CSRC Newsletter - October 2013

When I started a PhD program at Stanford University in 1987 I quickly learned that José Montoya had visited the campus eight years earlier, flying there from Sacramento in an adobe airplane of the Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF). His 1979 presentation at Stanford, "Thoughts on la Cultura, the Media, Con Safos, and Survival," which was published in Caracol later that year, became one of the major manifestoes of the Chicano movement, notable for its attention to both the arts and the role of mass media. This manifesto guided me in my own research on Chicano cinema, and when I turned my attention to the arts more broadly, José provided not just a model but also invaluable encouragement for me to develop my own voice. Last week the RCAF adobe airplane left Sacramento for one last flight, returning José Montoya to his native New Mexico mountains. We mourn José’s passing and we celebrate his life and everything he gave the world. Like many, I am at a loss for words, and so I turn to José for words to live by.  

 

Excerpt from José Montoya, “The Anatomy of an RCAF Poster” (2001):

 

Can cyberspace replace duct tape and staple guns for getting the word out to all parts of the barrios and to the labor camps? Have museum walls and gallery walls replaced the walls of the barrios? . . . Personally, regarding young Chicana and Chicano artists, I feel carinosamente, very reassured by what I see as I travel around the country. They definitely have a huge respect for the poster and they utilize it very effectively to air their opinions. And they continue to hone their skills, prompted, no doubt, by the political climate in this country. Recent legal actions directly affecting Raza in general and youth in particular have politicized them in a way very reminiscent of the old Chicano movement. It is precisely that strong reaffirmation and a commitment to change that makes me hopeful. . . . They also know enough Aztec high tech to understand that cyberspace doesn’t always get out to the labor camps or to certain parts of the barrio. But a poster does.

 

Full versions of these two essays and Montoya’s “Chicano Art: Resistance in Isolation: "Aquí Estamos y No Nos Vamos” are available here.

 

 

 

The Arhoolie Foundation's Strachwitz Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican American Recordings has won Best Discography in the category of Best Research in Folk, World, or Ethnic Music in the 2013 Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. Inaugurated in 1991, the ARSC awards are presented to authors and publishers of books, articles, liner notes, and monographs to recognize outstanding published research in the field of recorded sound. The 2013 Awards for Excellence honor works published in 2012. For more information, visit the ARSC website.

 

The CSRC Library is pleased to be a lender to the exhibition Asco: No Movies opening this month at the Nottingham Contemporary art center in Nottingham, England. The opening reception is October 12; the exhibition runs through January 5, 2014. Artist, educator, and Asco member Harry Gamboa Jr. will give a gallery talk on October 15 that will be broadcasted live online. CSRC director Chon A. Noriega will give a keynote address at a related conference at the center on November 14–15. For more information about the exhibition and its related public programming, visit the Nottingham Contemporary website.

 

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum opens October 25 and runs through March 2, 2014. Twenty-five of the seventy-two artists and artists’ groups featured in the exhibition have been or will soon be the focus of, or have contributed to, CSRC publications, exhibitions, and/or special collections. These include Carlos Almaraz, Asco, Margarita Cabrera, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Melesio “Mel” Casas, Oscar Castillo, Roberto Chavez, Carmen Lomas Garza, Ken Gonzales-Day, Gronk, Ester Hernández, Judithe Hernández, Carmen Herrera, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Delilah Montoya, Malaquias Montoya, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Pepón Osorio, Freddy Rodríguez, Frank Romero, John M. Valadez, and Alberto Valdés. For more information and to see a slideshow of selected works, visit the museum’s website.

 

L.A. Xicano co-curators Chon A. Noriega and Terezita Romo have co-authored a program note for an upcoming exhibition of works by figurative abstract painter Alberto Valdés. The exhibition will be on view October 4–18, 2013, at the Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Valdés was featured in the L.A. Xicano exhibition Art Along the Hyphen: The Mexican-American Generation at the Autry National Center. For more information and to download the program, visit the gallery website.

 

 

Apuntes: A Latino Journal is a new, free digital journal that “promotes unity and celebrates diversity among Latinos.” The site, which officially launched in September, has posted three essays by CSRC director Chon A. Noriega on artists María Brito, Carmen Lomas Garza, and Gronk, the subjects of three volumes in the CSRC’s A Ver series.

“Gronk: Profile of a Multi-faceted Latino Artist,” September 13, 2013 (PDF)

“María Brito: Profile of Cuban-born Artist,” July 14, 2013 (PDF)

“Carmen Lomas Garza: Profile of a Chicana Artist,” July 8, 2013 (PDF)

 

CSRC associate director Alex Ortega was quoted in a story about the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest findings regarding “Hispanic” college enrollment.

The Daily Bruin, September 9, 2013 (PDF)

 

For his blog on the Huffington Post, CSRC director Chon A. Noriega discussed the recent death of the woman who inspired Jack Kerouac’s character “Terry, the Mexican Girl,” in On the Road and the monoculturalism of the famous Beat novel.

