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CSRC Newsletter - October 2017

VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2

Director’s Message

We’re in the home stretch for the Los Angeles run of Home—So Different, So Appealing. On October 15 the CSRC-organized show closes at LACMA and heads to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), where it opens on November 17. Check out this first-of-its-kind exhibition, which has already drawn some 120,000 visitors. This collection of works by U.S. Latino and Latin American artists rewrites the history of contemporary art while presenting incisive and visually arresting perspectives on both home and homelessness. Among the ninety-seven works exhibited are:

• A cross section of a house built in Bogotá during the 1880s, as the Republic of Colombia was forming.  
• A living room made of words.  
• A worn and stained 720-square-foot carpet from the L.A. apartment in which the artist and her family lived. 
• An eleven-foot-tall painting made in 1963 from trash collected in shantytowns in Buenos Aires.  
• A twelve-foot-tall sculpture constructed from the personal belongings of the first DACA-status youth to be deported, an event that occurred this past February (the belongings were loaned by his mother). 
• Two eleven-sided wheels, each fifteen feet tall, which reveal how gated communities in Orange County served as the model for Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
• A string of lights and the letter “C,” each revealing how minimalist art can speak to segregated public housing, exile and migration, race and ethnicity, and LGBTIQ identity.  
 

Home is everyday, personal, and private. But as we have seen in recent months, home is also extremely political, as punitive immigration policies, selective travel bans, and delayed response time to disasters target some homes and not others.

Our thoughts and support are with everyone affected by the recent hurricanes in Puerto Rico, Florida, and Texas, and the earthquake in Mexico, including a number of artists in the exhibition. We are grateful to all the artists in Home—So Different, So Appealing for their critical vision of how “home” is not an in-group phenomenon but rather something that is made in deep, and sometimes troubling, dialogue with the rest of the world. 

Chon A. Noriega
Director and Professor

News

Latino policy think tank established
This summer the Luskin School of Public Affairs announced the launch of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative (LPPI). The CSRC is a partner in this campus-wide effort. The initiative, which will address political, social, and economic issues faced by California’s diverse population, will be led by UCLA faculty Matt Barreto and Sonja Diaz and Luskin School dean Gary Segura. Segura and Barreto previously worked with the CSRC in partnership with the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) on research projects examining media stereotypes of Latinos and their impact on public opinion. Barreto is a member of the CSRC Faculty Advisory Committee. On August 4, UCLA Newsroom ran a story about the initiative. (PDF)

Gunckel text inspires screening series
As part of the Getty-funded arts initiative Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, the UCLA Film and Television Archive is bringing Spanish-language cinema to various theaters throughout Los Angeles. A September 21 story in the Daily Bruin reported that a book by Colin Gunckel, Mexico on Main Street, served as a starting point for the series. Gunckel, former CSRC arts project coordinator and ongoing collaborator, is assistant professor of screen arts and cultures, American culture, and Latina/o studies at the University of Michigan. The film series runs through December 10. For more information, visit: https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/latinamericanfilm. (PDF)

La Raza events
The exhibition La Raza opened September 16 at the Autry Museum of the American West. The show features a selection of over 200 images from the La Raza Photograph Collection, which is currently being digitized at the CSRC. Two events to complement the exhibition will take place October 15: “Morning at the Museum: La Raza,” a members-only event featuring a curator-led tour of the exhibition, and “Seminar: Photographers of La Raza,” a panel discussion featuring photographers Devra Weber, Raul Ruiz, and Joe Razo. The seminar is free to the public with museum admission. For more media coverage of the exhibition, see In the News below.

