Earlham College | News from Public Affairs

Juan Navarrete is one of 50 Watson Fellowship winners this year. Fellows receive $25,000 to investigate areas of interest outside of the U.S.

RICHMOND, Ind. — Earlham College senior Juan Navarrete has received a prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to study political cartooning in Latin America.

For his project, "The Cartoonist's Pen is Mightier than the Sword: Exploring the Impact of Political Cartoons," Navarrete will use part of the $25,000 award money for travel to Argentina, Bolivia and Chile to research the influence of politically conscious cartoons on social transformation in Latin America.

Navarrete, an interdepartmental Peace and Global Studies (PAGS)/philosophy major and an art major, says he owes a great debt to comics. In fact, he claims Calvin of Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes was his first American friend. He also says that comics helped him to learn languages.

Having been brought up in the United States and Mexico, and later spending extensive time in Germany and Brazil, Navarrete says he also learned about each country's culture through comics.

"I think you haven't obtained fluency in a country's language until you have developed an understanding of its humor," he says.

Navarrete says he hopes to become a professional cartoonist creating new types of cartoons with new media as it is developed.

"I am never going to stop drawing, and I will never stop thinking about things politically," he says.

Concerns over pedestrian safety on busy National Road West in front of the Earlham College campus prompted Juan Navarrete to submit this cartoon to The Earlham Word, the College's student-run newspaper. (Reproduced by permission of Juan Navarrete.)

Some of his work that appeared in The Earlham Word incorporated photography, which was the focus of his art major. His senior art project "Fire," a series of digitally manipulated photographs, is currently on display in Lilly Library.

Navarrete says he will study politically conscious cartoons in Latin America to develop a greater understanding of Latin American identity as a whole.

"It is my dream to explore the struggles which have shaped Latin America by way of its cartoonists; to dig through newspaper records and examine a legacy of dissent," he says. "This type of cartoon is not frivolous. I want to study political cartoons, and implicit in this is where do we go from here and how do we effect those social movements."

Soon after Commencement in May, Navarrete plans to attend workshops and meet with important cartoonists in each of the countries he will visit.

"Hopefully, as a Watson Fellow, I can learn from the cartooning traditions and cartoonists I will be meeting," he says. "One goal is to find a common voice or common spirit among the cartoonists. I think there is something there; we like to laugh."

His education at Earlham prepared him well for the Watson Fellowship, which he says provides support for projects that align themselves with students' interests.

"PAGS has provided the political ammunition — the skills with rhetoric, the ability to think about issues on different levels — and art has provided a space for visual execution of those thoughts," he says. "The Watson is a product of both."

As a Bonner Scholar at Earlham, Navarrete volunteered at the Richmond Art Museum and as a soccer coach for youth boys. The Bonner Scholars Program is a four-year developmental leadership program that is rooted in community service.

The Thomas J. Watson Foundation awarded 50 fellowships to college seniors of unusual promise for a year of independent exploration and travel outside the United States. Nearly 1,000 students apply for these awards each year. This year, 175 finalists competed on the national level, after their institutions nominated them in the fall. Each Watson Fellow receives $25,000 for the year of travel and exploration.

Contact:
Mark Blackmon, director of media relations
765/983-1256 — E-Mail Mark