CSRC Fellows & Visiting Scholars 2009-2010

Carlos Manuel Haro, assistant director emeritus of the CSRC, has a BA, MA, and PhD from UCLA. His research interests include Chicano education and the history of Chicanos and the schools, oral history research, and comparative and international education. From 1983 through 2001 Dr. Haro served as the assistant to the director and then as assistant dean of UCLA’s International Studies and Overseas Programs. He also served as the program director of the CSRC from 1975 through 1983 and then as assistant director from 2002 through 2007. Dr. Haro is responsible for the CSRC’s annual Latina/o Education Summit series at UCLA, which assesses the critical issues facing Latina/os in the educational pipeline from kindergarten through graduate studies. The 2006 summit, “Falling through the Cracks: Critical Transitions in the Latina/o Educational Pipeline,” was organized by Dr. Haro and Professor Daniel Solorzano. The 2007 summit, “California Community College Students: Understanding the Latina/o Transfer Experience through All Segments of Postsecondary Education,” focused on the importance of the transfer process from community colleges to four-year institutions. “K-12 Education: What Can School Board Members and School Superintendents Do to Assure Student Success?”—the 2008 summit—explored the importance of governance and policy making. The 2009 summit, “Critical Issues for Immigrant and Undocumented Students in the Latina/o Education Pipeline,” focused on how policy and practices affect Latina/o students by looking at the obstacles that limit their opportunities and their access to education, the programs that serve them, and their academic success. Dr. Haro’s publications include Criticisms of Traditional Postsecondary School Admissions Criteria: A Search for Alternatives; Mexicano/Chicano Concerns and School Desegregation in Los Angeles; and The Bakke Decision: The Question of Chicano Access to Higher Education. He also co-authored Mendez v. Westminster: Paving the Way for School Desegregation and co-edited International Education in the New Global Era: Proceedings of a National Policy Conference on the Higher Education Act, Title VI, and Fulbright-Hays Programs.

 

Seraina Rohrer is PhD student at the Universität Zürich, Switzerland, where she participates in a national doctoral program in gender studies. She teaches courses in film studies and regularly curates film programs, and she is the recipient of a major grant from the university. She has lived and worked in the United States and Mexico and headed the press office of the Locarno International Film Festival. Ms. Rohrer is currently working on her dissertation on transnational cinema, which examines films made since the 1970s (including short videos on YouTube) in which the border plays a central role. Her research attempts to sketch out a border aesthetic and an iconography of these productions. She is also interested in how they circulate within the community in various formats (film, VHS, DVD, internet) and how they are consumed by spectators from within the community, resulting in these films being a reference from and for the community as a whole. Ms. Rohrer’s research at the CSRC will focus on considering the context and conditions of production, distribution, and spectatorship. 

 

Alvaro Huerta is a doctoral student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include immigrant workers and their social networks. At the CSRC, Mr. Alvaro is completing his dissertation, which focuses on the negative and positive aspects of social networks among immigrants, with a special emphasis on the informal labor market. He is examining immigrants’ strong ties (members within cohesive groups) and weak ties (members outside cohesive groups). The objective of his research is to better understand how marginalized immigrant workers, who lack human capital and financial resources, utilize their social networks to navigate this country’s informal economy. Mr. Alvaro has been a research associate at the UCLA Center for the Study of Urban Poverty and a community scholar at the UCLA Program in Urban Planning. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, the latest being a 2007–08 Chancellor’s Award for Public Service in the civic engagement–graduate student category. He has published as a scholar and as a creative writer.

 

C. Ondine Chavoya, the Institute of America Cultures (IAC) Postdoctoral Fellow for 2009-10, is an associate professor of art history and Chicana/o studies at Williams College, and he will be completing research on a major exhibition for LACMA as well as contributing to Los Angeles: The Mexican Presence in L.A. Art, 1945°©-1980, an exhibition that is being organized by the CSRC.

 

Sandra de la Loza, MFA, California State University, Long Beach. Ms. de la Loza is a member of the research team for Los Angeles: The Mexican Presence in L.A. Art, 1945°©-1980. Research interest: Chicano murals in Los Angeles.

 

Laura Isabel Serna, assistant professor of history, Florida State University, Tallahassee. Research fields: transnational cultural history, American film history, Mexican cinema.

 

Lindsay Perez Huber, PhD candidate, UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
Project: “Suenos indocumentados: The Educational Experiences of Undocumented Chicanas in California Higher Education.”