CSRC Newsletter - February 2006

CSRC Newsletter Volume 4, Number 5

Director's Message

Last month, I predicted that in 2006 we would have the first Latino President of the United States … on television. That may still happen if, as expected, Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) beats Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda) in the upcoming election on The West Wing. Of course, a funny thing happened on the way to the White House: last week, NBC announced that it would end the award-winning series in May, just after the election results are revealed. Talk about good news, bad news. This situation could very well inspire the first Latino-themed New Yorker cartoon, if only I could find the words for the caption….
 
Chon A. Noriega, Professor and Director
 

CSRC News

Grant Received for A Ver: Revisioning Art History

The CSRC has received a $100,000 grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to support publication of A Ver: Revisioning Art History. A Ver is the first book series to focus on the work of Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, and Latino artists in the United States. The first volume, on Gronk, will be published this fall. Books on nine more artists are scheduled to be published by 2008.

CSRC Events

Presentation on AIDS in Mexico
Jorge Saavedra, director of Mexico's National Center for the Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS, will visit UCLA to talk about efforts to control HIV in his country. Saavedra's current research focuses on health care for Mexican migrants who have the disease. The presentation, “An Update on HIV in Mexico,” will take place on Wednesday, February 8, 2006, at 12:00 noon in Ackerman Grand Ballroom. To learn more about Saavedra's work in Mexico, visit his center's website.
 
CSRC Will Co-Sponsor Course on Archival Administration
This spring the CSRC and the UCLA Information Studies Department will co-sponsor a course on managing archival resources in communities of color. The course, Archival Administration in Ethnic Communities (Information Studies 189), will be taught by Roberto G. Trujillo, head of the Department of Special Collections at the Stanford University Libraries. For more information, please contact Marilyn Salinge.
 
Workshop on Applying for Research Grants
The IAC provides research grants to UCLA graduate students, faculty, and research staff. The CSRC will host an information session on Thursday, February 2, 2006, from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. in 179 Haines Hall. Refreshments will be served. Click here to RSVP for this event. The deadline for IAC grant applications is Friday, April 28, 2006. For questions about the session, please email Sagrario Hernández. To obtain information about IAC research grants and applications, visit their website. For CSRC research grants, email Carlos Manuel Haro or call 310-267-5290.
 

CSRC Library and Archive

New Films Acquired
The CSRC Library has acquired two films directed by Luis Meza: The Staccato Purr of the Exhaust, his critically praised feature-length film, released in 1996; and Who Gets to Water the Grass, a short film released in 1987. Meza is a UCLA film school alumnus.
 
Students Gain Archival Experience
Loyola Marymount University students in Karen Mary Davalos's “Chicana and Third World Feminism” class are receiving hands-on experience with primary sources in the CSRC Library. The students are organizing and preserving papers in the newly acquired collection “Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS).” This collection contains newsletters, meeting agendas, and photos of seminars and meetings of MALCS, a national organization of Chicanas, Latinas, and Native American women who are employed in academic and community settings. By working with these materials, students are learning not only about archival techniques but also about the history of MALCS and the complex dynamics of feminist organizing. They are supervised by Davalos, Yolanda Retter, and Michael Stone. For more information, contact Michael Stone.
 

CSRC Press

Aztlán Goes Online!
The press is excited to announce that the journal of record in the field of Chicano studies is going online!
Starting with the next issue, spring 2006, the full text of Aztlán will be available to subscribers in print and electronically. The journal will continue to be edited and produced at the center, but subscribers will have access to the online version through the University of California Press website Caliber.
 
For the first year, 2006, only institutions with subscriptions will have access to the online content. For instance, if you are on the internet through a UCLA server, you will be able to read all the Aztlán content, since the UCLA library is a subscriber. Starting in 2007, individual subscribers will also have password access to Caliber. So, if your library doesn't subscribe, make sure to ask them to start so that you can start searching and reading all of Aztlán online this year.
 
What makes this step so important is that the articles that appear in Aztlán will now receive much wider dissemination and much more critical attention. We expect to see significant increases in the number of Aztlán readers and the number of citations to Aztlán articles. Taking Aztlán online is an essential step toward advancing the field of Chicano studies as a whole. To learn more, please go to our website or email the CSRC press.
 

CSRC Cinema and Media Series

The latest DVD, Frontierland / Fronterilandia by Jesse Lerner and Rubén Ortiz Torres (1995), is now available. This film examines the multiple points of cultural contact between the United States and Mexico. From the Santa Barbara Fiestas and South Carolina's kitschy “South of the Border” tourist complex, to a Mexican Beatles cover band and Chicano rap, this film reveals the borderlands as a laboratory of hybridity that continues to ignite the popular imagination of each nation. Working at the boundaries of experimental film and documentary travelogue, this film weaves together found footage, interviews, performance art, and music video, producing a masterful commentary that is at once poetic, disturbing and hilarious. Includes appearances by Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Aztlán Underground, among others, and important bonus materials on border cultures and commentary from the filmmakers. The DVD is part of the Chicano Cinema Recovery Project, an ongoing collaboration with the UCLA Film and Television Archive. For more information about the DVD, visit our website.
 

Internship Opportunity

Undergraduate or graduate students looking for a chance to learn more about publishing are encouraged to apply for the CSRC Press marketing internship. The intern will work with the press manager to identify and pursue opportunities to market the center's books, periodicals, and DVDs. The internship requires from 8 to 20 hours per week and pays $15 an hour. If interested, send a resume and cover letter to the press. In the cover letter, please note any previous experience in selling or marketing.
 
Press Information
If you are interested in buying our books, clickhere.
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.
 
CSRC Grants & Fellowships Recipients
IAC Research Grants
The deadline for IAC grant applications is Friday, April 28, 2006. To obtain information about IAC research grants and applications, visit their website. For CSRC research grants, email Carlos Manuel Haro or call 310-267-5290.
 

Student Opportunities

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 center 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 listproc@weber.sscnet.ucla.edu 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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