Emcee: Zydalis Bauer

Zydalis Bauer is the Digital Multimedia Producer & Editor for the New England News Collaborative. She has been in the media field for over a decade, previously working as a host and producer for New England Public Media’s award winning television series, Connecting Point and Presencia. She is a graduate from Westfield State University and is an alumni of WGBY’s Latino Youth Media Institute. In 2022, Zydalis was named as one of Business West’s 40 Under 40. She is a life-long resident of Holyoke and enjoys being involved in her community sharing their stories and being active on the board for Girls Inc.

Featured Poet: Martin Espada

Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator. His latest book of poems is called Floaters, winner of the 2021 National Book Award and a Massachusetts Book Award, and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Other books of poems include Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016), The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006), Alabanza (2003) and Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996). He is the editor of What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump (2019). He has received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Creeley Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the PEN/Revson Fellowship, a Letras Boricuas Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. The Republic of Poetry was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The title poem of his collection Alabanza, about 9/11, has been widely anthologized and performed. His book of essays and poems, Zapata’s Disciple (1998), was banned in Tucson as part of the Mexican-American Studies Program outlawed by the state of Arizona. A former tenant lawyer in Greater Boston, Espada is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Jean Haggerty Awardees: Vladimir Morales & Victoria Silva

My parents met at a board of elections- for -some -educational -campaign in NYC sometime in the early 1970’s.  I think that is about the most accurate statement on the survey of the rest of their lives.  My dad was an import to the island of Manhattan when he was a youth- he was sent to live with his grandmother, Lucia Pascual in order to get off the island coastal town of Dorado, Puerto Rico and make a change for himself.  My mother, having been born in the Bronx, in the year 1950, was clearly making changes for herself too, being a teen mother to my older brother Michael DeJesus, who we lost in 2016, and working various jobs-somehow all related to social service, translation services, financial services, transportation services and ultimately educational services- while taking care of her parents who emigrated in the 1940’s during Operation Bootstrap to NYC-the streets were paved with GOLD. They were told.

Dad and mom flourished in the city, helping lots of people along the way.  My father and his elder brother started a community service organization called Lifestyles Inc, which helped troubled youth off of the streets of the bronx into work ready situations.  Lots of Basketball was played, and my father could have been a professional player- until he took his back out one play - that affected his body for the rest of his life.

Mom finished her bachelors degree in Political Science with a concentration in Puerto Rican studies at Lehman College- I would attend French class with her- something that helped me later on in life.

Because of my fathers work- he somehow got recruited to Amherst and the University of Massachusetts. He had a free scholarship and we packed up our belongings and moved to Massachusetts.  Mom signed up for her masters in Education and I enrolled in Wildwood Elementary -coming from the private school sector in NYC.

Alicia Lopez

Alicia Lopez is assistant principal at Crocker Farm Elementary. She was a teacher for 28 years of Spanish, French and most recently English Language Learners at Amherst Regional Middle School.  She is a doctoral student in the College of Education at UMass and a lecturer in the ESL Licensure program in the Professional and Graduate Education program at Mount Holyoke College. Alicia is the co-author of 2 books with Sonia Nieto - Teaching: A Life’s Work, a mother-daughter dialogue (Teachers College Press) and Teachers Speak Up! Voices of Courage, Resilience, and Hope in Difficult Times (forthcoming, January 2024, Teachers College Press).

She has been reflecting on her teaching through her blog, Maestra Teacher (http://www.maestrateacher.com/ ) since 2014.

Alicia has been married to her husband Celso for almost 25 years, and they have 3 children, ages 22, 20 and 19.

Gilberto Amador

Gilberto Amador President/CEO of Mass2Miami Consultant Group LLC. Amador is a 30-year business veteran who has served in executive and supervisory positions in the public and private sector. Gilberto lived his beginning years here in Amherst where he went through elementary and middle school before moving to Springfield, Mass. Amador continued his education graduating from Classical High in Springfield and finished with his Education Specialist Degree from Nova Southeastern, Fort Lauderdale, FL. Amador is also the proud and successful founder of Amador Foundation, Inc and Mass2Miami Consultant Group LLC. Both organizations provide training in educational leadership, entrepreneurship, economic education, cultural responsiveness, and youth development. Trainings are tailored specifically to meet the unique needs of diverse businesses, youth, and individuals at different levels. Mass2Miami is culturally sensitive and socially responsible as it strives to assist motivated community businesses.

Dr. Demetria Defaye Rougeaux Shabazz

(October 26, 1966-September 11, 2023)

Demetria Defaye Rougeaux Shabazz earned a Ph.D. in Mass Communication at the University of Alabama with an emphasis on race and gender in the media. She was an educator, activist, and entrepreneur, owner of Seven Generations Movement Collective, a DEI consulting company and the co-chair of the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee. Shabazz traveled the world visiting places where her knowledge is deepened by locally embedded community struggles to make mass media serve the needs of people, especially historically oppressed folks at the margins of society. Shabazz has served as a member of the Board of Directors at Amherst Media, since 2016 and most recently, Shabazz was awarded a grant to document stories of African American elders living in Western Massachusetts. She co-cohosted Difficult Dialogues with her husband, Dr. Amilcar Shabazz, on Amherst Media and was a member of the National Council for Black Studies, Massachusetts Women of Color Coalition, and a lifetime member of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.

Message from Paul Bockelman

For nearly five decades, Amherst Media has served the Town of Amherst.

With leaders like Dr. Demetria Shabazz, Amherst Media has given voice to the concerns of many in the community who might otherwise not have been heard. Dr. Shabazz will be missed.

On this special night of the Annual Gala, I add my congratulations and recognition to the awardees - Vladimir Morales and Victoria Silva - for their years of service to the community.

Thank you, Amherst Media, for your contributions to the Town of Amherst.

Paul Bockelman

Town Manager

Acknowledgements

Thank you Margaret Sawyer for volunteering many hours, mornings, days, evenings  and weekends to launch our first gala!

Margaret Sawyer lives in Amherst with her husband and two kids. She has a background in nonprofit management, primarily working on immigrant and worker rights, and she is also an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. In her previous work as an organizer with the Pioneer Valley Workers Center, Margaret co-created the Sanctuary in the Streets Interfaith Network, a coalition of churches, synagogues and mosques formed to protect immigrants facing deportation or other threatening actions from the government. Before moving to Massachusetts, Margaret lived in California and served as co-director of the Mixteco/Indigena Community Organizing Project, where she helped to launch Radio Indigena, a farmworker-led multilingual radio station.  Margaret is currently pivoting to be a teacher in the public schools and works in the Holyoke school district.  She is thrilled to be part of Amherst Media. 

Thank you Amherst Media Saff: Jim Lescault, Alexis Reed and Yanna Ok for adding this on to your overflowing plate!