Dr. Anahi Viladrich is a Sociologist, Medical Anthropologist, and Author of More Than Two to Tango from Argentina. She is also an amazing professor in the Department of Sociology at City University of New York Queens College. In addition to that, being an affiliate with the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, the M. A. in Migration Studies and the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center. She obtained a Bachelors and Masters (with honors) Degree in Sociology from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina and went along in getting her PhD in Sociomedical Sciences (awarded with Distinction and the Marisa de Castro Benton Prize) in Columbia University.
She was born in Argentina, but had families around the world, during the time where Argentina was politically corrupt with all the military dictatorships. She lived in many places around Latin America with her father, since he worked for the United Nations which is related to all this corruption. Some of these places were Venezuela, Chile, Uruguay, and Guatemala during. Both her parents were immigrants from Europe and it was something she did not know of until she started seeing how much her family fought for their identities and to be recognized for it. After going through all these traumatic events growing up, she says that experiencing all this made her the following:
“I was a global migrant at a very early age, I realized I didn’t just belong to just one place that actually my identity was somehow shaped by the little identities that I had developed in the different places I grew up in” (My Interview)
Along with all of these things going on in her life growing up, she was in school and focusing strongly on her education. She went to school in Argentina, which is where she obtained her Sociology degree and migrated to the United States where she realized a big life changing shift that made her come to find out about the different dynamics in her education in two different cities. She decided to write down all her thoughts on everything she went through on paper and wrote an amazing book called More Than Two to Tango (can be found at https://muse.jhu.edu/book/25203), specifically about Argentine culture and Argentine immigrants in the United States.
“As a typical immigrant when I came to the United States, I needed an identity right and I didn’t even know I was a Latina and I have a chapter written about the day I discovered, I am a Latina” (My Interview)
When she first arrived in the United States, she looked for people that she was familiar with, especially being new in a city where she does not know anybody and have opposite backgrounds to them. She later on found her Argentine network and learned about their lives in a new city. For the most part, Tango was an art form and means of survival in Argentina. It was a type of music/dance that was popular and most known especially since it became an “Argentine label” (My Interview) until it then disappeared and came back as a stereotype in recognizing who are Argentinians. It was an identity marker for Argentina to regain its status in a developed country that was way different to their own. Therefore, she wanted change to happen and for Argentineans to be recognized for who they really are instead of being seen as “Tango” which is what mainly inspired her to write a book on. She wanted their lives to be valuable and wanted them to obtain much more opportunities by working hard for it.
After seeing everything going on with Argentine immigrants, Dr. Viladrich decided to advocate more on immigrants in general no matter where they came from around the world. She wanted change to happen to them and wanted to make sure they were provided with a better lifestyle. She used her own experience as somebody who has migrated before that helped her understand what it was like for everybody else in the same position as her.
“It took me a while to understand who I was within these social representations of race and ethnicity. And then I also understood that many of the struggles that all the people of color had were also my struggles, I have to embrace that this is called the politics of representation, you are in denial or you’re ignorant or both” (My Interview)
She noticed a big change in terms of education and how she was discriminated against for not being the same type of writer another student was. She had to fight to be better. To learn to be like the others and write like the others. There were times where she felt that she could have earned a higher grade in a paper but didn’t because it did not succeed the teacher’s expectations and assumed that English was her second language because of it. This is why she wanted to take an extra step and get her PhD to show that she could do it just like any other would no matter her background, race, or ethnicity. Being a woman also had an impact on her work. She had a strong belief for gender harassment where people believed men were the only ones able to do more than women. She experienced this growing up and was another reason added to the list of why she wanted to work so hard to be such an extraordinary and successful woman.
Along with being an advocate for immigrants and their works, she is also an advocate for young scholars. She says that we are the future and the representation of what the world is going to be like. Dr.Viladrich is currently a professor at Queens College where she teaches Sociology. She says that she loves what she does. She loves working with young teenagers my age who are eager to see who they would become and loves learning their mindset. She says that it can sometimes be challenging knowing the fact that she is not only a professor but a mentor and somebody who she wants her students to look up too. Trying to do all of this during a pandemic makes it that much more difficult. As I asked for advice on my success and how to make it to where I want to be, she tells me this:
“So you need to be very grounded on the purpose of your work and then the grand narrative of your life so that you don’t get lost in the needy greed and the everyday mysteries that are going to be presented to you. I’m saying follow your passion, love that” (My Interview)
Coming to the United States was the number one thing that brought out her latina roots and made her realize what she is capable of. She is still currently working on so many other things such as writing more books about upcoming projects on botanicas, body image, nostalgic food, and immigration. She is proud to embrace her identity and does not fear showing the world who she really is. She wants to empower other women to do the same thing and for young students to take over the world and I absolutely loved this about her! Dr. Viladrich is the kind of woman who is unstoppable after she realizes she deserves better and does not stop until she gets what she wants. She is the true definition of a Latin woman.
Work cited:
Viladrich, Anahi, “Welcome to Prof. Viladrich’s Website!” https://www.anahi-viladrich.com/blog
Our interview, May 5, 2020 https://lehman-cuny-edu.zoom.us/
