"The penetration of Hispanic American culture in the United States is beginning to go beyond eating the taco and the tortilla. You can perceive the specific weight it is gaining when a Mexican author, such as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, is on the cover of the Los Angeles Times cultural supplement." Sara Poot Herrera, professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, intervened in an international colloquium on Hispanic American literature organized by the department of Hispanic Literature of the University of Navarra. About twenty experts from Latin American, Italian and Spanish universities contributed their different points of view under the degree scroll "From Arcadia to Babel: nature and city in Spanish-American literature".

Sara Poot Herrera, a specialist in colonial and contemporary Mexican literature, noted that since she has worked in Santa Barbara, all the thesis she has directed have dealt with Mexican literature. "There is no denying the ambivalent love-hate relationship that exists between the United States and Mexico, with glass borders that produce scars. But if, for a few years, we were only seen in the worst events that occurred in California, which were always associated with a López or a Martínez, now we are present because a historical and literary interest has been awakened," said the professor.

During her discussion paper, the Mexican-born professor analyzed the weight of Mexico City in Mexican literature. "It is the center of culture, a city that preserves its mythology, its heroes and anti-heroes, that jealously guards its past". The expert focused on the novels 'Y retiemble en sus centros la tierra', by Gonzalo Celorio, and 'El sitio', by Ignacio Solares.

Experts from Italian, Spanish and Latin American academic centers such as Rosalba Campra, from La Sapienza University (Rome), Blas Matamoro (ICI, Madrid), María Rosa Lojo from CONICET (Buenos Aires) or Fernando Ainsa from the University of Zaragoza, among others, also took part in the colloquium .