CSRC Newsletter - May 2018

VOLUME 16, NUMBER 9

DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE

The CSRC mourns the passing of Los Angeles–based artist Laura Aguilar, a longtime friend and collaborator who died April 25. We are proud to have worked with her on her oral history, some of her last photo projects, a comprehensive DVD of her videos, and her first retrospective, organized in collaboration with the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) in 2017. That same year, her photograph In Sandy's Room was featured in the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing. Aguilar was the cover artist for the Fall 1998 issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies from CSRC Press, and she was the subject of several of the articles. We are comforted to know that over the past year she finally received the recognition she richly deserved. This month, the catalog for the VPAM exhibition won a gold medal in a preeminent international book award competition. This gives us hope she has secured her rightful place in art history. Laura was a great artist and our friend, and we will miss her. 

Click here to download related PDFs. For media coverage of Aguilar’s death, see In the News, below.

Chon A. Noriega

Director and Professor

NEWS

Show and Tell extended at Frost Museum
The retrospective Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, organized by the Vincent Price Art Museum in collaboration with the CSRC, has traveled to the Patricia and Philip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University, Miami. The run of the exhibition has been extended to June 3. For more information, visit the museum’s website.
 
Hernández receives award
Kelly Lytle Hernández, interim director of the Bunche Center for African American Studies and former CSRC associate director, has received the 2018 James A. Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians. This annual award is given to the author of the best book dealing with the history of race relations in the United States. Hernández was honored for City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771–1965 (University of North Carolina Press, 2017).
 
CSRC Press publications win IPPYs
Judith F. Baca by Anna Indych-López, and the exhibition catalog Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, edited by Rebecca Epstein, won medals in the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs), announced April 10. Judith F. Baca, volume 11 in the CSRC’s A Ver: Revisioning Art History series, received the silver medal for Best Multicultural Non-Fiction. Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell received a gold medal in the category West Pacific: Best Regional Non-Fiction. For a list of all winners, visit the Independent Publisher website. Both books are available at half price during the CSRC spring book sale (see Press, below).
 
Haro lectures at ELAC on walkouts
On April 12, Carlos M. Haro, CSRC assistant director emeritus, lectured on the 1968 student walkouts to students at East Los Angeles College. Haro was invited by Nadine Bermudez, director of the honors program and associate professor of Chicana/o studies at ELAC, and Pilar Tompkins Rivas, director of the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM). To illustrate his lecture, Haro used images from The 1968 Walkouts: Selections from UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Collections, an exhibition that is on view at the CSRC Library until May 11, when it travels to VPAM (see Library, below).
 
Haro to teach class at UCLA on walkouts
During summer session A, Carlos M. Haro will teach CS 180: “Chicana/Chicano Studies: Schools and Community Activism,” which will focus on the 1968 student walkouts at Eastside Los Angeles high schools. The course will examine the historical significance and impact of these student and community actions. Students will develop skills to conduct oral history projects, which will be presented at a class meeting. The course will run June 25 through August 3, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00 a.m.–1:05 p.m. in 148 Royce Hall. For more information, email charo@chicano.ucla.edu.
 
Alvarado publishes book
Leticia Alvarado, assistant professor of American studies at Brown University and CSRC visiting scholar and Ford Fellow in 2014-15, has published the book Abject Performances: Aesthetic Strategies in Latino Cultural Production (Duke University Press, 2018). Alvarado wrote the manuscript during her fellowship year.
 
Heredia publishes book
Juanita Heredia, professor of Spanish in the Department of Global Languages and Cultures at Northern Arizona University and former CSRC Institute of American Cultures visiting scholar, has published her third book, an edited collection titled Mapping South American Latina/o Literature in the United States: Interviews with Contemporary Writers (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Heredia explores how twelve U.S. authors of South American descent have created a new chapter in trans-American history through their development of multicultural identities in different regions and cities in the United States.
 
