Nuestra Amiga Mia: Professor Jane Larson

With a heavy heart and much sadness I report the passing of my querida amiga Jane “Juanita” Larson on December 24, 2011.  Jane was a widely recognized and much respected feminist scholar but she was also active in a number of Latina/o activities and projects.  She was a generous scholar and was extremely supportive of so many trying to enter as well as stay in the academy.  Jane for example enabled my entry into the teaching profession.

My fond memories of Jane are numerous because we shared a number of adventures.  Many ranged from attending LatCrit conferences or conferences that she hosted at the University of Wisconsin such as the New Legal Realism and others.  She gave so generously and which often added beyond compare to my research, teaching and scholarship.  We also engaged in field research during our early teaching careers.

One example I will always hold dear to my heart includes the 1990s field research we chased in the colonias of El Paso, Texas.  We were seeking answers and accountability as to how law could marginalize private landownership where health, welfare and other sanitation standards lacked application.  With temperatures soaring in the high 90s if not 100 degrees, our trip to the colonias provided us with a number of challenges.  Yet the impoverished communities lacking water or other utilities also reminded us how law privileges some communities yet excludes others.  It was mind numbing.

Nor did Jane’s interest in the colonias cease.  Soon I was hearing about Jane enabling a group of law students to travel to the state and work on several of the legal issues related to the deficiencies plaguing the colonia homeowners.  Years later she kept on doing what she could to draw attention to the impoverished conditions that exist for so many in the region and their attempts at garnering structural changes and improvement.  Just recently Jane had contributed to yet another article on the Texas colonias.  In sum, showing she rejected false norms and linked the theoretical with practice.

At times Jane’s thoughtful nature produced great costs.  Her contributions nonetheless were diverse, broad and vast.  From the students she taught to the communities and others that benefited from her kind nature and much admired intellectual astuteness our loss remains stark.

Other memories remain strong but the fundamental core is that sometimes some of us are fortunate enough to encounter a shining star–like Jane–that dare to challenge the status quo.  Even  more thrilling Jane’s attitude of “doing justice” was fearless in chasing equal treatment for the marginalized.  Honest its’ breathless what Jane accomplished and what she brought to the profession in such a short amount of time.

Mil gracias hermanita. Decanse in paz.