Scholars of Color- Mateo Rodriguez-Hurtado
What is Scholars of Color?
It is a platform in which scholars of color are purposefully celebrated. It’s a space where scholars of color are showcased front and center. It is a digital space where we feel empowered and resilient. Let us get to know each other. Let us cheer each other on AND show the world what we have to offer.
Let us now welcome Mateo Rodriguez-Hurtado to the Scholars of Color space!
Name: Mateo Rodriguez-Hurtado
Location: New York City
Gender Pronouns: they/elle
What's your current occupation? (i.e. Student, Scientist, Coach, In transition, etc.): Freelance arts administrator, comedian
Without positions or titles, how would you describe yourself?: Sonorous, imaginative, exacting, eccentric. A/the life of the party that diligently hosts said party.
What are you passionate about?: Despite my own understanding of my own passions of study toggling constantly, I follow my subconscious and conscious para-psychic teachings from my predecessors via Guayanilla and Durango to lead with ridiculousness. This candor that I carry to insist that comedy is paradoxically the path and the glitch, the sense within nonsense, grounds me or moves me to write, produce, imagine tales of epic to mundane proportions. Whether it be with thorny word play or doing away with language altogether channeling physical humor, I attempt to occupy hallways of yet to be created spaces where the stripes we wear surpass metrics of commodity.
What does the representation of Scholars of Color mean to you?: I think the hoopla and saturation of representation does little to no good in a material context. If representation does not lead to access to resources, the end of this pressure of being “la unica” in history, then this word or ruffle in our (eco)system only leads to failure, misinformation, erasure, death of Black, Brown, queer gente across society. Instead I welcome the moments of reading together, thinking together, organizing in all capacities with any space as a stage to speak one’s truth as social/justice consciousness. Thinking with a past memory from grad school invoking and evoking words uttered from peer troizel carr, they professed that visibility without protection is a trap. It is my view that scholars can be located beyond the classroom and this community guided by Michael breathes with a generous spirit.
If people are interested in getting connected to you, how can they?: Twitter and insta: @_laserpipe
Anything else you would like us to know?: I host a recurring virtual variety show called MONTH and info on that typically lives in the linktree in my bio!
Thank you Mateo for sharing space with us!
Stay tuned everyone for more Scholars of Color profiles. Interested in being showcased yourself? Please email the Scholars of Color team at scholarsofcolor@reclaimingyourhappiness.com and we will get back to you shortly.