Cortez to direct UT school of art
Constance Cortez, associate professor of Chicana/o art history and post-contact art of Mexico at Texas Tech University, has been named director of the School of Art at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. Her new appointment begins August 1. Cortez is the author of Carmen Lomas Garza, volume 5 in the A Ver: Revisioning Art History Series from CSRC Press.
 
Villaseñor Black leads discussion on mural documentaries
On April 12, Charlene Villaseñor Black, CSRC associate director and professor of art history and Chicana/o studies, led a discussion at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes following a screening of two documentaries by James Tartan: Los Four (1974) and Murals of Aztlán: The Street Painters of East Los Angeles (1981). The documentaries are available on DVD as volume 1 of the CSRC Press’s Chicano Cinema and Media Art Series. All DVDs in the series are currently available to individuals at half price when purchased at the CSRC (see Press, below).
 
De la Loza to show work in COLA exhibition
Sandra de la Loza, artist, educator, and former CSRC visiting scholar, will show the latest installment of her ongoing body of work To Oblivion in the annual City of Los Angeles (COLA) Individual Artist Fellowships exhibition. De la Loza’s installation focuses on lost histories associated with the collision of two events in Los Angeles in 1903: a labor strike against railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington’s Pacific Electric Railway and the annual Fiesta de las Flores. The COLA Fellowships are awarded each year to support the creation of new works by mid-career L.A. artists. The exhibition is on view May 3 through June 24 at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, 4800 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. De la Loza is the author of The Pocho Research Society Guide to L.A.: Monuments and Murals of Erased and Invisible Histories  and the essay “Mural Remix” in the L.A. Xicano exhibition catalog from CSRC Press.
 
López uses A Ver books in Chicana artists course
This quarter, Alma López, assistant professor-in-residence in the Department of Chicana/o Studies and the LGBTQ Studies Program, is using four books from the A Ver: Revisioning Art History series from CSRC Press as classroom texts for CSM 175: “Chicana Art and Artists.” This course provides a historical and contemporary overview of Chicana art production with an emphasis on painting, photography, prints, murals, and activist art. Students have been assigned A Ver volumes Yolanda M. López, Carmen Lomas Garza, Celia Alvarez Muñoz and Judith F. Baca. A blog for the class can be found at https://chicanaart.blogspot.com/. Books are available to everyone at half price during the CSRC spring book sale (see Press, below).
 
Samano to conduct research at CSRC
Miguel Isaias Samano, an undergraduate in comparative literature and Chicanx/Latinx studies at Stanford University, has been awarded a fellowship to conduct research at the CSRC this summer. His project, “Why Do Chicana/o Artists Make Chicana/o Art? An Inquiry into Representational Space,” examines how late-twentieth-century writers, literary critics, artists, and art curators collectively constituted the critical reception of Chicana/o literature through their various processes of interpreting, describing, and historicizing art and literature. Samano’s research at the CSRC will center on the CSRC Library’s collection of documents related to the exhibition Chicano Arts: Resistance and Affirmation (CARA). His research will also encompass the LACMA exhibition Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement and Alurista’s groundbreaking book of poetry, Floricanto en Aztlán, published by CSRC Press. 
 

CSRC IN THE NEWS

“Remembering Laura Aguilar, the Queer, Latina Photography Pioneer”
A memorial piece on the life and career of Laura Aguilar, with images courtesy of the CSRC and the artist’s estate.

Dazed, April 27, 2018 (PDF)

“Chicano Studies Research Center Earns Awards for Two Books”
UCLA Newsroom reported two books from CSRC Press, Judith F. Baca by Anna Indych-Lopez and Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell edited by Rebecca Epstein, won honors from the Independent Publisher Book Awards.

UCLA Newsroom, April 26, 2018 (PDF)

“The Death of Photographer Laura Aguilar Is a Major Loss for L.A.”
A memorial piece on the life and career of Laura Aguilar, with images courtesy of the CSRC and the artist’s estate.

