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Fall 2025 Seminar Members:
Jeehyun Choi (English–NB); Laura De Moya-Guerra (History–NB); Keish Kim (English–Newark); Yeon-Soo Kim (Spanish & Portuguese–NB); Jesse Rodenbiker (Geography–NB)
Convener: Allan Punzalan Isaac (American Studies; English–NB)
Laura De Moya-Guerra is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Rutgers University, specializing in Latin American and global comparative history. Her dissertation, The Chinese in Colombia: Immigration and Nation-Building in the 20th Century, explores the Chinese immigrant experience and questions of cultural identity in Colombia from 1903 to 1980. Her work has been recognized with awards including the Open Educational Resources in Caribbean Studies, the Joe Arbena Latin American Sport History Grant, the Gould-Saunders Memorial Travel Award, the John Whiteclay Chambers II Oral History Fellowship, the Rutgers Digital Humanities Seed Grant, the Rutgers Center for Latin America Small Award and the Rutgers Center for Middle Eastern Studies Small Grant. Laura holds a M.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science from Universidad del Norte.
Playing for Recognition: Taiwan and China Sports Diplomacy in Cold War Colombia, 1970–1980
During the 1970s, Colombia became a stage for Cold War diplomatic rivalry between Taiwan and China. This paper examines how both governments used sports, particularly table tennis, basketball, and golf, as tools of cultural diplomacy to influence Colombia’s political alignment and public opinion. Through an analysis of Colombian press coverage and archival material, the paper reconstructs how exhibition matches, athletic tours, and international tournaments transformed local sports arenas into sites of transnational negotiation. By foregrounding Colombia’s overlooked role in this diplomatic game, the paper highlights how global struggles for recognition were waged not only through embassies and summits, but also point by point, basket by basket, on the playing fields of Latin America.