The Huffington Post, September 4, 2013 (PDF)

 

 

 

The CSRC’s eighth annual Latina/o Education Summit will take place Friday, October 4, 11:30 a.m.–6:30 p.m., at the UCLA Faculty Center. This year’s summit will address the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Fisher v. Texas and the national implications for Chicanos and Latinos and higher education. The summit is co-sponsored by the UCLA School of Law. Tickets are now sold out, but the event will be video recorded for future viewing on CSRC YouTube. A CSRC Research Report and Latino Policy and Issues Brief prepared for the summit will be downloadable from the CSRC website (see CSRC Press).

 

Alvaro Huerta, CSRC visiting scholar for 2011-12, has published a book based on the research he did while at the CSRC. Reframing the Latino Immigration Debate: Towards a Humanistic Paradigm (San Diego State University Press, 2013) consists of short nonfiction essays on issues connected to Latina/o immigration. The CSRC will host a book-signing event with Huerta on Wednesday, October 9, 3:00  ̵5:00 p.m., in the CSRC Library. Juan Gómez-Quiñones, UCLA professor of history and former CSRC director, provided the book’s foreword and will be a discussant at the event.

 

Join us in the CSRC Library on Thursday, October 10, 4:00  ̵5:30 p.m., when Hector Amaya, associate professor of media studies at University of Virginia, presents his new book, Citizenship Excess: Latino/as, Media, and the Nation (NYU Press, 2013). Specifically, Amaya will discuss the 2006 pro-immigration reform rallies, the media practices that gave life to these marches, and how the process of political capital accumulation affects minoritarian and majoritarian media systems.  

 

The CSRC invites you to its annual open house on Tuesday, October 15, 4:00-7:00 p.m. in the CSRC Library and on the patio. This year’s open house will serve as the official opening of Sal Castro: Legacy of a “Teacher,” an exhibition of items from the Sal Castro Collection recently donated to the CSRC. Castro, who passed away in April, was devoted to educational equity and opportunity for all students. His legacy lives on through the thousands of lives he influenced over four decades as a teacher and counselor in the Eastside schools of Los Angeles and through the Chicano Youth Leadership Conference. Two of Castro’s former students will speak: Myrna Brutti, a principal at Wilmington Middle School, and Robin Avelar La Salle, Ph.D., chief executive officer of the Principal’s Exchange Foundation, a non-profit educational organization. In addition, CSRC books will be for sale at a discount and Casablanca Catering will be serving food on the patio. Join us!

 

On Wednesday, October 23, 4:00  ̵7:00 p.m. at 306 Royce Hall, the CSRC will host a celebration honoring the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the novel City of Night by John Rechy. The event, subtitled “From the Street, to the Parade, to the Movements,” will feature a panel of distinguished guests discussing and celebrating Rechy as a Mexican American writer, a gay writer, and an L.A. writer. The panelists will be UCLA professor of Spanish and Portuguese Héctor Calderón, Los Angeles Times book critic David Ulin, musician and Doors member John Densmore, and the author himself. Seating is limited; arrive early to secure your seat. This event is co-sponsored by the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. The CSRC would like to thank Professor Calderón for his role as faculty organizer of this event.

 

 

 

The CSRC is pleased to add the Ralph Arriola Papers to its holdings. Arriola, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, is from the post­–World War II generation of early Mexican American activists. The collection contains his personal papers, including photographs, newspapers, and ephemera documenting the farmworker movement, educational reform, the Chicano Moratorium, political campaigns, labor activism, and other activities related to the Chicano Movement.

 

The CSRC participated in the Getty Multicultural Undergraduate Internship program this past summer. We welcomed Jessica Baden, who recently graduated from Loyola Marymount University, where she majored in history and Chicana/o studies. We have extended her appointment so that she may continue to work on organizing the CSRC’s digital assets and processing archival holdings, including the Romana Bañuelos Papers.

 

With the goal of bringing university-level education to marginalized urban populations, CSRC community partner Homeboy Industries is opening a library. Your suggestions, support, book donations, and financial contributions are welcomed and appreciated in this important endeavor. For more information, contact the CSRC librarian.

 

To learn more about these collections and projects please email your queries to the CSRC librarian, Lizette Guerra, at lguerra@chicano.ucla.edu.

 

 

In its ruling in Fisher v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld race-based affirmative action in university admissions in theory, but opened the door to future constitutional challenges. Richard Chao Romero, associate professor at the UCLA César E. Chávez Center for Chicana/o Studies, and doctoral student Marcia V. Fuentes evaluate the policy ramifications of the court’s decision for Latinos and higher education in two documents prepared for the CSRC’s Annual Education Summit. The United States Supreme Court’s Ruling in Fisher v. Texas: Implications for Latinos and Higher Education (CSRC Latino Issues and Policy Brief No. 28) focuses on the Supreme Court ruling and presents recommendations for next steps. Fisher v. Texas: A History of Affirmative Action and Policy Implications for Latinos and Higher Education (CSRC Research Report No. 17) analyzes the Fisher case within the broader context of affirmative action history. Both will be distributed at the summit, and they will also be available this month in PDF format on the CSRC’s website.