Los Angeles Magazine, April 26, 2018 (PDF)

“Remembering Photographer Laura Aguilar’s Empathetic, Queer Art”
A memorial piece on the life and career of Laura Aguilar, with images courtesy of the CSRC and the artist’s estate.

Hyperallergic, April 26, 2018 (PDF)

“Laura Aguilar, Compassionate Photographer of Marginalized Groups, Dies at 58”
A memorial piece on the life and career of Laura Aguilar, with images courtesy of the CSRC and the artist’s estate.

Artnews, April 25, 2018 (PDF)

“Photographer Laura Aguilar, chronicler of the body and Chicano identity, dies at 58”
A memorial piece on the life and career of Laura Aguilar, with images courtesy of the CSRC and the artist’s estate. CSRC director Chon A. Noriega is quoted.

Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2018 (PDF)

Excerpts of Los Angeles Times article published in:

“UCLA in the News”

UCLA Newsroom, April 27, 2018 (PDF)

“Mexican-American Photographer Laura Aguilar, Chronicler of the Marginalized, Dies at 58”

Frieze, April 27, 2018 (PDF)

“LA Photographer Known for Nude Self-Portraits Dies at 58”

Monterey Herald, April 26, 2018 (PDF)

“Laura Aguilar, East LA's Fearless Photographer, Dies”

Patch, April 26, 2018 (PDF)

“L.A. Photographer Dies of Renal Failure”

MyLANews.com, April 26, 2018 (PDF)

“Chicano Movement of 50 Years Ago Reflects Today’s Turmoil”
This feature on the La Raza exhibition at the Autry Museum of the American West includes comments and reflections by La Raza photographer and exhibition co-curator Luis Garza. The La Raza exhibition was produced in collaboration with the CSRC, which holds the La Raza Newspaper Collection and La Raza Photograph Collection. 

The Hub, April 22, 2018 (PDF)

“Make America Mongrel Again”
CSRC director Chon A. Noriega is quoted in this essay by Carmen Giménez Smith about Latinx identity. Noriega describes the importance of the artwork Spray Paint LACMA (or Project Pie in De/Face), by the Chicano artist collective ASCO, which criticized the lack of Chicano art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Poetry Foundation, April 19, 2018 (PDF)

“The Empathy and Solidarity of Laura Aguilar’s Unbroken Gaze”
A review of the exhibition Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum. The exhibition, which debuted at the Vincent Price Art Museum in 2017, was organized in collaboration with the CSRC as part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative and is now on view at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum in Miami.

Hyperallergic, April 12, 2018 (PDF)

“Connected to the Land: the Work of Laura Aguilar”
In a piece for Artbound, curator Sybil Venegas provides background to the biographical essay she wrote for the exhibition catalog Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, published by CSRC Press. The exhibition is now on view at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum in Miami. 

Artbound, April 11, 2018 (PDF)

“Free Event Offers Tips on Finding Success as a Creative”
Artist Star Montana took part in an event hosted by the UC Riverside Department of Creative Writing, which invited students, faculty, and staff to engage in conversations about finding ways to succeed in creative fields. The CSRC was mentioned for having showcased Montana’s work in a library exhibition in 2016.

Inside UC Riverside, April 10, 2018 (PDF)

“Laura Aguilar’s Fearless East Coast Premiere at the Frost Art Museum FIU through May 27”
A feature on the exhibition Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, which recently opened at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum in Miami. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with the CSRC, was previously at the Vincent Price Art Museum.

Miami’s Community Newspapers, April 5, 2018 (PDF)

“La Raza: The Community Newspaper That Became a Political Platform”
This Artbound feature examines the role of La Raza newspaper and magazine as a political platform for the Chicano movement during its 1967–1977 publication run. The CSRC holds the La Raza Newspaper Collection and the La Raza Photograph Collection; images from the latter were used in this piece.

