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CSRC Newsletter - December 2013

Volume 12, Number 4

Director’s Message

As we near the end of 2013, I would like to thank the many people who have contributed to the CSRC: our staff, students and faculty, and our many individual supporters and community partners. Your commitment makes our mission and achievements possible. In the new year we will celebrate our forty-fifty anniversary by advancing our mission through wide-ranging research projects, archival preservation, and public programs. In 2014 CSRC will mark several milestones: the publication of the tenth book in our award-winning book series, A Ver: Revisioning Art History; the release of the tenth volume in our DVD series, Chicano Cinema and Media Art; and the start of our fifth grant for Latinos and Economic Security, an ongoing collaboration with the UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging and the USC Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center. We're also starting new off-campus public programs in the Los Angeles area as part of our effort to reach a broader community. We look forward to seeing you at one of our events in 2014!
 
Best wishes for the holidays and new year.
 
Chon A. Noriega
Director and Professor
 

News

Spotlight: Artist’s communiqué with Ramon Ramirez
Visit the CSRC website to preview an interview with Los Angeles-based artist Ramon Ramirez, who provided the cover art for the Fall 2013 issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies. The interview, conducted for Aztlán by José L. S. Gámez, associate professor of architecture and urban design at University of North Carolina, Charlotte, explores the artist’s views on the meaning of his work, its inspirations, and the role of the urban landscape in cultural production.
 
CSRC annual holiday sale
Do your holiday shopping at the CSRC! Now through December 19, all CSRC books and DVDs are 40 percent off when purchased directly from the CSRC. This includes newly released A Ver titles Ricardo Valverde and Pepón Osorio; the two-disc DVD collection Video Art by Willie Varela; VIVA Records, the latest volume in the Chicano Archives series; and the award-winning books The Arhoolie Foundation’s Strachwitz Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican American Recordings and L.A. Xicano. To order, contact Darling Sianez, press support, at (310) 825-3428 (Links)
 
Noriega to participate in American Latino museum town hall
On Friday, December 6, CSRC director Chon A. Noriega will participate in a town hall discussion concerning the need for a Smithsonian American Latino museum in Washington, DC. David Hayes-Bautista, CSRC faculty affiliate and director of the UCLA School of Medicine’s Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture, and Pilar Tompkins Rivas, coordinator of cultural initiatives at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and co-curator of the CSRC’s L.A. Xicano project, will be among the panelists. Robert Suro, director of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, will be the moderator. The event takes place from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the USC Price School of Public Policy and is free and open to the public. For more information visit the Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino website. For those who cannot attend, the event will be live-streamed from the organization’s Facebook page.
 
CSRC director contributes to Asco documentary
The Asco Interviews (2013), a short documentary directed and edited by Alvaro Parra for the exhibition Asco: No Movies at the Nottingham Contemporary in Nottingham, England, is now available for online viewing. The documentary includes interviews with original Asco members Harry Gamboa Jr., Gronk, Willie Herrón, and Patssi Valdez, as well as CSRC director Chon A. Noriega and Los Angeles County Museum of Art associate curator of contemporary art Rita Gonzalez. The documentary also includes images from CSRC special collections.
 
Ruiz publishes editorial on Latino nurse leadership and activism
Maria Elena Ruiz, former CSRC associate director, published the editorial “The Voice for Latino Communities: A Time for Action” in the latest issue of Hispanic Health Care International (volume 11, number 4). Ruiz is an assistant adjunct professor in the UCLA School of Nursing and a CSRC faculty affiliate.
 
Hernández-León contributes to album
Rubén Hernández-León, associate professor of sociology, director of the Center for Mexican Studies, and a CSRC faculty affiliate, announces the release of Una Historia de Fandango, the first album by the Los Angeles-based son jarocho band Cambalache. Hernández-León co-authored the lyrics of two sones on the CD and wrote the liner notes. The album, he writes, was “the direct result of the exchanges Chicanos, Latinos, Veracruzanos and Mexican musicians and cultural activists have sustained around son jarocho and the fandango over the last two decades.” Hernández-León’s work with Cambalache and his research on son jarocho in Los Angeles have been undertaken with the support of grants awarded through the CSRC. A release event will take place December 21 at the Floricanto Center for the Performing Arts. More information about the event and an audio file of the album can be found at the band’s website.
 
