CSRC Newsletter August - September 2010
Volume 9, Number 1
Director's Message
On Saturday, September 11, I found myself at the Hollywood Bowl, joining 18,000 other people in a moment of sound to commemorate the ninth anniversary of 9/11, followed by two sets of Pink Martini’s distinctive re-working of “music of the world,” and ending with fireworks. The evening was surreal. At one point, NPR White House correspondent Ari Shapiro strutted out and sang several songs. So did eighty-one-year-old screen legend Jane Powell. But it also made sense. Shapiro and Powell grew up in Pink Martini’s home state of Oregon. And the eclectic show provided an inclusive alternative to less compassionate articulations of U.S. patriotism in our media culture. Indeed, Pink Martini started in 1994 with the initial idea of generating better music for political fundraisers in support of progressive causes … like education, public broadcasting, and libraries. To do so, they turned to the music and languages of other cultures. At the Hollywood Bowl, performers sang in English, Japanese, French, and Italian. And then Spanish:
¿Dónde estás, dónde estás, Yolanda?
¿Qué pasó, qué pasó, Yolanda?
Te busqué, te busqué, Yolanda.
Y no estás, y no estás Yolanda.
The song – composed by Peruvian musician Manuel Jimenez Fernandez and made popular in the 1960s by Afro-Cuban singer Orlando Contreras and the Mexican group Sonora Santanera – immediately conjured up for me Yolanda Retter Vargas, former CSRC librarian, who passed away three summers ago. Born in the United States to Anglo-American and Peruvian parents and raised in El Salvador, Yolanda grew to become an activist and a scholar, but also a carpenter, airplane mechanic, and rare book dealer. ¿Dónde estás, dónde estás, Yolanda? You always knew where Yolanda was – fighting racism, sexism, and homophobia, but also preserving history and promoting lifelong learning. And then she was gone. Te busqué, te busqué, Yolanda / Y no estás, y no estás Yolanda. When someone dies, we look for them and they are not there, unless we look among ourselves. Today, one of Yolanda’s protégés, Lizette Guerra, carries on her legacy of serving students, scholars, and the community by providing access to the tools for learning. This fall we are renovating the CSRC Library to bring its physical space in line with our extraordinary growth in resources, services, and activities since Yolanda joined the CSRC in 2003.
For about nine millennia, music has been the archive of our experience of time. In its cover of Fernandez’s song, Pink Martini drew from that archive, tapping into the hemispheric circulation of “Latin” rhythms amid the cold war in the 1960s, and used it to create anew for a different, though no less precarious time. ¿Dónde estás, dónde estás, Yolanda? Since Yolanda is no longer here, we must answer for her: “Presente!"
Chon A. Noriega
Director and Professor
News
CSRC Associate Director Appointed
The CSRC is pleased to announce the appointment of Maria Elena Ruiz, a faculty member in the UCLA School of Nursing, as our associate director for the 2010–11 academic year. Dr. Ruiz received her PhD in sociology from the University of Southern California with a focus on medical sociology and social epidemiology. Before coming to UCLA, she taught in the nursing and public health programs at the University of Southern California and Oregon Health Sciences University. Dr. Ruiz has been involved in various community-based participatory research studies focused on minority health issues, aging, violence, and intergenerational care-giving issues. As associate director, she will begin a new research study on aging Latinos and homelessness in Los Angeles’s skid row; the research will receive support from the Institute of American Cultures (IAC). Kelly Lytle Hernandez, associate professor of history, who has completed her two-year term as CSRC associate director, will continue working on CSRC projects on immigration and incarceration.
Renovation Grants for CSRC Library
The CSRC has received grants from the Ahmanson Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to support the planned renovation and redesign of the CSRC Library. In combination with the contributions of the CSRC’s many generous supporters, the grants make possible a complete re-imagining of the library. The renovation, which will begin this fall, will vastly increase library storage capacity, improve work flow, and add display space for artwork and rare and important archived materials. Plans also include an updating of the library’s IT infrastructure, including the addition of new computers and displays, a new projector and a system for surround sound, additional server space, and Wi-Fi access.