Laura Aguilar signing event
The exhibition Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell opened at the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College on September 16. This is the first retrospective of the Chicana photographer’s work, and most of the selections on display are courtesy of the artist and the CSRC. On October 7, Aguilar will participate in a panel discussion and book signing with exhibition curator Sybil Venegas, CSRC director Chon A. Noriega, and catalog contributor Amelia Jones, who is Robert A. Day professor in art and design and vice dean of critical studies at the USC Roski School of Art and Design. The catalog, which was published by CSRC Press and VPAM, will be available for purchase at this event, which will be held at the museum and is free and open to the public. For more information, visit http://vincentpriceartmuseum.org/showandtell-paneldiscussion-booksigning.html. For more media coverage of the exhibition, see In the News below.

Black to give keynote at PST: LA/LA symposium
Charlene Villaseñor Black, CSRC associate director and professor of art history and Chicana/o studies, will deliver the keynote address at the symposium “Teaching and Writing the Art Histories of Latin American Los Angeles” on October 6 at the Getty Center. Black will discuss institutional challenges as they relate to the symposium’s theme. The symposium, which includes seven scholars from different universities, will consider the abundance of new knowledge generated by the Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibitions and its impact on curricula, pedagogy, and future scholarship. The event is free to the public; advance tickets are required. The event is organized by the Art Historians of Southern California and the Getty Research Institute and is offered in conjunction with the Getty's PST: LA/LA initiative.

Black to present opening lecture in SMC series
On October 3, Charlene Villaseñor Black will give the first lecture in a series at Santa Monica College that features distinguished artists and art experts. In her talk, “Sor Juana and the Dangers of Intellectual Desire,” Black will discuss a portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the seventeenth-century Mexican mystic poet, in relation to portrayals of contemporary Chicanas. Black will explore the question of whether the tools of Chicanx studies can decolonize art history. The series, which is sponsored by SMC Associates, was profiled in a story September 27 in the Santa Monica Lookout (PDF). Black is CSRC associate director and professor of art history and Chicana/o studies at UCLA.

Osorio named to New York City Mayoral Advisory Commission
New York artist Pepón Osorio has been named to Bill de Blasio’s Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments and Markers. Osorio is one of the artists featured in Home—So Different, So Appealing, the CSRC-organized exhibition now at LACMA, and he is also the subject of a monograph in the A Ver series published by the CSRC Press. (PDF)

CSRC participates in welcome event for new students
On September 26, the CSRC joined the three other ethnic studies research centers as well as the UCLA Labor Center, academic departments, and affiliated student groups at the first welcome event for new undergraduate and graduate students interested in ethnic and indigenous studies. Over 100 students and faculty participated in the fair, which took place at Sunset Village Plaza. The event was co-sponsored by the Institute of American Cultures, which houses the CSRC.  

New CSRC visiting scholars and researchers
The CSRC welcomes the following scholars-in-residence for 2017-18:

  • Carlos M. Haro, PhD
    Haro, assistant director emeritus of the CSRC, will continue his multiyear research project into Chicano education, oral histories, and comparative and international education. He is the lead organizer of CSRC events commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the 1968 walkouts, which will take place in March 2018, and he will assist with the preservation of the Sal Castro Collection at the CSRC.

  • Bernadine Hernández, PhD
    Hernández is this year’s CSRC IAC visiting researcher. She received her PhD from the University of California, San Diego, and is currently an assistant professor of English language and literature at the University of New Mexico. This year, Hernández will work on adapting her dissertation “Sexing Empire: Producing Nationhood, Sexual Economies, and Racialized Gender and Sexuality in the Nineteenth-Century Literary Borderlands and Archive” into a book manuscript. Using CSRC collections, she will also research an archive-based, article-length study on sexual violence, abuse, and dominance in the lives of farm workers.

  • Celia Lacayo, PhD
    Lacayo holds a doctorate in ethnic studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on race and ethnicity, immigration, and media, with an emphasis on white attitudes toward Latinos and their policy preferences and the role of media stereotypes to understand contemporary race relations and stratification. She has published on Latino segregation and white ideologies about Latinos. Current research examines comparative racial frameworks in the United States and the United Kingdom in the context of Brexit and the Trump presidency. This year she plans to study Latino racial socialization and civic participation.