Visiting scholar named faculty fellow
Lindsay Pérez Huber, CSRC visiting scholar and assistant professor of social and cultural analysis of education in the College of Education at California State University, Long Beach, has been named a 2014 American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) Faculty Fellow. During her 2012–13 appointment at the CSRC, Pérez Huber co-authored “Chicana/Latina Testimonios on Effects and Responses to Microaggressions,” Equity and Excellence in Education (volume 45, number 3); “A Chicana Feminist Epistemology Revisited: Cultivating Ideas a Generation Later,” Harvard Educational Review (volume  82, number 4); and Making Education Work for Latinas in the U.S. (a report published by the UCLA Civil Rights Project and the Eva Longoria Foundation). We are also pleased to announce that Pérez Huber will be a co-organizer with Carlos Haro, CSRC assistant director emeritus, of the next CSRC Latina/o Education Summit, taking place in the fall of 2014.
 
Riverside Puente Program visits CSRC
The Puente Program at Riverside Community College helps Latino students transfer to four-year universities while advancing their knowledge of Latino history and culture. On November 8 six students in the program visited UCLA and the CSRC Library. Lizette Guerra, CSRC librarian, shared with them the history of the library and introduced them to the library’s extensive collections.
 
New videos on CSRC YouTube
Video recordings of some of our Fall 2013 public programs are now available for viewing on CSRC YouTube:
 
  • The 2013 Latina/o Education Summit, “Fisher v. Texas: Implications for Latina/o Educational Diversity” (October 4, 2013), is viewable in two parts.  Rachel F. Moran, dean and Michael J. Connell Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law, was the keynote speaker.
 
  • The 2013 CSRC Annual Open House (October 15, 2013) featured a program devoted to the late Sal Castro (1933–2013) and marked the official opening of Sal Castro: Legacy of a Teacher, an exhibition of items from the Sal Castro Collection at the CSRC. Two of Sal Castro’s former students, Myrna Brutti and Robin Avelar La Salle, now education professionals, as well as Charlotte Lerchenmuller, Sal Castro’s widow, were the guest speakers.
 
  • Book talk: Alvaro Huerta presents Reframing the Latino Immigration Debate: Towards a Humanistic Paradigm (October 9, 2013). In his new book of nonfiction essays, Alvaro Huerta, CSRC visiting scholar, asks readers to reassess critical political and cultural issues unfolding along the U.S.-Mexico border. Huerta’s presentation was followed by a conversation with UCLA professor of history and former CSRC director Juan Gómez-Quiñones, who provided the book’s foreword.
 
  • Book talk: Hector Amaya presents Citizenship Excess: Latino/as, Media, and the Nation (October 10, 2013). In his new book, Hector Amaya, associate professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, describes how the rise of anti-Latino nativism has affected minoritarian and majoritarian media systems.
 

CSRC in the News

“William A. Nericcio Holds Court at UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center to Rapt Crowd”
Coverage of the CSRC event that featured William A. Nericcio, professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University, discussing his research.
La Bloga, November 25, 2013 (PDF)
 
“Rafael Ferrer: Profile of an Internationally Recognized ‘Artist’s Artist’”
The online journal Apuntes featured Chon A. Noriega's foreword to the book Rafael Ferrer by Deborah Cullen, volume 7 in the CSRC’s A Ver series.
Apuntes, November 23, 2013 (PDF)
 
Self Help Graphics anniversary publication
On November 2, Self Help Graphics & Art celebrated its fortieth year of holding Día de los Muertos festivities with an exhibition, live music, DJs, and traditional face painting, processions, and a blessing. A newspaper was also printed for the occasion, featuring contributions by Daniel Gonzalez, a CSRC work-study student; Carlos Haro, CSRC assistant director emeritus; and Colin Gunckel, assistant professor at the University of Michigan and the editor of Self-Help Graphics & Art: Art in the Heart of East Los Angeles, volume 1 in the CSRC's Chicano Archives series. Ella Maria Diaz, assistant professor at Cornell University and author of the spotlighted article from the Fall 2013 issue of Aztlán, also contributed to the publication.
La Calavera Pocha, November 2, 2013 (PDF)
 
All “In the News” articles are available in PDF format on the CSRC website.
 

