Editorial note: Debra Castillo served as one of the original CNY Humanities Corridor advisory board members representing Cornell University from 2017 to 2021. She was also active as a Working Group Organizer for four groups over the years:
- Mexicanists of Central New York (LLC40)
- ALACI: Afro-Latinx, Latin American, Caribbean and Indigenous Performance (MP7)
- LELACS: Lake Erie Latin American Cultural Studies (LLC12)
- New Readings: Bodies in Latin American Visual Arts and Culture (VAC24)
Read the original article (below) in the Cornell University News.
Professor Debra Castillo, a Stephen H. Weiss presidential fellow and Emerson Hinchliff Professor of Hispanic Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, died Oct. 5 in Ithaca. She was 72.
Castillo’s scholarship focused on migration, border studies and Latin American and Latinx literary and cultural studies. She published more than 150 articles and more than 20 books as author, editor or translator. She was also deeply devoted to LatinX students at Cornell and to local community projects and founded the well-respected theater troupe Teatrotaller, which has presented work throughout the U.S. and abroad.
“People across the hemisphere and the world will feel her absence,” said Mary Pat Brady, director of the American Studies Program, professor of literatures in English and past director of the Latina/o Studies Program (LSP) in A&S. “She was generous, energetic, kind, incredibly knowledgeable and fiercely devoted to her students; to Latina, Latin American, Caribbean feminist creative practices of every kind; and to the Latina/o Studies Program here at Cornell.”
Castillo specialized in contemporary narrative from the Spanish-speaking world (including the United States), gender studies and cultural theory.
“Debra Castillo was a globally recognized and widely accomplished scholar of Latin American studies, including seminal works on Latin American feminism, literary criticism and theory, gender in the Americas, migration studies, the studies of borders and environment,” said Gavin Walker, professor and chair of the Department of Comparative Literature (A&S). “Her productivity as a writer was matched by her pivotal editorial work and leadership for the Latin American Literary Review, diacritics and the Latin American Studies Association, for which she was a past president.”
“She made us feel that the academic life was only one part of everything, that one could be intellectually ambitious with grace, giving always priority to the creation of a community everywhere she went,” said Edmundo Paz-Soldan, Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences in Latin American Literature in the Department of Romance Studies (A&S).
Castillo’s most recent books were “The Scholar as Human,” with Anna Sims Bartel; and “Scholars in COVID Times,” with Melissa Castillo-Planas, her daughter. She also served as editor for many academic journals and directed the migrations studies minor at Cornell, part of the Einaudi Center for International Studies.
“Deb was one of the most generous people I’ve met at Cornell. Over the years, I saw how she worked behind the scenes to advocate on behalf of colleagues, students and programs,” said Maria Cristina Garcia, the Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow in the Department of History (A&S). “She was one of LSP’s indefatigable advocates and one of our most popular teachers, one of the reasons we have survived for over 30 years.”
Liliana Colanzi, associate professor of Romance studies (A&S), co-edited a volume with Castillo, “Regiones Inquietantes: Literatura de Horror en Latinoamérica” and said she was widely considered one of the founding figures of U.S. Mexicanism.
“I have never met another person with that inexhaustible capacity for work, that ever-expanding intellectual curiosity, that kind and compassionate gaze toward others, and that unwavering sense of service,” she said.
Castillo was the former president of the Latin American Studies Organization and La Asociación de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades. She was also a member of several editorial board presses, including the Cornell University Press, the North Carolina Series in Romance Languages and Literatures and the State University of New York Press.
She began teaching at Cornell in 1985 and became actively engaged in community projects with groups including the Latino Civic Association of Tompkins County and No Más Lágrimas, which helps supply food and other basic needs.
Castillo created “Teatrotaller” in 1993 from her course on Hispanic theater production. In 2022, that troupe produced an original play written by Ana Lopez Ulloa ’11, “Diamantina Rosa,” which focused on gender violence in Mexico and the feminist movement in Latin America.
“She was our spokesperson, our angel, our ally,” said Lopez Ulloa, who came to the U.S. from Mexico in 2007. Though Castillo was not Latina, “she fell in love with our culture in the most, pure amazing way.”
Her support for students was extensive. Castillo worked with more than 130 graduate students, chairing or co-chairing more than 60 graduate student committees. And she was a champion to undergraduates.
Kety Esquivel ’97, met Castillo as a first-year student as she and other students were processing events of the 1993 Day Hall takeover, when Latinx students pushed for the creation of the Latino Living Center, stronger support for the fledgling LSP and other changes.
“I remember spending many days at their home, discussing politics in Spanish and English, and listening to rancheras that reminded me of the music played in my own Mexican-American home in upstate New York,” said Esquivel, president of the Cornell Latino Alumni Association. “She advocated for our Latino community, for the students and for the Latino Studies Program and she did this tirelessly for over three decades.”
Castillo is survived by her children, Carlos and Melissa; as well as her mother, Eunice; and her five siblings, Mary, Karen, Lori, Jim and Dave.
The full version of this obituary can be viewed here.
Kathy Hovis is a writer for the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University.