  • Chris Perreira, PhD
    Perreira is a Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellow. He is assistant professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Kansas. He holds a doctorate in literature from the University of California, San Diego. His current research looks at the figure of the “prisoner-patient” in literature and culture and in nineteenth- and twentieth-century archives, specifically those concerning incarceration and medicine in Hawaii, Louisiana, California, and Mexico.

  • Jonathan Yahalom, PhD
    Yahalom holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from Duquesne University. He will spend his year at the CSRC working on a manuscript based on his dissertation, “Caring for the Clouds: The Problem of Alzheimer’s in Oaxaca, Mexico,” which examines issues pertaining to aging and dementia in Latin America. Yahalom analyzes how Alzheimer’s disease is locally understood, its methods of detection, the strategies that are used to respond to it, and how the caregiver’s experience embodies a new form of social suffering.

Huber receives tenure
The CSRC congratulates Lindsay Pérez Huber on her receipt of tenure. Huber is associate professor of social and cultural analysis of education in the College of Education at California State University, Long Beach. She has been affiliated with the CSRC since 2004, when she was a first-year graduate student in education and was a work-study student at the CSRC. Huber became a key participant in the CSRC’s Latina/o Education Project over its ten-year run from 2006 to 2016. She is now one of twenty tenured professors at CSU Long Beach.

CSRC in the News

“Restaurants that Ban NFL Games Amid Anthem Protest Should Take a Deeper Look at Their Own Business”
Generations of Exclusion: Mexican Americans, Assimilation, and Race, by Vilma Ortiz, UCLA professor of sociology and CSRC Faculty Advisory Committee chair, and Edward E. Telles, professor of sociology at UC Santa Barbara, was cited in an op-ed concerning restaurants that have refused to broadcast NFL games due to players’ refusal to kneel during the national anthem. The research project that led to the publication was conducted at the CSRC.  
Laredo Morning Times, September 26, 2017 (PDF)

“A Head-Spinning, Hope-Inspiring Showcase of Art”
In a review of PST: LA/LA, The New York Times mentioned CSRC director Chon A. Noriega and the extensive efforts of the CSRC, and he called Home—So Different, So Appealing "one of the stronger shows" in the initiative. In addition, the review described La Raza as "a vivid, tip-of-the-iceberg survey of photographs from the Mexican-American newspaper-turned-magazine" and drew attention to several shows that received loans from the CSRC, including Laura Aguilar, Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A., and The U.S.-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility. The review includes illustrations of several artworks in Home—So Different, So Appealing.
The New York Times, September 22, 2017 (PDF) (print edition PDF)
Also mentioned in UCLA In the News, September 21, 2017 (PDF)

“Pacific Standard Time LA/LA: 1,100 Artists from 45 Countries”
The CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing was mentioned in The Economist as part of the Getty-funded arts initiative Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA. The article states that Home sets the overarching theme of “home” for the initiative.
The Economist, September 21, 2017 (PDF)

“Photos—50th Anniversary of the Publication La Raza”
Press Telegram mentioned the CSRC for their partnership with the Autry Museum of the American West in producing the exhibition La Raza. September 13 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the publication La Raza.
Press Telegram, September 21, 2017 (PDF)

“Autry Museum Photo Exhibition Highlights Mexican-American Community”
The Daily Bruin featured a piece on the exhibition La Raza, co-produced by the CSRC and the Autry Museum of the American West. CSRC director Chon A. Noriega was quoted about the show’s relevance in light of contested civil and human rights for Latinos in the United States.
Daily Bruin, September 21, 2017 (PDF)

“Eye on Injustice”
UCLA Magazine profiled the La Raza Collection at the CSRC. The CSRC is digitizing over 25,000 photographs for preservation, exhibition, and research. Selected images from the collection are on display at the La Raza exhibition at the Autry Museum of the American West. The exhibition runs through February 10, 2019.
UCLA Magazine, September 20, 2017 (PDF) (print edition PDF)