Artbound, April 4, 2018 (PDF)

Narrated photo essays on La Raza
This series of narrated photo essays on La Raza features interviews with La Raza photographers, who share their thoughts on the Chicano movement and its relevance today. Participating photographers are Oscar Castillo, Patricia Borjon-Lopez, Moctesuma Esparza, Luis Garza, Gil Lopez, Joe Razo, Raul Ruiz, Maria Marquez Sanchez, and Devra Weber. The CSRC contributed images from the La Raza Photograph Collection. To see PDFs of each photographer’s essay, click here.

Artbound, April 4–6, 2018

“How Lincoln Heights' Church of the Epiphany Energized the Chicano Movement”
This feature in Artbound examines the use of Lincoln Heights’s Church of the Epiphany by La Raza contributors as a location to organize and meet during the Chicano movement. Images for the article were provided by the CSRC from the La Raza Photograph Collection.

Artbound, April 4, 2018 (PDF)

“How 'Brown Buffalo' Oscar Acosta, Best Known as Hunter Thompson's Dr. Gonzo, Inspired His Own TV Doc”
A Los Angeles Times article examines the life of Oscar Acosta, Chicano attorney during the 1960s and 1970s and subject of the PBS documentary The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo, which premiered March 23. The documentary incorporates an extensive number of images from the CSRC’s La Raza Photograph Collection.

Los Angeles Times, March 21, 2018 (PDF)

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

EVENTS

Panel: “Pre-Latinx Art: The Veterano Avant Gardes”
Wednesday, May 2, 6:00–9:00 p.m.
The New School, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, Room I-202, New York, NY 10011

CSRC director Chon A. Noriega will participate in this panel, which will discuss the important avant-garde contributions of Latina/o artists working in the 1970s and 1980s. Panelists will explore the lives of artists who immigrated to New York for political reasons or to study or establish an artistic career. Other speakers are scholars Yasmin Ramirez and Deborah Cullen and artists Freddy Rodríguez and Perla de Leon. This event is part of the Charlas: Latinx Art and Artists: New York Edition series sponsored by El Museo del Barrio in collaboration with The New School.

Screening: La Gran Promesa
Wednesday, May 2, 7:45–9:15 p.m.
The Triangle, 1870 Harbor Blvd., Costa Mesa, CA 92627

La Gran Promesa will be the “Mexican Spotlight” presentation at this year’s Newport Beach Film Festival. The film, which was directed, produced, and co-written by Jorge Ramirez-Suarez, will screen at The Triangle. A post-screening celebration at Time Nightclub will include a special performance by the Grammy-Award winning Mariachi Divas, culinary tastings by Orange County restaurants, and a hosted bar. For tickets and more information go to https://newportbeachfilmfest.com/event/the-grand-promise/. Use promo code MEXICANFIVE to get $5 off. This event is co-sponsored by the CSRC.

Poetry Reading: Melissa Castillo-Garsow presents Coatlicue Eats the Apple
Thursday, May 3, 4:00–5:30 p.m.
CSRC Library—144 Haines Hall

Melissa Castillo-Garsow will perform a reading from her first volume of poetry, Coatlicue Eats the Apple (VerseSeven, 2016). Castillo-Garsow is an East Harlem–based Mexican American writer, poet, and scholar. She holds a PhD in American studies and African American studies from Yale University and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University. Her current book project, A Mexican State of Mind: New York City and the New Borderlands of Culture, examines the cultural productions of Mexican migrants in New York City. This event is organized by the UCLA Department of Spanish and Portuguese and is co-sponsored by the CSRC.

