Obed Arango, MSSP, MA Anthropology

Obed Arango Hisijara is a Mexican/Latinamerican photographer, social anthropologist, author, social leader, and university professor. In addition, he is the founder and executive director of the Centro de Cultura, Arte, Trabajo y Educación (CCATE), a Latinx non-profit organization that was founded in 2012, and which is located in Norristown in the metropolitan area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and whose mission is: “to promote change and social transformation from the talents of the Latino community, at the intersection with education, art, culture, technology, health and environmental sciences.”

As an academic, Obed was a mass media communication, journalism and media production professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) between 1991-2003 and in which he continues to teach courses by invitation in the postgraduate unit and is currently a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States where he teaches the subjects of Social Policy and the Latinx Community, and Qualitative Research (Participatory Action Research) in partnership with Dr. Holly Link. In his thirty years as an academic, Obed has presented in numerous national and international forums and conferences related to immigration, anthropology, education, and human rights, he has also published in books and academic journals in the United States, Latin America and the United Kingdom, on issues related to immigration, education, human development and ethnography of public space. His participation in local, national, academic and international politics stands out: From 2019 to present, he is a member of the advisory council on race, ethnicity and equality of the United States Congresswoman from Pennsylvania Madeleine Dean, based in Washington D.C. From 2019 to present, he is a voting member of the Montgomery County Planning Commission (MCCP). From 2019 to 2022, he was a member of the Advisory Committee on Race and Social Justice of the School of Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. From 2021 to present, he is a voting member of the Children’s Hospital Cares Community Advisory Board. From 2014 to 2022, he was a voting member of the board of IMEBECAS, Consulate of Mexico in Philadelphia and of Foreign Affairs of Mexico. Publications Arango, O. (2022). Translenguaje en la villa inmigrante: Creating our path to existence.

Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 42, 11–17, UK Cambridge University Press https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190521000180 Link, H., Arango, O. (2019). La vida tiene muchas curvas [Life has many curves]: Contemplating a translanguaging praxis in Tian, Z. and Link, H. (Ed) Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Context (pp. 29-48) Amsterdam/Philadelphia John Benjamins Publishing Company. Vol 5, Number 1. Obed Arango, Sofia Flores, Sarah Gallo, María Lara, Holly Link, Diana Arreguín & Itzel Peregrina (2016). Un trago dulce pero adentro con sabor amargo (A Bittersweet Swallow):Constructing Counterspaces to Explore Undocumented Status Across Academic, Family, and Community Spaces,Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 10:4, 228 241, DOI: 10.1080/15595692.2016.1198315 Arango, O. (2002). El zócalo como texto cultural in Haidar, J. CUICUILCO. Análisis del discurso y semiótica de la cultura: perspectivas analíticas para el tercer milenio, Tomo II. (pp. 125-153), México D.F., INAH / ENAH. Arango. O. (1995). Los usos del zócalo en Odile, M. Antropología símbólica (Comp.) (pp. 60-75), Mexico D.F., INAH-CONACYT. Ortega-Hernández, M.L. & Arango, O. (2012) Luz, palabra y vida, Art Catalogue, NALAC – Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.