“With Trump’s DACA Reversal, an Art Movement Rises: How Two Works Have Acquired New Significance”
Home artist Camilo Ontiveros was featured in an article discussing his sculpture Temporary Storage: The Belongings of Juan Manuel Montes, which was constructed from the belongings of the first person with DACA status to be deported by the Trump Administration. This work is on display at LACMA in the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing, on view through October 15.
Los Angeles Times, September 20, 2017 (PDF)

“¡Murales Rebeldes! Bares the Plight of L.A.’s Murals”
KCET profiled Murales Rebeldes: L.A. Chicana/o Murals under Siege, an exhibition examining the reception of and struggle to preserve Chicano murals in Los Angeles. The CSRC is a lender to this Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibition. The Path to Knowledge and the False University by Roberto Chavez is reproduced in the article from an image supplied by the CSRC.
KCET, September 20, 2017 (PDF)

“See How Bilingual Newspaper La Raza Shaped Chicano History 40 Years Ago”
The CSRC was mentioned in an article about the La Raza exhibition, now on view at the Autry Museum of American West. The exhibition features prints from a collection of 25,000 images that were taken by La Raza photographers and are being digitized by the CSRC.
Press Telegram, September 20, 2017 (PDF)

“PST: LA/LA - It’s About Time”
In this preview of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibitions, La Raza was one of the highlighted shows. The CSRC co-produced La Raza and is a lender to Murales Rebeldes: L.A. Chicana/o Murals under Siege, another Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibition mentioned in the piece.
Paint This Desert, September 18, 2017 (PDF)

“‘La Raza’ Exhibit at Autry Shows 60’s Equal Rights Issues Still Relevant”
This review of the exhibition La Raza, co-produced by the CSRC, discusses the show’s relevance in today’s political climate.
Guardian Liberty Voice, September 17, 2017 (PDF)

“What to See at Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA”
The Art Newspaper profiled Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA and highlighted a few of the exhibitions, including La Raza, which the CSRC co-produced with the Autry Museum of the American West. A photograph of LAPD officers at a demonstration at the Los Angeles Civic Center (ca. 1970), by Raul Ruiz, is featured in the article; the image was supplied by the CSRC.
The Art Newspaper, September 16, 2017 (PDF)

“From the Mundane to the Magnificent: Photos from the Chicano Rights Movement”
NPR featured a review of La Raza exhibition, currently at the Autry Museum of the American West. The photographs in the exhibition were selected from an archive of over 25,000 images being digitized at the CSRC. The CSRC partnered with the Autry to produce the exhibition.
NPR, September 16, 2017 (PDF)

“Queer Chicano Art Is as Timeless as It Is Vital”
The exhibition Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A., now on view at ONE Gallery and the MOCA Pacific Design Center, was featured in an article in Vice about queer Chicano art. Ondine Chavoya, professor of art at Williams College and co-curator of the exhibition, is a former CSRC visiting scholar. The CSRC lent materials to this exhibition, including works by Laura Aguilar and selections from the Cyclona Collection.
Vice, September 15, 2017 (PDF)

“Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA Review: Mirror of a Kaleidoscope Culture”
The Wall Street Journal surveyed Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA and mentioned the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing as “essential on anybody’s PST list.”
Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2017 (PDF)

“How Artist Camilo Ontiveros Acquired the Belongings of a DACA Deportee and What He Did with Them”
Home artist Camilo Ontiveros discussed his sculpture Temporary Storage: The Belongings of Juan Manuel Montes in a profile in the Los Angeles Times. The artwork draws attention to those affected by the repeal of DACA. The work is on display at LACMA through October 15 in the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing.
Los Angeles Times, September 15, 2017 (PDF)

