Summer Centered: Lía Hermosillo Rojas ’22 Ties the Past to the Present
The English major is curating a 1960s folk music exhibit at the Woody Guthrie Center this summer.
This year, Lía Hermosillo Rojas is returning for the second summer in a row as an intern at the Woody Guthrie Center. She is continuing her curating work on a digital exhibit about 1960s folk artists American Phil Ochs and Chilean Víctor Jara. The internship is jointly sponsored by the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship and the Hurford Center.
Last year, she continued the work of Cameron Albrecht ’20, the Haverford intern in 2019, gathering materials and brainstorming the exhibit’s goals. With the exhibit making consistent progress, her work this summer with intern Michael McCarthy ’24 involves research, discussions of relevant themes, and outreach to other institutions and scholars.
This internship has allowed her to explore working-class representations in U.S. media, Hermosillo Rojas’s academic focus, through ’60s folk music and to consider the role of transnational class solidarity.
“Though I knew that expression of working-class frustration could manifest in a variety of ways, it was powerful to see it through the medium of music,” said the Bryn Mawr English major. “Furthermore, I developed a deeper respect for the roles of archives in platforming, reviving, and showcasing influential past voices whose ideals can still be hauntingly relevant today.”
Hermosillo Rojas’ focus on working-class representation extends beyond coursework; she has also done a lot of work to support FGLI, or first-generation, low-income students, at Haverford. This has included helping in the creation of the Nest, a student-run food pantry on campus, founding the forthcoming FGLI lounge, and serving as a Customs co-head last year.
“Thus, to see the struggles of others to grapple with issues around class made my work with the exhibit’s contents personal and comforting sometimes,” she said. “I am also currently writing a fictional book with a program from Georgetown, and I've found it to be a rewarding experience to do the internship and book writing concurrently. I've found ways that my work with Phil Ochs and Victor Jara, both prominent working-class advocates, has influenced my approach to my writing and the ways in which my art can engage with wider social issues.”
“Summer Centered” is a series exploring our students’ campus-supported summer work.
