CSRC Newsletter - April 2005

CSRC Newsletter Volume 3, Number 7

Director's Message

They say it never rains in Southern California . . . Indeed, in Los Angeles we like to brag about all the things that never happen here: bad weather, bad acting, and aging, to name a few. And when these things do happen – as they must – we throw up our hands and reassure anyone who will listen, "But this never happens here!" The exceptions accumulate, making us even more insistent, because this never happens here . . . We protect this idea about what does and does not happen here. It becomes the bedrock for our beliefs and actions. Thus, anything that contradicts this idea becomes an exception and not evidence that things might be more complicated in Los Angeles.
 
I was driving to UCLA one day after a heavy rain and a portion of the road was blocked. The nearby hill had collapsed, sending dirt and rocks into the right lane. Our progress was slowed down, in fact, almost brought to a stand still. "But this never happens here," I thought, bemoaning my singular, exceptional fate. I had to laugh at myself. Indeed, this happens all the time. In fact, there are thousands who set out from the eastside, but never make it to UCLA.
 
Chon A. Noriega, Professor and Director
 

CSRC News

Latino Arts Initiative at LACMA
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosted workshops for twelve museum directors from major institutions in Mexico City, including sessions with Southern California museum directors, and a reception with Latino arts organizations on March 2-3. The event -- which will be repeated next year -- was designed to create more opportunities for exhibition exchanges and collaborations between southern Californian and Mexican cultural institutions. (For more on one of our community partners involved in this event, the Mexican Cultural Institute, see the CSRC Library section below.)
 
Senior Fellow Policy Briefing
The UCLA School of Public Affairs held a Senior Fellow Policy Briefing by Vilma S. Martinez on March 3. Martinez, partner in the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, discussed her work with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and her role as chair of the UC Board of Regents. CSRC Director Chon A. Noriega also took part in a private luncheon before the briefing.
 

CSRC Events This Month

Talk on Civil Rights in a Changing California
The CSRC is cosponsoring a talk by John Trasviña, Western States Regional Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on Thursday, April 7. He will discuss the state of civil rights and present some of the major evaluations and research projects to be undertaken over the next few years in his nine-state region, which includes most of the western United States and Hawaii. The talk will be held at 12:30 p.m. in Room 2343, UCLA Public Policy Building. Light refreshments will be served. Seating is limited. For further information and to RSVP, please e-mail the Lewis Center.
 
ZOCALO at Central Library
The Library Foundation of Los Angeles will present “Hollywood, Mexicans, and the History of LA” on Tuesday, April 12 at 7:00 p.m. at the downtown Central Library. This panel is about the role early movies – both silent and sound – played in creating the myth of LA's past. Chon A. Noriega will moderate the panel discussion, which will include theater director Theresa Chavez, Latin music producer Betto Arcos, and LA historian Bill Deverell. The discussion will be accompanied by spoken and musical excerpts from They Shoot Mexicans, Don't They?, an original theater work directed by Chavez, premiering at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at California State University, Los Angeles on April 9. For more information, click here . see For panel reservations, visit here or call (213)403-0416.
 
Chicano Manual of Style Symposium
The CSRC will host a symposium on Chicana and Chicano "styles" – the distinctive features of Chicana/o cultural expression, execution, and performance on Wednesday, April 13 from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. in CSRC Library (144 Haines Hall). The symposium is part of the planning stages for a new anthology to be published by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press. Participants include Max Benavidez, Karen Mary Davalos, Deena Gonzalez, Ellie Hernandez, Marie Herrera-Sobek, Curtis Marez, Rafael Perez-Torres, Richard T. Rodriguez, David Roman, and Deborah Vargas. A reception follows the symposium. For more information and to RSVP, please contact the front office.
 
Desert Blood Book Signing
The CSRC is co-sponsoring a reading, book signing, and lunch celebrating the release of Alicia Gaspar de Alba's new novel, Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders, on Thursday, April 21, in 1648 Hershey Hall at noon. Desert Blood, a mystery novel about the ten-year crime-wave of murdered and mutilated poor brown women in Ciudad Juárez, sheds light on the murders and the effects of patriarchy, gender identity, border culture, transnationalism, and globalization on an international crisis. In Fall 2003, Gaspar de Alba, then CSRC Associate Director, organized an international conference on the issue at UCLA. For more information and to RSVP for lunch, please email the Center for the Study of Women
 
Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
The CSRC Press is at the festival again this year so come down to see us and buy some of our discounted books, DVDs, and t-shirts! This is one of the largest book festivals in the world, held on the UCLA campus the weekend of April 23 and 24. Our booth is number 182, near the bottom of Janss steps. Any Chicano studies authors interested in having us sell their books may contact us, but we will only host those authors willing to come down and sign books for a couple of hours. Contact the press if you are interested.
 
Performance Art at LACMA
Performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña will stage an interactive performance/installation titled "Panetnica: a Pavilion of X-treme Identities" at LACMA's Anderson Building from 6:00 to 10:00 PM on Friday, April 29. Gómez-Peña, a regular contributor to Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, will team up with Violeta Luna and Michelle Ceballos to create a series of "living dioramas" depicting California's current obsessions about race. The performance artists will occupy a gallery space throughout the piece, interacting with audience members. Admission is free for museum members and included in the general admission for non-members. No reservations required.
 