“From Getty Intern to PST: LA/LA Professional”
Emily Butts, curatorial assistant for Home—So Different, So Appealing, was interviewed for The Iris, a Getty blog. Butts made her curatorial debut with Selections from Star Montana: Tear Drops & Three Dots at the CSRC in fall 2016. A video of Butts in conversation with Montana can be found here.
The Iris, September 15, 2017 (PDF)

“Harry Gamboa Jr.’s Portrait Series Expands the Meaning of ‘Chicano’”
CSRC director Chon A. Noriega was quoted in a piece discussing Chicano Male Unbonded, an exhibition of photographic portraits by Harry Gamboa Jr. Through these works, Gamboa challenges stereotypes of Mexican American men. The show is on display at the Autry Museum of the American West through August 5, 2018.
KCET, September 14, 2017 (PDF)

“Making Chicano Life Visible”
The CSRC was mentioned in The New York Times in a preview of La Raza at the Autry Museum of the American West. Selected images from the CSRC’s collection of digitized La Raza photographs are on display in the exhibition.
The New York Times, September 14, 2017 (PDF)

“Four Latinx Artists on Inspiration, Creation and Identity, in Their Own Words”
Artist Laura Aguilar was featured in an interview of several Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA artists whose art is inspired by their identity. Aguilar’s first retrospective, Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, is on display at the Vincent Price Art Museum. The CSRC Press recently published the exhibition catalog.
LA Weekly, September 12, 2017 (PDF)

“What We Talk About When We Talk About L.A.”
Home—So Different, So Appealing was mentioned in Art News for its use of the concept of “home” as its organizing principle.
Art News, September 5, 2017 (PDF) (print edition PDF)

“A Chicana/o Manifesto on Community Organizing: Reflections of a Scholar-Activist”
Former CSRC visiting scholar Alvaro Huerta wrote an opinion piece on community organizing as both practice and theory. The CSRC was mentioned in the article for hosting the symposium “Organizing Latino Immigrants in the Informal Economy: The Successful Case of the Association of Latino American Gardeners of Los Angeles” in 2015. 
LA Progressive, August 16, 2017 (PDF)

“What We’re Reading: Jeff Abbott’s Twisted Amnesia Thriller”
In a San Antonio Express-News piece discussing recent book releases, the CSRC is mentioned for its Latina/o sci-fi anthology Altermundos: Latin@ Speculative Literature, Film, and Popular Culture, published by CSRC Press. 
San Antonio Express-News, August 2, 2017 (PDF)

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

Events

Exhibition: Weaving Generations Together: Evolving Creativity in the Maya of Chiapas
October 2–December 15
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 5, 4:00–6:30 p.m.
Main and East Rotundas, Powell Library, UCLA
This exhibition of Zinacantec Maya textiles from Chiapas, Mexico, focuses on how weaving designs have evolved as the region has transitioned from the subsistence agriculture practiced by the ancient Maya to the currency-based commerce of today. This economic change has had a continuing influence on the design of textiles woven on the traditional backstrap loom. Over the centuries, textile design has transitioned from simple woven and embroidered textiles that tied the community together through virtually identical designs to novel, elaborate clothing designs that celebrate an individual weaver’s creativity. The exhibition also examines the transmission of weaving from one generation to the next and shows how this learning process has been transformed under new economic conditions. Curated by Patricia Greenfield, distinguished professor of psychology at UCLA, and Kathryn Klein, curator of ethnology at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico. Co-sponsored by the CSRC.

LGBTQ Welcome Home Resource Fair
Friday, October 6, 12:00–2:00 p.m.
James West Alumni Center
The Welcome Home Resource Fair is the opening event for National Coming Out Week! at UCLA. More than forty LGBTQ student groups and community organizations will offer information about work, internship, and involvement opportunities on and off campus. All members of the UCLA family are welcome! For more information contact Kevin Medina: kmedina@lgbt.ucla.edu. The CSRC is a co-sponsor of this event.