“Borders and Immigration: Then and Now—A Roundtable”
Thursday, May 17, 3:00–5:00 p.m.
CSRC Library—144 Haines Hall

This panel will examine policies, legacies, and discourses related to borders and immigration, considering them in historical as well as current US contexts. Panelists will discuss the criminalization of unsanctioned action and consider prevailing discourses in terms of gender, sexuality, and medicine. The panelists are Francisco J. Galarte, assistant professor of gender and women's studies at University of Arizona; Armando García, assistant professor of English at University of California, Riverside; Bernadine Hernández, assistant professor of American literary studies at University of New Mexico and 2017-18 UCLA Institute of American Cultures Visiting Scholar at the CSRC; Chris Perreira, assistant professor of American studies and Latina/o studies at the University of Kansas and 2017-18 UCLA CSRC Ford Postdoctoral Fellow; and Yosimar Reyes, poet, educator, performance artist. This event is organized by the CSRC and co-sponsored by the UCLA Institute of American Cultures, the UCLA Latin American Institute, the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, the César E. Chávez Department for Chicana and Chicano Studies, and the Department of English. A reception will follow the discussion.

Symposium: “Commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the 1993 Sit-in and Hunger Strike for Chicana/o Studies” 
Friday, May 25, 1:00–6:00 p.m.
UCLA Faculty Center, California Room

On May 25, the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies will commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the student actions that led to the establishment of the César E. Chávez Center for Interdisciplinary Instruction in Chicana and Chicano Studies. María Lara, Ryan Yokota, Max Espinoza, Blanca Gordo, Christine Soto DeBerry, and Mario Valenzuela, who were leaders of the 1993 protests, will reflect on their activism and offer their perspectives on the early years of the department. Virginia Espino, adjunct faculty in Chicana/o studies, will serve as moderator, and José M. Aguilar-Hernández, visiting assistant professor of Chicana/o studies, will give the keynote address. For more information, contact jaguilar@ucla.edu. This event is co-sponsored by 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.

CSRC LIBRARY

Vélez-Ibañez receives award

On April 27, the first national Saber es Poder–IME Award was presented to Carlos G. Vélez-Ibañez, UC Regents’ Professor, founding director emeritus of the School of Transborder Studies, and Presidential Motorola Professor of Neighborhood Revitalization in the School of Transborder Studies and the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. The award recognizes academic excellence in Mexican American Studies. The CSRC holds Vélez-Ibañez’s research collection on the forced sterilization of Latino women in the United States. It is one of the most frequently used CSRC collections. Among those who have consulted the collection are filmmakers and UCLA professors Renee Tajima-Peña and Virginia Espino, who utilized it to produce the award-winning documentary No Más Bebés (2016). The finding aid is available on the Online Archive of California.

Walkouts exhibition to close in May, travel to VPAM in June
The CSRC library exhibition The 1968 Walkouts: Selections from UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Collections will close May 11 in order to open June 2 at the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College. The show, which features photographs, newspapers, and ephemera pertaining to the historic Eastside student walkouts of 1968, draws from six CSRC archival collections. The show was curated by Carlos Manuel Haro and Bryant Partida, with assistance from Oscar Castillo and Johnny Ramirez, and it received support from the Tamar Diana Wilson Fund and Carlos M. Haro Scholarship Fund. For more information, click here. The presentation at VPAM is part of an ongoing partnership between the CSRC and VPAM to exchange resources and exhibitions to benefit students and the broader Latino community.
 
La Raza collection inspires public art series

Deborah Aschheim’s “Time Travel” series celebrates fifty years of student activism in Pasadena and Eastside Los Angeles schools. Funded by a grant from the Pasadena Arts and Culture Commission, Aschheim worked with the CSRC to translate images from the CSRC’s La Raza Photograph Collection into pen and ink and watercolor drawings that have now been reproduced on Pasadena transit stop posters and interior bus placards. The series includes similar works based on photographs from Pasadena high school yearbooks. As part of her project, Aschheim interviewed more than thirty people who participated in the Eastside walkouts or student actions in Pasadena during the late 1960s and early 1970s.  A discussion including the artist, activists from the 1968 student movement, and a new generation of politically engaged high school students will take place at the Pasadena Central Library (285 E Walnut St.) on Thursday, May 3, 6:00–8:00 p.m. This program is free. For more information, send an email to info@deborahaschheim.com.

