Stone — Fosforo | Revista

From the Editor

Tribute to Cynthia Stone

⟩ En español

In 2025, the Spanish faculty bade farewell to Cynthia Stone, who retired after more than thirty years as a professor in the Department. A specialist in Colonial Latin American literature and culture, she built a career on attentive, nuanced readings and translations of Mesoamerican codices. Her book, In Place of Gods and Kings: Authorship and Identity in the Relación de Michoacán, pairs illuminating translations of textual sources with readings of the sixteenth-century manuscript’s illustrations, hand-painted by Indigenous artists, to question universal assumptions about the authorship as singular and the privilege of alphabetic text over oral and visual traditions. A poet in her own right, she has also written lyrically about life among family and other close-knit communities in Worcester, the Dominican Republic, and around the world. Through her expertise in Latin American film, she has helped unpack complex representations of Latin American identity, all while fiercely advocating for the Worcester Latinx community through education, cultural exchange, and mentorship.

In 2010, she led the organization of Se Puede: Working Towards Latino Student Success at Holy Cross, a conference that sparked critical conversations about Latino student achievement and elevated community voices among an audience of administrators, politicians, and scholars (President McFarland S.J.’s welcome remarks for the conference appear in fósforo 7). Her leadership on this initiative earned her an appointment to the City’s mayoral task force on bilingual education and led to her co-authorship of the Community Roadmap to Achieving Educational Excellence for Latino Students in Worcester. As an active member of the Latino History Project of Worcester, Cynthia collected many of the community testimonials showcased at the “Somos Worcester” exhibit at the Worcester Historical Museum in 2024, a shining example of how she weaves student and faculty contributions into the continued growth of a vital local project. (Unfortunately, technical issues in 2024 prevented fósforo from featuring a planned retrospective of these works.) Cynthia’s path from the classroom to the community to City Hall highlights how intimately her scholarship and creativity nourish, and are nourished by, her civic engagement.

Cynthia was a leader at the College, as well, taking on roles as Spanish coordinator, Spanish chair, and director of the Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean Studies (LALC) program, all with a personal commitment and strategic vision to foster departmental unity and program growth. Cynthia’s foresight in experiential education led to her groundbreaking efforts in Community-Based Learning, even before the office, first led by Dr. William Meinhofer, received formal recognition at the College through the Donelan Office. Her enduring advocacy for Latinx students and her long-standing role in the LALC program are the natural extension of her dedication to inclusive excellence in all aspects of her life and work. Her scholarly contributions have led to leadership roles in several professional societies, as well, including the New England Council on Latin American Studies, the Latin American Studies Association, and the Modern Language Association. Closer to home, Cynthia’s classes on Latin America in film have been central to both the Holy Cross Spanish curriculum and the Montserrat program, whose Global Society Cluster she directed.

Cynthia’s lyrical critical translations of pre-Colombian Purépecha texts highlight her scholarly depth and poetic sensibility, the latter of which has had a particularly strong influence on fósforo. She has published her own poetry, photography, essay, and memoir in these pages (2008, 2011, 2013, 2014), invited the early collaboration of her husband, the fiction writer Don Unger (2004, 2019), and curated the artistic contributions of Cuban visual artist Ana Flores (2019). In 2019, she co-edited Volume 16 of fósforo, with Prof. Estrella Cibreiro, and perhaps most enduringly, she has for over twenty years encouraged students to contribute their work, including a number of short stories in this edition. Through conscientious leadership, committed scholarship, and keen artistic sensibility, Cynthia has forged lasting ties between Holy Cross and in the local Latinx community, ensuring the vitality of college-wide and community-based programs during even the most challenging times.

Fósforo joins colleagues in Spanish and around the College in wishing Professor Cynthia Stone a fruitful and joyful retirement. We are grateful for the legacy she leaves, so deeply rooted in educational innovation, cultural advocacy, literary finesse, and unwavering support for our Latinx students and communities.

Número 21 — 2026

Tribute to Cynthia Stone

︎︎︎ Contents | Índice

︎︎︎ Contents | Índice