Dr. Amy Bell, Associate Professor and Program Director of Spanish, and members of her SPN4302 Women Writers class, recently ambled on over to the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame to hear a panel discussion on the museum’s current exhibit, "Soldaderas to Amazonas: Escaramuzas Charras." The panel was moderated by Marcela Fuentes, PhD and former escaramuza. The panel members included the award-winning photographer Constance Jaeggi, whose series of portraits Escaramuza, The Poetics of Home are featured in the second gallery of the exhibit; 2023 Texas Poet Laureate Irene Lara Silva; and recognized educator, poet, and writing project fellow at UCLA, Angelina Sáenz. In the exhibit, stirring poems by Silva and Sáenz are interspersed with Jaeggi’s remarkable photographs to create an inspiring portrait of the escaramuza community in the United States. The sport consists of an eight-member team of equestrians executing intricate patterns at a gallop. The riders mount side saddle and don sombreros charro, rebozos, boots, and brightly colored, elaborate (and heavy!) dresses that harken back to those worn by the adelitas—female soldiers of the Mexican Revolution. The exhibit communicates the toughness, beauty, and dedication of the escaramuzas, for whom the sport is a way of life rather than a means to accrue large payouts or million-dollar sponsorships, as a rodeo cowboy might.

The panel discussion covered themes of identity, family, and gender within the escaramuza community—themes that Dr. Bell and her SPN4303 students are exploring in the female-authored works they are reading this semester. Firmly convinced of the value of experiential learning, Dr. Bell regularly organizes such excursions for her classes—over the years she and her students have ventured beyond the classroom to area galleries, museums, festivals, parades, theaters, operas, restaurants, and even to foreign countries. “In terms of field trips,” quipped Dr. Bell, “this isn’t our first rodeo.”