Collection materials on view at Boyle Heights Museum

On April 8, the exhibition Student Power: Walking Out for Justice opened at the Boyle Heights Museum in the CASA 0101 Theater. The exhibition, which runs through June 8, features images from the La Raza Photograph Collection and the Chicano Newspaper Collection. An interactive online version of the exhibition is available on the museum’s website.

Farmersville Film Project celebrates fiftieth anniversary

In 1967, the National Film Board of Canada embarked on a groundbreaking project on Fogo Island, Newfoundland. Residents discussed the needs of their island communities in filmed interviews, then viewed the twenty-seven short films that were created from interview footage. The process allowed the residents to better understand the challenges faced by their fellow islanders. In 1968, the “Fogo Process” was exported to Farmersville, an agricultural community in Tulare County, California. White and Latino residents were interviewed, and the resultant films revealed the commonalities among the disparate populations. The CSRC Library is the repository for papers and film elements from the project, which were donated by cinematographer Baylis Glascock. The finding aid is available on the Online Archive of California, and several of the films can be viewed on CSRC YouTube. “Exporting Fogo: Participatory Filmmaking, War on Poverty, and the Politics of Visibility,” an article by Stephen Charbonneau published in The Journal of Cinema and Media (2014), discusses the project.

CSRC librarian presents at NACCS Conference

CSRC librarian Xaviera Flores presented the paper “Hear Me Roar: Documenting Lesbian Voices in Chicanx Archives” at the 45th National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Annual Meeting, which took place in Bloomington, Minnesota, April 4-7. This year’s conference theme was “The Queer Turn,” a reference to how critical work on gender and sexuality has shaped the Chicana/o/x studies field over the past thirty years. Flores’s presentation was included in a panel titled “Queering the Archive.” 

Flores provides instruction to Latinx music students

On April 18, Flores presented a lecture to students enrolled in CSM116: “Latinx Music in the U.S.” Roughly 128 undergraduates learned about the Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican American Recordings, how to do research within the CSRC Library and its archival collections, and how to find other online resources relevant to their research.

CSRC PRESS

Spring book sale!

All CSRC Press books and DVDs are now 50 percent off (tax and shipping additional) through June 15. This offer includes the PST: LA/LA exhibition catalogs Home—So Different, So Appealing and Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, as well as all titles in the award-winning A Ver: Revisioning Art History series and the Chicano Cinema and Media Art Series! To make your purchases, stop by 183 Haines Hall, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.–5:00 p.m., or contact Darling Sianez at support@chicano.ucla.edu or 310-825-3428. Browse all CSRC Press titles on our website. Please note: Subscriptions to Aztlán are not included in the sale. DVD sales do not apply to institutions.

OPPORTUNITIES

Call for Submissions: Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture

University of California Press will launch Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, a new quarterly online journal, in January 2019. This peer-reviewed journal is dedicated to publishing the most current international research on the visual cultures of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, as well as that created in diaspora. It aims to approach ancient, colonial, modern, and contemporary Latin American and Latinx visual cultures from a range of interdisciplinary methodologies and perspectives. Additionally, the journal seeks to inspire and advance dialogue and debate concerning pedagogical, methodological, and historiographical issues. The editor-in-chief is Charlene Villaseñor Black.

The journal is currently seeking submissions on all aspects of Latin American and Latinx culture expressed through and relating to the visual arts. This includes approaches from but not limited to art history, design, material culture, architecture, film and media, performance art, museum studies, pop culture, fashion, public art, and activism. A defining focus of the journal is its concentration of current scholarship on both Latin American and Latinx visual culture in a single publication. For more information, visit https://www.ucpress.edu/page.php?q=lavc.

Deadline: June 1, 2018