Four CSRC Books Win Awards
The fourth volume in the CSRC’s groundbreaking A Ver: Revisioning Art History series, María Brito, received the First Prize in the Arts Book in English category and was designated a Triple Crown Winner at the 2010 International Latino Book Awards. Celia Alvarez Muñoz, volume 3 in the A Ver series, received Second Place in the Arts Book in English category and The Fire of Life: The Robert Legorreta-Cyclona Collection received Second Place in the Reference Book in English category. Con Safo: The Chicano Art Group and the Politics of South Texas and Yolanda M. López, the second volume in the A Ver series, each received an Honorable Mention. The awards were presented by Latino Literacy Now, a non-profit organization that supports and promotes literacy and literary excellence within the Latino community. To learn more and to purchase these and other CSRC publications visit the Press’s website.
Warhol Foundation Grant
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has awarded the CSRC a $115,000 grant in support of publication efforts associated with the A Ver: Revisioning Art History series and the L.A. Xicano project. The grant will support the next six books in the A Ver series and a comprehensive, full-color exhibition catalog for the four exhibitions that constitute L.A. Xicano, which is part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative. More information about the initiative is available on the Getty’s website. The A Ver series is distributed by the University of Minnesota Press.
Grant for Latino Art Now!
The CSRC has received a $20,000 grant from California Community Foundation to support the upcoming conference “Latino Art Now! The New Wave/La Nueva Ola.” The conference will be held November 10–13 at the Plaza de la Raza in Los Angeles. See the Events section for more information.
Support for Hate Speech Project
In Spring 2010 the CSRC was awarded a grant to explore two dimensions of hate speech in the media: hate speech on social media networks, and its impact on listeners. The studies are made possible with support from the National Hispanic Media Coalition through a grant from the Kellogg Foundation. A report on findings from the initial component of the project, which developed a quantification methodology for assessing hate speech on talk radio, will be released this fall; this study was funded by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). Together, the three studies are intended to provide a comprehensive approach to the scientific evaluation of hate speech in the media.
CSRC Director Joins National Board
Chon A. Noriega, CSRC director, has been invited to join the National Scientific Advisory Board for UCLA’s new Center for Population Health and Health Disparities (CPHHD). Board members include scientific leaders in Latino health, intervention and implementation research, community advocacy, and community-based participatory research. Alex Ortega, professor of public health and a member of the CSRC Faculty Advisory Committee, is spearheading the CPHHD’s lead research project, “Family and Neighborhood Interventions to Reduce Heart Disease Risk in East L.A.” The CPHHD is one of ten newly established centers across the nation that are designed to improve understanding and address inequities associated with cancer and heart disease. Funding for the centers is provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
A Ver Artist Featured
On August 13 the Dallas Latino Cultural Center hosted a book event for artist Celia Alvarez Muñoz in conjunction with A Toda Madre! y Padre! Manchas y Marcas (Stains and Marks), an exhibition of her recent drawings and El Límite, an installation created in 1991. The artist signed copies Celia Alvarez Muñoz, volume 3 in the CSRC’s A Ver: Revisioning Art History series. The exhibition closed on August 28.
Award-Winning Research
Ruben Hernández-León, associate professor of sociology and CSRC affiliated faculty member, has received the 2010 Thomas and Znaniecki Award for the best book from the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association. Dr. Hernández-León’s research for the book, Metropolitan Migrants (University of California Press, 2008), was supported by a CSRC-sponsored grant from the Latino Research Program during the 2006–07 academic year.
Noriega Addresses Business Leaders
Chon A. Noriega, CSRC director, was the featured speaker at the July 13 meeting of the East Los Angeles Rotary Club. In his talk, which was co-sponsored by Pan American Bank and broadcast by LatinoGraduate.net, Dr. Noriega discussed the CSRC’s research initiatives and public programs. Press releases about the event are available on the CSRC website.
CSRC in the News
CSRC Director Chon A. Noriega appeared on the NBC Nightly News in a feature about the tenth anniversary of Dora the Explorer. The heroine of Nickelodeon’s ground-breaking animated educational program is an inquisitive seven-year-old Latina. The story aired on August 14. Dr. Noriega was also quoted in articles in the Los Angeles Times and BBC Mundo. Dr. Noriega commented on art and Chicano identity for “How Chicano Is It?,” an article in the September issue of ARTnews. All articles are available on the CSRC website.
