Dr. Laura Cohen, Executive Director of the Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center, moderates a discussion between documentarian filmmaker Richard Shpuntoff and playwright C. Julian Jiménez about the power of the arts as vital cultural repositories of memory. The conversation centers upon the significance of the LGBTQ Collection in the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College as a source of inspiration for Jiménez’s play, "Julio Ain’t Going Down Like That." The play explores the community’s response to the brutal murder of Julio Rivera, a gay Puerto Rican man in Jackson Heights, Queens whose murder became the first gay hate crime tried in New York State during the 1990s.

This event is part of a special collaboration between the Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC) and the QCC-CUNY LGBTQIA+ Consortium in a semester-long project entitled “Performance as Prevention.”Performances are presented by the Queensborough Performing Arts Center (QPAC) through the generous support of The Richmond County Bank Foundation New Initiatives Grant in partnership with Radio Drama Network & INTAR Theatre.Programming of the QCC Chapter of the CUNY LGBTQIA+ Consortium is made possible due to generous funding from the New York City Council Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual Caucus and the Office of the Mayor; and supported by the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives. QCC promotional partners for this programming include: the Ally LGBTQIA+ Club; the LGBTQIA+ Faculty and Staff Association; and the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL).