CSRC Newsletter - March 2017

Watching TV the last week, one may have felt the presences of ghosts. That is, all the Latinos we are hearing about but not seeing, from the Oscars to Washington. D.C.  How did we become ghosts? In A Nation of Immigrants, published by the Anti-defamation League in 1959, author and future president John F. Kennedy concluded, “The wisest Americans have always understood the significance of the immigrant.” Why? Well, first of all, restrictions on immigration were one of King George’s “usurpations” strongly denounced by the Declaration of Independence. It is the foundation of our nation. Second, as Kennedy points out, with the exception of indigenous peoples, we are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants. In its recent report on Latinos in California, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) concludes: “Demographic trends have long predicted that Latinos will be a large and growing proportion of the country’s population, workforce, and economy. These forecasts are a reality today in California, where we get a glimpse into the nation’s demographic and economic future.” Yet, in our public culture and political discourse, Latinos are talked about but rarely seen or heard. We are the “bad hombres” causing all the problems, as if we were somehow different from everyone else who is here by virtue of immigration. While Latinos make up nearly 18 percent of the national population, we account for 86 percent of the growth in small businesses, 76 percent of the farmworkers (that is, the people who bring the food to your table), and are by far the largest group of moviegoers relative to their proportion of the population (generating about one-third of the $11.37B domestic box office). America, we can become a culture that believes in ghosts and other scapegoats, or we can reaffirm the Founding Fathers’s vision of a nation of immigrants guided by reason.

  

Chon A. Noriega

Director and Professor

 

Latinos and Economic Security project launches new website

Latinos and Economic Security (LES), a national research project funded by the Ford Foundation, has a new website. The goal of LES is to advance economic security for middle-age and aging Latinos. It is a collaborative effort of the UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging, the USC Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center, and the CSRC, in partnership with the National Hispanic Council on Aging (NHCOA), the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). To view the new site, please visit: http://latinoeconomicsecurity.org/.

 

“Conversations with the Dean” to highlight immigration policy

On March 2, Laura E. Gómez, interim dean of the division of social sciences and professor of law, will moderate the discussion “Immigration Policy under President Trump: What Can We Expect?” The panelists include Leisy Abrego, associate professor of Chicana/o studies and member of the CSRC faculty advisory committee; Lauren Duquette-Rury, assistant professor of sociology; and Margaret Peters, assistant professor of political science. The event will take place at 6:00 p.m. at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA and will be followed by a reception. The “Conversations with the Dean” series is sponsored by the UCLA College. To RSVP, click here. 

 

Díaz participates in Hollywood Diversity Report event

On February 23, Vanessa Díaz, CSRC visiting scholar, participated in this year’s release event for the Hollywood Diversity Report, a project of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies. She joined a panel with Darnell Hunt, Bunche Center director and lead author of the report; Ana-Christina Ramon, Bunche Center assistant director; and Michael Tran and Amberia Sargent, graduate student researchers. The project, which produces a report each year, provides an extensive, ongoing analysis of diversity in the film and television industries. The 2017 report, “Setting the Record Straight,” can be downloaded here: http://www.bunchecenter.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/2017-Hollywood-Diversity-Report-2-21-17.pdf.

 

Crowdfunding campaign for Home exhibition surpasses goal

The CSRC’s crowdfunding campaign for Home—So Different, So Appealing surpassed its $10,000 goal, raising an additional $7,500 for education and public programs related to the exhibition! A huge thank you to everyone—students, staff, faculty, alumni, and all CSRC friends—who donated to this effort. The exhibition will be the largest the CSRC has ever produced, and your contributions will help make it possible. We will report more on the exhibition in the coming weeks and look forward to seeing everyone at the opening on June 11. Home—So Different, So Appealing is part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative.

 

Villaseñor Black helps develop new U.S. Latinx Art Forum

On February 17, Charlene Villaseñor Black, CSRC associate director and professor of art history and Chicana/o studies, helped develop the first plenary session of the U.S. Latinx Art Forum at the College Art Association’s annual conference in New York. This is the first CAA-affiliated society for scholars and artists interested in U.S. Latinx art. Villaseñor Black serves on the forum’s advisory board. More information can be found at http://www.uslaf.org/.
 

New book on hunger strikes for Chicana/o studies

Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval, associate professor of Chicana/o studies at UC Santa Barbara, has published Starving for Justice: Hunger Strikes, Spectacular Speech, and the Struggle for Dignity (University of Arizona Press, 2017). The book presents a discussion of the hunger strikes at UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and Stanford in the 1990s that led to the establishment or expansion of Chicana/o studies departments at these universities.

 

“Make Art History”

Hermosa Journal mentioned the CSRC’s UCLA Spark fundraising campaign for the exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing, part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative.

Hermosa Journal, February 21, 2017 (PDF)

 

All “In the News” articles are available in PDF format on the CSRC website.
 

Talk: Thalia Gomez presents “Flowers of Resistance: Yoeme (Yaqui) Land and Water Rights in the Yaqui Territory of Sonora, Mexico”
Thursday, March 2, 3:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.

CSRC Library – 144 Haines Hall

Since 2011, Thalia Gomez, a member of the Pascua Yaqui Nation of Arizona, has worked with the Indigenous Alliance Without Borders in Tucson and the Yowe-Kobano (Yaqui Pueblo Governors) on issues pertaining to the diversion of water from the Yaqui Pueblos in Sonora, Mexico. Gomez will speak about these experiences and the research she conducted for her master’s thesis, “Flowers of Resistance: Yoeme Contemporary Water Rights,” which she completed in 2013. Gomez received her master’s degree in Raza Studies from the University of Arizona. This event is organized by MEChA de UCLA and co-sponsored by the CSRC.

 

Book Talk: Leo Cabranes-Grant presents "Affective Archives: Retracing the Intercultural Body"
Friday, March 3, 4:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.
2310C Macgowan Hall

Leo Cabranes-Grant, a professor of theater and dance and Spanish and Portuguese at UC Santa Barbara, will discuss research from his new book, From Scenarios to Networks: Performing the Intercultural in Colonial Mexico (Northwestern University Press, 2016). Cabranes-Grant will expand on his recent investigations, which explore how affective and cognitive theories can contribute to a new historigraphy of the intercultural past. This event is organized by the UCLA Center for Performance Studies and cosponsored by the CSRC.

 

Book Talk: Anabel Hernández presents La verdadera noche de iguala
Wednesday, March 8, 1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
CSRC Library – 144 Haines Hall

Award-winning Mexican journalist Anabel Hernández will discuss her new book, La verdadera noche de Iguala: La historia que el gobierno quiso ocultar (Vintage Espanol, 2017). In the book Hernández investigates the case of forty-three male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College who went missing in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico, on September 26, 2014. Additional speakers are Nestora Salgado, former political prisoner of the Coordinadora Regional de Autoridades Comunitarias-Policía Comunitaria (CRAC-PC) in Olinalá, Guerrero; Atziri Ávila, deputy director of Desinformémonos and member of the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders; and Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, project director at the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education. Books will be available for purchase at the event. This event is organized by the UCLA Labor Center and cosponsored by the UCLA Center for Mexican Studies at the Latin American Institute, the UCLA American Indian Studies Center, and the CSRC.

 

All CSRC events are free and do not require an RSVP unless otherwise noted. Programs are subject to change. For the most current information, visit the Events page on the CSRC website.
 

Flores educates students on CSRC collections

On February 13, CSRC librarian Xaviera Flores spoke to over 650 undergraduate students in Chicana/o Studies 10B, an introductory class, about the CSRC’s many archival collections pertaining to Chicano punk, queer art, and related subcultures. She talked about the Mujeres/LGBT Initiative and emphasized the value of diversity within the archives. Flores also worked separately with three discussions groups (twenty-five to thirty students each) to show them how to physically handle artifacts from the collections. Collections discussed included the Alice Bag photographs, the Gronk Papers, the Cyclona Collection, ASCO-related materials, the ONE Archive, and the Laura Aguilar Collection, among several others.

 

Flores speaks about community archives to sociology students

CSRC librarian Xaviera Flores met with fifteen graduate students from Sociology 285B, “Community Studies: Praxis, Theory, and Ethics,” on February 15. The group discussed the difference between community archives and other kinds of archives. Flores also talked about challenges to creating professional standards that fit the needs of community archives.

