Screening: La Llorona

María Mercedes Coroy is a Guatemalan actor of Kaqchikel Maya descent. Born in Santa María De Jesús, Sacatepéquez, she starred in the breakout role of María in Ixcanul (2015) directed by Jayro Bustamante. The film was selected as Guatemala’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards. She is also known for her roles in Bel Canto (2018), Malinche (2018), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), where she played Namor's mother. Coroy graduated with a degree in acting from the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala and was awarded the prestigious Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France in 2021.

Alicia Ivonne Estrada is professor in the Chicana/o Studies Department at California State University at Northridge. At CSUN, she is the director of the Center for the Study of Peoples of the Americas (CESPA) and co-director of Civil Discourse & Social Change (CDSC). Estrada has published extensively on the Maya and Guatemalan diaspora in Los Angeles, as well as on contemporary Maya literature, art, film, and radio. She is co-editor of three anthologies: U.S. Central Americans: Reconstructing Memories, Struggles, and Communities of Resistance (University of Arizona Press, 2017), with Karina O. Alvarado and Ester E. Hernández; (De)construyendo latinidades y movidas de descolonización (Casa de las Américas, 2021), with Martha D. Escobar; and Aniversarios de Resistencia: Reflections from the CSUN Chicana/o Studies Department (Casa de las Américas, 2020), with Martha D. Escobar and Melisa Gálvan. Estrada’s work has been published in Romance Notes, Latino Studies, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana, and ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, among other journals and critical anthologies. Her current book project focuses on the Maya diaspora in Los Angeles. Since 2006, she has been an active collaborator with the Maya radio collective Contacto Ancestral, which has been broadcasting on the community radio station KPFK for over two decades.