Talk: Salomón Huerta in conversation with Rose G. Salseda
Wednesday, October 11, 12:00 p.m. –1:30 p.m.
CSRC Library—144 Haines Hall
Critically acclaimed Los Angeles–based artist Salomón Huerta will join Rose G. Salseda, Ford fellow and art historian, in a discussion about art and identity.. Huerta grew up in the Ramona Gardens public housing project in Boyle Heights and holds degrees from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena (BFA) and UCLA (MFA). His work has been exhibited at the Whitney Biennial 2000, Gagosian Gallery, and Studio La Città, and two of his paintings are included in the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing, at LACMA through October 15, 2017. Salseda is the associate director of the U.S. Latinx Art Forum, an advocacy organization dedicated to expanding and enhancing the visibility of Latinx art. A PhD candidate at the University of Texas, Austin, her dissertation, “The Visual Art Legacy of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots,” focuses on two generations of artists whose work is a response to racial violence. This event is co-sponsored by the U.S. Latinx Art Forum.

CSRC Annual Open House
Thursday, October 12, 4:00–7:00 p.m.
CSRC Library—144 Haines Hall
Save the date! The 2017 CSRC Annual Open House will feature a special performance by Alina and Ela Troyano. Catering by Casablanca. Stay tuned for more details. 

Book Talk and Signing: "City of Inmates" with Kelly Lytle Hernández
Tuesday, October 24, 4:00–6:00 p.m.
UCLA Ackerman Student Union, Bruin Viewpoint Room
Kelly Lytle Hernández’s City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965 explains how the City of Angels became the city that imprisons more people than any other city in the United States, which imprisons more people than any other country in the world. Hernández, who the interim director of the Bunche Center, documents the historical bond between racial fantasies of conquest and the eliminatory capacities of incarceration through an exploration of histories of native elimination, immigrant exclusion, and black disappearance. RSVP requested: http://cityofinmates-iac.eventbrite.com. The CSRC is a co-sponsor of this event.

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

New library staff
In August, the CSRC welcomed Doug Johnson and Naiela Santana as CSRC library staff. Johnson, who is the CSRC’s archives specialist, previously worked at UCLA Library Special Collections and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library. He holds a PhD in film studies from the University of Iowa. Santana is a member of the La Raza project staff, assisting with securing metadata for the La Raza Photograph Collection and compiling geolocation data for mural images in the collection. As the CSRC’s Getty Multicultural Undergraduate Internship Program intern last summer, she completed two online exhibitions of CSRC collections that are viewable on the Google Arts & Culture website. Santana received her BA in art with a concentration in art history from San Francisco State University.

New donations
The CSRC Library received three new archival donations this summer. Lionel Biron, a San Francisco–based artist involved in the queer art scene in the 1970s, has donated “mail art/male art” from Gronk, Cyclona, and other LGBTQ Latina/o artists. Cynthia E. Orozco is a professor of history and humanities at Eastern New Mexico University, Ruidoso; she is also a Bruin and the former head of the “Women’s Unit” at the CSRC in the 1980s. Orozco has donated materials related to MEChA de UCLA in the 1980s, as well as newspaper clippings of events involving Chicanos in and around Los Angeles during that period.

Updates to finding aids
New professional standards have been established for archival collection finding aids. The CSRC is updating all finding aids to meet these new standards, which will increase the usefulness of the finding aids to researchers. The following collection aids have been updated so far: Gronk Papers, Gil Cuadros Collection, Ester Hernandez Papers, Oscar Castillo Papers, Luis Meza Papers, Francesco X. Siqueiros Papers, and Ron Lopez Papers.

Summer tours at the CSRC
CSRC librarian Xaviera Flores gave tours of the library throughout the summer to a number of incoming and prospective students. These included this year’s cohort of forty transfer students from East Los Angeles College, seven students from the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Summer Fellowship Program at UCLA, and seven incoming students and eighteen first-time teaching assistants in the graduate program at the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies.