On July 29, 1970, the United Farm Workers of America signed its first contract with grape growers in California, bringing a successful national consumer boycott of table grapes to a close. Alvaro Huerta, CSRC visiting scholar and PhD candidate in city and regional planning at UC Berkeley, discussed this victory and UFW’s current campaign in an article in the Berkeley Blog. The article is available on the CSRC website. Mr. Huerta’s essay “I Ain’t No Anchor Baby,” which discusses xenophobia in the United States, appeared in The Progressive and The Sacramento Bee in August.
The July 9 edition of “The World,” a news program produced by Public Radio International, featured Kelly Lytle Hernandez, an associate professor in the Department of History and former CSRC associate director. Host Marco Werman spoke with Dr. Lytle Hernandez about Arizona’s controversial new immigration law. Dr. Lytle Hernandez’s MIGRA! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol was published by the University of California Press in May. Papers from her research—photographs, official correspondence, and other government documents photocopied from border patrol records—are archived in the CSRC Library. Dr. Lytle Hernandez’s work was supported by a CSRC Institute of America Cultures (IAC) research grant.
Events
Youth Leadership Retreat
On Saturday, September 11, the CSRC will host 100 youth from the Boyle Heights area who will participate in a day-long leadership retreat. The retreat, which is being organized by the Building a Healthier Boyle Heights Youth Engagement Committee, will help participants build skills and encourage them to make their community a better place to live. Building a Healthier Boyle Heights is part of the California Endowment’s ten-year initiative to create healthy communities in California. The Youth Engagement Committee is comprised of members from Homeboy Industries, Proyecto Pastoral, Planned Parenthood (Los Angeles), Inner City Struggle, Violence Intervention Project, Jovenes Inc., Legacy L.A., and Volunteers of America. To learn more about the initiative, visit the California Endowment’s website.
Talk by Electronic Disturbance Theater
Performance artist and published writer Ricardo Dominguez and other members of the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) will talk about their work on Thursday, September 23, 6:00–10:00 p.m., in 100 Moore Hall. EDT, which was formed by Mr. Dominguez in 1997, is a group of cyber-activists and performance artists who engage in non-violent acts of defiance over the Internet. The talk will be followed by a reception.
Presentation by Save Ethnic Studies
Members of Save Ethnic Studies will discuss the organization and its goals on Thursday, September 30, in the CSRC Library; the time will be announced later this month. Save Ethnic Studies, which includes educators, students, and community members, was formed to protect ethnic studies courses in Arizona following the passage of Arizona House Bill 2281. Presenters will talk about the legislative efforts that threaten the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American/Raza Studies Department (MA/RSD) and the organization’s plans to challenge HB 2281 in court. A trailer for the documentary film Precious Knowledge, about the teachers, administrators, and students of MA/RSD, will follow the presentation. For more information about Save Ethnic Studies, visit the organization’s website.
SACNAS 2010
The SACNAS annual national conference, “Science, Technology, and Diversity for a Sustainable Future,” will be held on September 30–October 3 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Conference sessions will explore the multifaceted world of sustainability research from interdisciplinary and subject-specific perspectives. SACNAS (Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science) is a national organization of professional scientists, science educators, policymakers, and students. An important part of its mission is to encourage Chicano, Latino, and Native American students to pursue graduate education and obtain the advanced degrees necessary for scientific research, leadership positions, and teaching careers at all levels. The conference agenda and registration information is available on the SACNAS website.
Film Screening
The CSRC will present a screening of The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor on Wednesday, October 13, 3:00–5:00 p.m., in the CSRC Library. The thirty-minute documentary, produced and directed by Cheryl Quintana Leader, traces the struggle of the Purepecha, a group of Mesoamerican people from Michoacán, Mexico, who settled in a dilapidated trailer park, known as Duroville, east of Palm Springs. The film shows Stephanie Maldonado, a sixth grader from Long Beach, as she explores the world of migrant farm-harvesting families in the Coachella Valley. A Q&A session with Ms. Quintana Leader will follow the screening.
Los Angeles Archives Bazaar
The CSRC Library will participate in the fifth annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar on Saturday, October 23, 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., at the USC Davidson Conference Center. The bazaar will feature educational programs, book signings, and film screenings on the history of Los Angeles neighborhoods. The event is presented by L.A. as Subject, an association of research archives, libraries, and historical societies dedicated to preserving the history of Los Angeles as it is reflected in the archival record. Admission is free, and parking is available at USC Parking Structure D for $8.00. For more information visit the LA as Subject website.
Latino Art Now!
