APSU freshman MaKenna Huhnke working on paper about 'the wounds that the Latinx community bears'

Austin Peay State University freshman MaKenna Huhnke is working on a paper with Dr. Osvaldo Di Paolo Harrison about the Latinx community. The paper is titled "Decolonizing the Latinx Experience and Healing the Wounds of Modern Coloniality in Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed."

The paper's thesis is "The Latinx diaspora stories in Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed reveals the wounds that the Latinx community bears due to the persistence of modern coloniality regarding culture, gender and race. At the same time, these stories empower the need of decolonial thinking and epistemic disobedience."

Di Paolo Harrison has applied for a Student Academic Success Initiative grant so Huhnke and he can present the paper at the International Conference on Language, Literature and Culture from Oct. 17-18 in Orlando, Florida.

Huhnke is a first-year, first-generation student at Austin Peay State University who intends to major in Spanish. She's in the APSU Honors Program and a proud member of the Governor's Own Marching Band (GOMB) as a trumpet player. She hopes to become a drum major for GOMB. She graduated last year from West Creek High School in Clarksville, Tennessee.