
Working collaboratively, students created multimedia projects that combined historical research with personal narrative to document the lived experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, they critically engaged with the testimonial genre while capturing how the pandemic reshaped education, community, and identity within the university context—giving voice to stories too often left out of institutional discourse.
Here’s a look at the powerful projects created by the students.
By Illimani Mendoza Mayrs, Sophia Ryan, and Sasha Kettner
By Kevin Battilana, Elleda Spitzer, Alexander Tsao, and Alison Wong
By Ishita Manku, Hillary Chiu, Mariana Diogo, and Constantine Mavromihalis
By Tyler Johal, Janet Hong, Kun Yoon, and Quinn McBurney
By Jocelina Li, Carlota Baltersee Fernández, and Monica Bonilla
By Martha Bartel and Fiorella Vargas
By Aoki Yamada, Leonardo Arauz, and Paula Cardenas
By Tia Dean, Shouq Almarri, and Kyle Kintzer
By Sylvie Audet, Jiongzheng Xu, Anja Trivunovic, and Mariam Abbas
By Brandon Han, Sofia Najera, Ruth Pedersen, and Anna Mondragon
By Rachel Beck, Sofia Gonzalez-Bonnett, Natalie Hill, Hannah Marincak, and Katerina Popke
By Ashley Hyde-Harrison, Mayra Rai, and Helyn Walther