Save the date … “Latino Art Now! The New Wave/La Nueva Ola” will take place November 10–13 at the Plaza de la Raza. The four-day conference will explore the status of Latino art in the United States. Roundtables and workshops will focus on a range of topics, including current opportunities and challenges for artists, new institutional developments, and technological trends. Proposals for presentations will be accepted through September 15. To submit a paper, send a short abstract with title (300–500 words) and a short C.V. to iuplr@nd.edu. For more information and to register, visit the IUPLR website. Latino Art Now! is a biennial conference; this year’s meeting is sponsored by The Inter-University Program for Latino Research at the University of Notre Dame, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, and the CSRC.
CSRC Library and Archive
2010 Getty Intern
During the summer quarter Christopher Velasco, CSRC’s Getty intern, worked on the library’s Oscar Castillo Photograph Collection and the Yolanda Retter-Vargas Collection of Orphan Photographs. His research provided provenance information for the latter, including dates, locations, and other descriptive details. Mr. Velasco, originally from Lincoln Heights, is in his senior year at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, where he studies photography and media. We are pleased to announce that his appointment at CSRC has been extended through the Fall 2010 quarter. The Getty Multicultural Undergraduate Internship program provides interns to Los Angeles museums and arts organizations. Internships at CSRC are structured around current and ongoing archival projects. The Oscar Castillo and Yolanda Retter-Vargas collections are available for research at the UCLA Digital Library.
Scripts Donated
Motion picture and TV director Jesús (Chuy) Treviño has generously donated master tapes and scripts for his Resurrection Boulevard to the CSRC Library’s archive. The scripts will be available for researchers within the next few months, and the tapes will be preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
New Books
Recent contributions from Chon A. Noriega, CSRC director, have increased the library’s book collection. New titles include:
- Aldama, Frederick L. A User's Guide to Postcolonial and Latino Borderland Fiction. Austin, Tex: University of Texas Press, 2009.
- Aldama, Frederick L. Your Brain on Latino Comics: From Gus Arriola to Los Bros Hernandez. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009.
- Bost, Suzanne. Encarnación: Illness and Body Politics in Chicana Feminist Literature. New York: Fordham University Press, 2010.
- Danielson, Marivel T. Homecoming Queers: Desire and Difference in Chicana Latina Cultural Production. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 2009.
- González, John M. Border Renaissance: The Texas Centennial and the Emergence of Mexican American Literature. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009.
- Heredia, Juanita. Transnational Latina Narratives in the Twenty-First Century: The Politics of Gender, Race, and Migrations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
- Parédez, Deborah. Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
- Pérez, Daniel E. Rethinking Chicana/o and Latina/o Popular Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
- Ramírez, Catherine S. The Woman in the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009.
OAC Collections
Finding aids for two CSRC collections will be available soon at the Online Archive of California.
Isaac Artenstein Papers. Four linear feet of papers and images related to the making of Break of Dawn, Mr. Artenstein’s biographical motion picture about Pedro J. Gonzalez, a pioneer of Spanish-language radio in Los Angeles. The film premiered at Sundance and was later shown on Telemundo and the BBC. Mr. Artenstein, the producer of many films and award-winning documentaries, has taught film production and directing at the University of Southern California and the University of California, San Diego. He was a founding member of the Border Arts Workshop in San Diego. Currently he is developing a feature film based on his 1991 play, Under a Brilliant Sky, about photographers Tina Modotti and Edward Weston.
Michael de la Rocha MECHA Papers. Contains 1.5 linear feet of papers pertaining to Mr. de la Rocha’s research and his manuscripts for articles. Mr. de la Rocha is a legislative deputy for Los Angeles City Councilman Tony Cardenas and a former policy advisor for the City of Los Angeles Human Relations Commission. He currently advises Councilman Cardenas on juvenile justice legislation. He was closely involved with the council’s Community Engagement Advisory Committee, an internationally acknowledged group that developed the nation’s first comprehensive community-based gang intervention model. He was a co-creator of “Breaking the Cycle with Dignity,” a training program for staff at the Los Angeles County Probation Department. Subsequently he helped found the Joint City and County Juvenile Justice Task Force, which received the John Anson Ford Award from the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission for its significant impact on human relations in the Los Angeles community and beyond.
