Faces of Geneseo Fall
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Ben Ludlow ’23, at his family’s farm in Geneseo, Friday, September 23, 2022.
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Bruno Renero-Hannan, an assistant professor of anthropology here at Geneseo, in his words, comes from a family of border crossers. He was born and grew up in Mexico City, save for a couple years during first and second grade which he spent in Texas, before moving back to Mexico at the age of 8.
“So, you know, I sometimes joke that as someone from Mexico City, I'm a Chilango,” said Renero-Hannan. “That's kind of the slang term for someone from Mexico but I say that I'm a Tex-Mex Chilango. I'm not a Tex-Mex person, right? I didn't grow up Tex-Mex but I'm kind of a Tex-Mexisized Chilango. So I like to say that I'm in some ways kind of the inverse of a Mexican American. I'm in many ways, an American Mexican in that my mom's side of the family came from the US and settled in Mexico.”
In his youth, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation was a large influence for Renero-Hannan and helped lay the foundation for his work conducting extensive, years-long ethnographic research of political movements in Oaxaca, Mexico, and creating oral histories of political prisoners.
Now at Geneseo, Renero-Hannan is committed to contributing to the unique learning environment students have available to them, that, at the large state schools he spent time at in Texas and Michigan, would be a privilege enjoyed exclusively by graduate students.
“I think what Geneseo students get that I can offer and that many of my colleagues can offer here, is, because it's a small institution and that it's an undergraduate institution, is that here, as an undergraduate, you get a lot of the opportunities that elsewhere you only get as a graduate student,” said Renero-Hannan. “So there's tons of opportunities to do research. Everyone is getting to do undergraduate research. The experience of it, I think really, for me, was life-changing at their age when I was twenty years old and I don’t want to be immodest but I hope that it is impactful for them.”2022anthropologybruno renerohannanfaces of geneseofacultyfallmatt burkharttoctoberportraitsprofessor