CSRC loans to Boyle Heights Museum
The Boyle Heights Museum, located at 2102 E. First Street, opened its doors October 1 with the exhibition Aquí Estamos y No Nos Vamos: Fighting Mexican Removal since the 1930s. The CSRC lent images from the Pedro J. Gonzalez Papers to this exhibition, which will be on view through December 1. For more information, visit: https://www.boyleheightsmuseum.org/.

CSRC loans films to PST: LA/LA series
On September 23, Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) in partnership with Los Angeles Filmforum, presented “A Cinema of Passion: Films and Videos by Willie Varela” as part of the PST: LA/LA film series “Ismo, Ismo, Ismo: Cine Experimental en América Latina (Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America).”  The CSRC lent some of the filmmaker’s original video and super-8mm films for the event, including Becky’s Eye (1977), The Last Look (1981), Recuerdos de flores muertas (1982), In Progress (1985), The Extraordinary Day (2003), and This Burning World (2002). Varela is a Chicano filmmaker based in El Paso, Texas, and he was present for a Q&A at the event. These works and others have been compiled on the DVD Video Art by Willie Varela, volume 9 in the Chicano Cinema and Media Art series from CSRC Press.

CSRC partners with MABA for oral history project
This summer, Denisse Gastélum, president-elect of the Mexican American Bar Association (MABA), approached the CSRC to partner on a project to conduct oral histories with past presidents of MABA, which was established in 1959. CSRC librarian Xaviera Flores and MABA summer intern Charles Santoro launched the project by interviewing Alan Diamante, Los Angeles-based immigration lawyer and 2005 MABA president, and Carlos Moreno, former California Supreme Court justice and 1982 MABA president. These oral histories are currently being transcribed. Flores will work with Gastélum to continue the project, which is still in its pilot phase. The oral histories will be archived as part of the MABA Collection at the CSRC.

Ortiz exhibition continues
Raphael Montañez Ortiz: Shred Your Worries and Other Destructions highlights three works that the multimedia artist created for the LA Art Show in January 2017: Shred Your Worries, Couch Destruction: Angel Release (Pennies from Heaven), and Piano Destruction Ritual: Cowboy and Indian, Part Two. The exhibition also displays key documents from throughout the artist’s career, from his “Destructivism Second Manifesto,” written for the Destruction in Art Symposium in London in 1966 to “digital experiments” conducted in the early 2000s. This exhibition highlights the Raphael Montañez Ortiz Papers at the CSRC Library, an extensive collection spanning eight decades that includes audiovisual materials, correspondence, ephemera, exhibition documentation, manuscripts, performance scripts, personal papers, photographs, printed materials, and academic publications. Curated by CSRC librarian and archivist Xaviera Flores, the exhibition will be on display through December in the CSRC Library and hallway vitrines. It is viewable during regular library hours, Monday-Friday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Ortiz, recipient of the UCLA Medal, is also a featured artist in the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing, on view at LACMA through October 15.

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

CSRC Press

New issue of Aztlán
The fall 2017 issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies features essays on Latino group consciousness among second- and higher-generation Mexican Americans; the use photovoice (a photography-based participatory methodology) with the children of migrant farmworkers to analyze psychological distress; how the perception and treatment of teenage Latinas in the non-gateway state of Wyoming affects identity formation; and the queering of chisme in Josefina López’s Real Women Have Curves.

The timely dossier section, curated by Matt Barreto, professor of political science and Chicana/o studies at UCLA and the co-founder of the research and polling firm Latino Decisions, investigates the role of Latinos in the 2016 presidential election and draws conclusions that are frequently much different from the analyses that pervaded media reports.

In the editor’s commentary, Charlene Villaseñor Black discusses the work of New Mexican artist Juan Tilapia. The featured artist in this issue is Sandy Rodriguez, whose work calls attention to social and cultural transformation and regeneration.

Subscribers receive two print issues a year and have online access to every issue published. Online-only subscriptions are also available. For information, visit the Aztlán webpage: http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/publications/purchase-and-subscribe