CSRC Press
Just Released
The third volume in The Chicano Archives series, The Mexican Museum of San Francisco Papers, 1971–2006, is now available. This is the first historical account of the institution, which is the oldest museum in the United States that focuses on Mexican and Mexican American art. Karen Mary Davalos draws on the CSRC Library’s collection of administrative documents to trace the museum’s growth from the early 1970s, when planning began, to 2006, when the museum closed its exhibition space in Fort Mason. Dr. Davalos explores the influences that guided the museum’s development—the vision of its founder, the desires of curators and patrons, the energy of the Chicano movement—and analyzes its influential exhibition program and nationally recognized education program. In a separate section she offers a series of topics for further research. The volume concludes with a guide to the collection and a selected bibliography.
Shipping Now
The fall 2010 issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies features essays that explore themes of struggle, survival, and success in relation to the Chicano experience. Topics include movidas rascuaches, the strategies that immigrants employ for survival; uses of the Mexican flag in immigration rights marches; the obstacles facing Latina candidates for judiciary positions; corridos dedicated to the memory of cops; and deportation raids in the nineteenth century. The dossier section marks the end of the journal’s fortieth year of publication by offering a series of prognostications for the future of Chicano studies. An interview with cover artist Roberto Gutiérrez, illustrated with examples of his latest work, rounds out the volume. To read the table of contents—and to subscribe to the journal—visit the Press’s website.
Coming Soon
Carmen Lomas Garza, the fifth volume in the CSRC Press’s award-winning A Ver series, is with the printer, and books are expected in late October. For a preview, including the foreword by CSRC Director Chon A. Noriega, visit the Press’s website. The A Ver series is distributed by the University of Minnesota Press.
CSRC Visiting Scholars for 2010–11
The CSRC supports a visiting scholars program that attracts scholars from institutions throughout the country and from abroad. Grant recipients conduct research on a wide variety of subjects during their residency at the CSRC. We are pleased to announce the scholars for the upcoming academic year.
The CSRC supports a visiting scholars program that attracts scholars from institutions throughout the country and from abroad as well as community scholars contributing to the CSRC’s research mission. Grant recipients conduct research on a wide variety of subjects during their residency at the CSRC. We are pleased to announce the scholars for the 2010-11 academic year.
Jennifer Rose Najera, Institute of American Cultures (IAC) Post-Doctoral Fellowship recipient. Dr. Najera is an assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, Riverside. She is a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on the contradiction between immigration acculturation and racial marginalization among Mexican Americans in South Texas. Her postdoctoral project is to complete revisions of her book manuscript, “The Borderlands of Race: Mexican Segregation in a South Texas Town,” which analyzes how segregation processes affected people of Mexican origin in a South Texas community during the first half of the twentieth century.
Deborah Vargas, Los Tigres del Norte Fund/IAC Visiting Scholar. Dr. Vargas is an assistant professor in the Department of Chicano/Latino Studies at University of California, Irvine. Her research project, “Geography, Gender, and Genre: Gloria Rios, Reina del Rocanrol,” focuses on Spanish-language rock music in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s, particularly the work of underexplored Chicana musician Gloria Rios.
Karen Mary Davalos, associate professor, Chicana/o Studies Department, Loyola Marymount University. Dr. Davalos will be a member of the CSRC’s research team for L.A. Xicano, a four-exhibition project opening in Fall 2011 and sponsored by the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative. She will also work on the manuscript for her fourth book, “Chicana/o Art: Improbable Subjects and Political Gestures.”
Ramon Garcia, associate professor, Chicana/o Studies Department, California State University, Northridge. Dr. Garcia’s research interests include literary studies, visual culture, and cultural studies.
Alvaro Huerta, PhD candidate in city and regional planning, University of California, Berkeley. Mr. Huerta will focus on Mexican workers and their social networks.
Sandra de la Loza, MFA recipient, California State University, Long Beach. Ms. de la Loza is a member of the CSRC’s research team for an installation on Chicano murals of the 1970s at LACMA. The installation is a component of the CSRC’s L.A. Xicano project.
Raul Pacheco, musician and co-founder of Ozomatli. Mr. Pacheco is a member of the CSRC's research team for the L.A. Xicano project. He is investigating the history of Chicano music in the 1960s and 1970s.
Jessica M. Vasquez, professor, Department of Sociology, University of Kansas. Dr. Vasquez’s research interests include Mexican American families, racial/ethnic identity, and assimilation.