Events

How to become an effective activist and community leader
Join us in the CSRC Library on Tuesday, December 3, 3:00–5:00 p.m., when Randy Jurado Ertll discusses his new book The Life of an Activist: In the Frontlines 24/7 (University Press of America, 2013). In the book, Ertll provides advice on how to successfully manage nonprofit organizations to accomplish positive social change. Ertll is the executive director of El Centro de Acción Social in Pasadena.
 
Exploring today’s Chicana/o poetics
For our final public program of 2013, the CSRC is pleased to present “Nuevas Voces Poeticas: A Dialogue with the Coalition of New Chican@ Artists (CONCA)” on Thursday, December 5, 3:00–5:00 p.m. in the CSRC Library. This roundtable discussion will be led by Christopher Carmona, Isaac Chavarría, Rossy Evelin Lima, and Gabriel Sanchez, poets who currently work in South Texas. Each has a different Chican@ identity: Xicanindio, inmigrante, poch@, and “fluid” Chican@. The poets will discuss the reemergence of Chican@ poetics over the past five years and its utilization, even today, as a mode of political activism. Audience participation is encouraged.
 
All CSRC events are free unless otherwise noted. Programs are subject to change. For the most current information, visit the Events page on the CSRC website.
 

CSRC Library

Sal Castro exhibition in final weeks
Sal Castro: Legacy of a Teacher, an exhibition of materials from the Sal Castro Collection, recently donated to the CSRC by the Castro family, remains on view in the CSRC Library and vitrine through December 13. Photos, awards, memorabilia, and ephemera from throughout Castro’s life and career are on display. Videos, including Susan Racho’s Taking Back the Schools (1996), provide dramatic context. The exhibition can be viewed during regular library hours.
 
Guerra receives travel award
CSRC librarian Lizette Guerra was selected as a recipient of an ALA-FIL Free Pass for the 2013 Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara, November 28 through December 6. The Free Pass program provides hotel accommodations and airfare support for US librarians who attend the annual event, which is the largest Spanish-language book fair in the western hemisphere. The fair provides an unparalleled opportunity for librarians to evaluate books, reference materials, videos, CDs, and more that will benefit their students and users. For more information, visit the fair’s website.
 
New collections in process
The CSRC is proud to announce the addition of the Moctesuma Esparza Papers, a collection totaling 265 linear feet. Esparza is a UCLA alum and one of the Chicano activists who was involved in the founding of the CSRC. He is also an award-winning filmmaker, producer, entrepreneur, and activist revered for his contributions to the movie industry and his commitment to Latinos. His production credits include Selena, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, The Milagro Beanfield War, Gettysburg, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, and Walkout. Esparza founded the Los Angeles Academy of Arts and Enterprise charter school, and he is a co-founder of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP), a co-founder and former chair of the New American Alliance (NAA), and a founding board member of the Sundance Institute. He is a member of the planning commission for the National Museum of the American Latino, an appointment made by Senator Harry Reid. He was appointed commissioner to the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and he is also a trustee of the American Film Institute.
 
Additions to existing collections
The CSRC has acquired a linear foot of new materials for the David Damian Figueroa Papers. The addition documents Figueroa’s career as a civil rights advocate through his work with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). The materials include photographs, correspondence, ephemera, books, serials, and audio and visual materials pertaining to many Chicana leaders with whom Figueroa has worked, including Dolores Huerta.
 
To learn more about these collections and projects please email your queries to the CSRC librarian, Lizette Guerra, at lguerra@chicano.ucla.edu.
 

CSRC Press

Launch of Oral Histories Series on CSRC website
The CSRC Oral Histories Series publishes the life narratives of prominent Chicano and Latino figures. Now available online is the first set of interviews, which were conducted for the CSRC’s L.A. Xicano project. Artists talk about childhood, education, and career and the inspirations for their art. Their recollections offer insights into not only the work of the individual artists but also how these artists were interconnected and were affected by cultural and political developments, particularly the Chicano Movement. The interviews were conducted by Karen Mary Davalos, professor of Chicana/o studies at Loyola Marymount University and contributing author to the L.A. Xicano exhibition catalog, published by CSRC Press in 2011. Davalos also contributed to Oral Histories and Communities of Color, published by CSRC Press earlier this year.
 
Call for book reviews
Would you like to publish a book review in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies? This is a great opportunity to publish your writing and add your voice to the latest research in the field of Chicano studies. To be considered for a book review, please email submissions@chicano.ucla.edu. Briefly describe your research interests and note your institutional affiliation. You may also suggest recently published books that you wish to review. For more information about Aztlán, visit the CSRC website. 
 