 

Rosales discusses party-crew collection with students

On February 22, artist and collector Guadalupe Rosales spoke with Chicana/o studies students in Chicana/o Studies 10B about her collection of materials at the CSRC, which documents the Chicano-Latino party scene in Southern California in the 1990s. She was assisted by CSRC librarian Xaviera Flores.

 

Library exhibition on public art in final weeks!
Now on display in the CSRC Library and vitrine is the exhibition Taking to the Streets: Art in the Public Space at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, featuring photographs, cardboard cutouts, and a video triptych. The impetus for this show is a recent donation to the CSRC of a bus-mounted art poster by David Avalos, Louis Hock, and Elizabeth Sisco titled “Welcome to America’s Finest Tourist Plantation.” In 1988 the three artists launched a public art project that placed the poster on the back of one hundred city buses, sending a message about the labor that supports the area’s tourist industry. The piece was conserved at UCLA and is now on permanent display at the CSRC. Curated by Karen Rapp, former director of the Vincent Price Art Museum, the exhibition highlights diverse selections from the CSRC’s archival holdings as well as previous projects that utilize public space as a site for artistic engagement and production. Works by Ramiro Gomez, Daniel J. Martinez, and Sandra de la Loza round out the exhibition. It will be on view during regular library hours through March 24.

 

To schedule a tour of the CSRC Library, contact CSRC Librarian Xaviera Flores at xflores@chicano.ucla.edu.

 

New issue of Aztlán

Charlene Villaseñor Black, CSRC associate director and editor of Aztlán, opens the Spring 2017 issue with an exploration of paintings that portray Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Black’s commentary is followed by two essays that investigate strategies for community transformation. Andrea J. Romero, Monica Moreno Anguas, Anna O’Leary, and Rebecca Covarrubias study the importance of collective efficacy for mitigating the stress of being an immigrant; and María J. Durán shows, through a discussion of Moraga’s Heroes and Saints, that theater can be a space for community protest. The next two essays look at issues of communication. Through her interviews with Latina/o workers in the telecommunications industry, Melissa Villa-Nicholas offers insights into formations of labor, digital capitalism, and the political economy; and Verónica Calvillo examines how braceros’ corridos imparted knowledge about working in the United States and contributed to a developing identity for Mexican immigrants. In the dossier section, Robb Hernández and Tatiana Reinoza present a set of essays that explores the role and multiple meanings of paper in Chicana/o literature, visual arts, and performance. This issue of Aztlán features the art of Ramiro Gomez, an L.A.–based artist who calls attention to Latina/o nannies, gardeners, and maids—those whose lives and labor are often invisible. The Spring 2017 issue will begin shipping to subscribers in late March.

 

Call for applications: IAC 2017-2018 Research Grant Program in Ethnic Studies

The Institute for American Cultures, which houses UCLA’s four ethnic studies research centers (the Asian American Studies Center, the American Indian Studies Center, the Bunche Center for Research on African Americans, and the Chicano Studies Research Center), announces the availability of small grants for support of research on African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Chicanas/os, as well as the new population dynamics. It particularly encourages proposals that will make a contribution to the research interests of the Ethnic Studies Research Centers, including interethnic/interracial and multiethnic/multiracial topics. The IAC also invites proposals that will increase collaboration between the Centers and/or between the Centers and other campus units. Only UCLA faculty, students, and staff are eligible. The online application is available at: https://sa.ucla.edu/IAC/ResearchGrant
Application deadline: March 13, 2017. For more information visit: http://www.iac.ucla.edu/fellowships_research.html

 

Call for applications: Latino Museum Studies Program at the Smithsonian Latino Center

The Latino Museum Studies Program (LMSP) provides a national forum for graduate students to share, explore and discuss the representation and interpretation of Latino cultures in the context of the American experience. It provides a unique opportunity to meet and engage with Smithsonian professionals, scholars from renowned universities, and with leaders in the museum field. Graduates students enrolled or engaged in the fields of Latino art, culture, and history are encouraged to apply. These include but are not limited to art history, visual arts, digital arts, cultural anthropology, arts management, performing arts, and related studies.
Application deadline: March 15, 2017. For more information, please visit: http://latino.si.edu/Education/LMSP