CSRC Library

New Acquisition of Chicano Film
The CSRC Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of a 35 mm print of Jesús Salvador Treviño's film Raices de Sangre due to the generosity of the Mexican Cultural Institute in Los Angeles , an important partner in CSRC arts and culture initiatives. In 1976, Chicano filmmaker Treviño wrote and directed this Mexican-produced feature film, which chronicles the creation of an international union of garment workers in a Texas border town. It was the first co-production involving Mexican and Chicano actors from both sides of the border. The CSRC is planning a public screening at UCLA that will recognize Treviño, the Mexican Consulate (Los Angeles), and the Mexican Cultural Institute.
 
Searchable Chicano Archives
The CSRC Archives are currently in the process of being catalogued into UCLA's main library database. This means that our processed collections of archived manuscripts, objects, and ephemera will be globally searchable in the UCLA catalogue also known as OPAC. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the hard work and diligence of Young Research Library's cataloger Jain Fletcher for her wonderful efforts on this important job.
 
Finding aids for CSRC collections can be found on the CSRC Library website and the Online Archive of California website.
 

CSRC Press

New Issue of Aztlán
The thirty-fifth anniversary issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies should be in your mailboxes sometime in the next two weeks. If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now so that you can read about the lives of three nineteenth-century women living in Alta California prior to the U.S. invasion; Dolores Del Rio's Hollywood career during the transition from silent to sound film; Americo Paredes's semi-autobiographical persona, the Pocho; and the political and cultural notion of landscape in relation to the Mexican American experience. The dossier section includes an autobiography of an undergraduate at UCLA from 1944 to 1948 and considerations of the issue of “Latino” representation within American social and cultural institutions. Also in this issue are special thanks to all our supporters and lists of those who have participated over the years. If you don't subscribe, how will you find if you have been left out! Just email the press with your postal address and we will send you a subscription package.
 
Documenting Latino Visual Arts
Following up on a 2003 policy brief on preserving the Latino cultural legacy, a new report from the CSRC will come out in April on two recommendations made in that brief -- that a nationwide survey of initiatives be conducted and that a national level of coordination be established. This report will be available upon release at the CSRC Research Report website.
 
Press Information
If you are interested in buying our books, click here .
If you are interested in buying our DVDs, click here .
If you are interested in subscribing to our journal, email your postal address to press@chicano.ucla.edu.
Information about all our publications is available at the CSRC Press website.
 

Funding Opportunities

IAC Research Grant Program in Chicano Studies
The IAC and the CSRC announce the availability of small grants for support of research on Chicana/os. UCLA faculty, staff, graduate students, and IAC postdoctoral fellows/visiting scholars are eligible. The IAC particularly encourages proposals that will make a contribution to the CSRC. It also invites proposals on interethnic relations that will increase collaboration between the UCLA ethnic studies centers and/or between the centers and other campus units. All applicants are encouraged to discuss their proposal before submission with Carlos M. Haro. Applications are due by April 29.
 
CSRC Latino Research Program Grants
UCLA faculty members are invited to apply for research grants from the CSRC Latino Research Program (LRP). The program places an emphasis on applied and policy-oriented research and receives support through the University of California Committee on Latino Research. To apply, just check the "Latino Policy Studies" box on the IAC form. To be considered for both IAC and LRP funding, check both boxes. Applications are due by April 29.
 
Vulnerable Populations Research Funding Opportunity
UCLA School of Nursing Center for Vulnerable Populations Research offers funding opportunities for pilot/feasibility studies related to research that addresses the health-related problems of vulnerable populations and that will lead to larger investigations on health promotion and the elimination of health disparities. The $10,000 grants are available to tenure track faculty or research scientists at UCLA and representatives of community-based organizations partnered with a UCLA investigator. Applications are due April 30. For questions and more information on how to apply please contact Deborah Koniak-Griffin , CVPR Director, or Ady Nyamathi , CVPR Associate Director.
 

Student Opportunities

Student Writing Contest
The CSRC is sponsoring an undergraduate student writing award for the best essay that uses the Frontera Collection of digital music. Funded by the Los Tigres del Norte Fund, the $250 award can only go to an undergraduate enrolled at UCLA, for a paper about one or more recordings on the Frontera Collection site, and that was completed as part of an assignment for a class taken during the academic year 2004-05. All submissions must be nominated by a faculty member. To nominate suitable students/papers, send the name and e-mail address of the student, the paper topic or title, and information on the course (title, number, quarter offered). A formal submission from the student will be solicited by the CSRC. There is no limit to the number of nominations from a faculty member, provided the students meet the above eligibility requirements. Nominations should be sent to Assistant Director Carlos Haro by Friday, May 20, 2005. Submissions will be reviewed by a faculty selection committee and announced before the end of the school year. If possible, the CSRC will also arrange for the student to meet with Los Tigres del Norte.
 
Graduate Student Website
The CSRC website publishes a list of UCLA graduate students currently doing Chicana/o-related research. To be added to the CSRC Affiliated Students list, email the press with your information.
 
Interns
The CSRC welcomes undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in Chicano Studies to work as interns and volunteers in various areas of the Center. If interested, send an inquiry to Carlos M. Haro.
 

Contacts

To learn more about us, visit our website or email us . To subscribe to this newsletter, e-mail CSRC Newsletter and include in the body of your message the line (and nothing but the line) SUBSCRIBE CHICANO [first name, last name] (don't enter the brackets, just your name). This automatically subscribes you to the electronic versions of the Latino Policy & Issues Brief and the CSRC Research Report.
 

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