Opportunities

IAC Visiting Scholar/Researcher Program in Ethnic Studies
The UCLA Institute of American Cultures offers awards to visiting scholars and researchers to support research on African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Chicanas/os. Applications are especially encouraged that advance our understanding of new social and cultural realities occasioned by the dramatic population shifts of recent decades, including greater heterogeneity within ethnic groups and increased interethnic contact.
 
Two types of awards will be offered: Visiting Scholar appointments for persons who currently hold permanent academic appointments and Visiting Researcher positions for newly degreed scholars. In 2014–15, IAC Visiting Scholars/Researchers will receive funding for one or more quarters, with a maximum stipend of $32,000 to $35,000 for three quarters (contingent upon rank, experience, and date of completion of their terminal degree) and will receive health benefits. Visiting Scholars will be paid through their home institutions and will be expected to continue their health benefits through that source as well; Visiting Researchers will be paid directly by UCLA. Awardees may receive up to $4,000 in research support (through reimbursements of research expenses), $1,000 of which may be applied toward relocation expenses.
 
Eligibility
Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States and hold a Ph.D. from an accredited college/university (or, in the case of the arts, a terminal degree) in the appropriate field at the time of appointment. UCLA faculty, staff, and currently enrolled students are not eligible to apply.
 
Deadline
Applications are available in December and due by 5:00 p.m., February 5, 2014. Recipients are notified in April.
 
For more information and the application, visit the IAC website.
 
IAC Graduate and Predoctoral Fellowships in Ethnic Studies
Current UCLA students with a demonstrated interest in ethnic studies are eligible to apply for graduate and predoctoral fellowships to aid in completion of a thesis or dissertation. Applications are especially encouraged that advance our understanding of new social and cultural realities occasioned by the dramatic population shifts of recent decades, including greater heterogeneity within ethnic groups and increased interethnic contact. Fellowships will be awarded on a competitive basis to current UCLA graduate students and predoctoral candidates with demonstrated interest in the field of ethnic studies to aid in the completion of a thesis or dissertation. The terms of awarded fellowships may range from one to three quarters and will cover in-state tuition and fees plus a maximum stipend of $6,000 per quarter. The acceptance of a fellowship carries with it the commitment to make a contribution to the activities of the sponsoring Ethnic Studies Research Center.
 
Awards are for one academic year or quarter.
 
Unfortunately, the Chicano Studies Research Center and the American Indian Studies Center will not be awarding 2014–15 Graduate/Predoctoral Fellowships due to budget constraints.
 
Eligibility
Open only to UCLA students with a demonstrated interest in African American or Asian American studies. Application for the fellowship in African American Studies is open only to doctoral students who will have advanced to candidacy by the beginning of the fellowship year. Applicants may apply to only one research center during a given funding cycle.
 
Deadline
Applications are available in December and due by 5:00 p.m., February 5, 2014. Recipients are notified by mid-April.

For more information and the application, visit the IAC website.
 
IAC Research Grant Program in Ethnic Studies
The UCLA Institute of American Cultures invites applications for support of research on African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Chicanas/os for 2014–15. The Institute also invites proposals on interethnic relations that will increase collaboration between the Centers and/or between the Centers and other campus units.
 
The Chicano Studies Research Center is also able to offer two student research awards of $2500 from the Tamar Diana Wilson Fund. These awards are used to conduct original research projects in the United States, Mexico and Central America on urban poverty and poverty alleviation as they apply to Latinos and Mexican and Central American indigenous populations. To apply, check both the Chicana/o Studies and the Tamar Diana Wilson Fund boxes on the IAC application.
 
The Research Grant Program is on a reimbursement basis only. Ordinarily, faculty projects will be funded for no more than $10,000 and graduate student projects for no more than $7,000. Funds for the purchase of permanent equipment will be provided only under exceptional circumstances. Conference travel, whether the applicant is presenting or attending, is ineligible.
 
Eligibility
Open only to UCLA faculty, staff, graduate students, and IAC Visiting Scholars/Researchers.
 
Deadline
Applications must be received no later than 5:00 p.m., April 22, 2014. Awards will be announced in mid-May.
 
For more information and the application, visit the IAC website.
 
***
Image: Ramon Ramirez, "I Am the Resurrection, 2011. Charcoal on paper, 25 x 20 inches. Private collection.