CSRC Newsletter - January 2011

Happy New Year! Having spent Christmas in New York walking my niece to two movies during the “Blizzard of the Century,” I returned home to Southern California, where it never rains, but it pours. Waiting for me was a tell-tale package from my mother, one that evokes—like Proust’s madeleines—some of my strongest memories of childhood: springerles. Mind you, dear CSRC follower, I love Christmas tamales. One day I shall eat enough to properly fill out a guayabera. But these German biscuits are for me the essence of Christmas: the unsolicited gift. I remember my mother rolling the cold, hard dough with her carved wooden rolling pin, which embossed the biscuits with birds and flowers. And then, strangest thing of all, she would leave them out for twenty-four hours to dry, their presence on our dining room table almost as frustrating as the presents under our Christmas tree. The next day she would place the biscuits on anise-dusted baking sheets and bake them at an excruciatingly low—and hence, slow—temperature. My mother taught me many things: how to make tortillas and chili, how to turn Thanksgiving leftovers into turkey tacos, and how to sew, wash laundry, unclog a sink, and enjoy a movie. But she never taught me how to make springerles. These she sends each Christmas.

 

As a child, I thought these biscuits were called “spring leaf cookies,” their embossed flora and fauna promising renewal and rebirth in the New Year. I am eating the last one as I write. It reminds me of the past, with thankfulness, and it stirs my hope for the future. Wishing you all the best for 2011.

 

 

Photographs from the IAC Fall Forum and short interviews with this year’s visiting scholars are now available on the IAC website. The annual Fall Forum welcomes IAC visiting scholars, predoctoral and graduate fellows, and research grant awardees. This year’s event took place on Monday, December 6.

 

CSRC Director Chon A. Noriega was quoted in “Still the Address of Down-Home Sounds,” an article by Larry Rohter published in The New York Times on November 24. The story reflects on Arhoolie Records’s fiftieth anniversary and mentions the CSRC's online archive of the Arhoolie Foundation's Frontera Collection.

 

Chon A. Noriega was mentioned in an article about Ramón Soto-Crespo, who received an honorable mention in the competition for the 2011 MLA Prize in United States Latina and Latino and Chicana and Chicano Literary and Cultural Studies. Dr. Noriega served on the selection committee; Dr. Soto-Crespo teaches at Georgetown University.

 

In “Where’s My DVD? Strangers in the City,” John Seal discusses one of the films that aired during “Race and Hollywood: Latino Images in Film,” a month-long series broadcast by Turner Classic Movies in May 2009. The article, which appeared in Berkeleyside on December 14, notes that Chon A. Noriega co-hosted the series with TMC’s Robert Osborne. The series focused on the Chicano-American experience and Latino cinematic representations. To view clips from the series, visit the CSRC’s YouTube page.

 

An article in UCLA Newsroom on December 16 featured Robert Chao Romero and discussed his new book, The Chinese in Mexico, 1882–1940 (University of Arizona Press, 2010). Another article, on the journey that led Dr. Romero to his research interests, appeared in UCLA Today on December 6. Both articles were written by Letisia Marquez. Dr. Romero is an assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano studies at UCLA. As a CSRC postdoctoral fellow in 2003–04 he received research funding for a project titled “The Dragon in Big Lusong: Chinese Immigration and Settlement in Mexico.”

 

PDFs of all articles are available on the CSRC website.

 

Chon A. Noriega, CSRC director, will present a paper on Chicano autobiography in digital culture as part of the Presidential Forum at the Modern Language Association’s annual convention in Los Angeles on Friday, January 7. The session is titled “Lives and Archives: Finding, Framing, and Circulating Narrated Lives Now.” More information is available on the MLA website.

 

The CSRC will host a talk by Father Gregory Boyle, director and founder of Homeboy Industries and former pastor of Dolores Mission Church, on Wednesday, January 26, 3:00–5:00 p.m., in the CSRC Library (144 Haines Hall). The topic will be Father Boyle’s book, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (Free Press, 2010). The talk will be followed by a book signing. The Homeboy Industries Papers, a collection of administrative documents, documentary videotapes, and Father Gregory Boyle’s personal papers, is among the CSRC’s archival collections.

 

The CSRC, in collaboration with the UCLA Institute of American Cultures (IAC), invites qualified candidates to apply for the 2011–12 Visiting Scholar/Researcher Fellowship Program in Ethnic Studies. The post-doctoral award will provide recipients with up to a nine-month academic-year stipend of $32,000 to $35,000 (contingent upon rank, experience, and date of completion of their terminal degree), as well as health benefits. For visiting scholars, these funds can be used to supplement sabbatical support for a total that does not exceed the candidate’s current institutional salary. Visiting scholars will be paid through their home institutions and will be expected to continue their health benefits through that source as well; visiting researchers will be paid directly by UCLA. All awardees can receive up to $4,000 in research support (through reimbursements of research expenses), $1,000 of which may be applied toward relocation expenses. In the event that an award is for less than the nine-month appointment, the stipend will be prorated in accordance with the actual length of the award.

 

Eligibility requirements: Visiting scholar appointments are for persons who currently hold permanent academic appointments, and visiting researcher appointments are for newly degreed scholars. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and must hold a PhD from an accredited college or university at the time of appointment. UCLA faculty, staff, and currently enrolled students are not eligible to apply. Completed applications are due by February 1. Recipients will be notified in early April. For enquiries, please visit the IAC website or contact Javier Iribarren, CSRC assistant director, at jiribarren@chicano.ucla.edu or (310) 794-9646.

 

Note: The CSRC is unable to offer a predoctoral fellowship in this funding cycle. Funding for graduate students will be available via funds from the IAC small grants program, the Tamar Diana Wilson Fund, and the Carlos M. Haro Fund. For information on those funding opportunities, whose deadline is in April, please visit the IAC website.

 

The CSRC Library is currently undergoing an extensive renovation, and staff members anticipate that it will be closed for approximately two weeks at the beginning of the Winter 2011 quarter. The new space should be completed in late January or early February.

 

The CSRC Library is pleased to announce the addition of the Mexican American Bar Association (MABA) Collection to the CSRC archive. We would like to thank Armando Durón and Judy Perez for donating the first ten linear feet. For more information about the collection, contact the CSRC librarian: lguerra@chicano.ucla.edu.

 

Chantal Rodríguez explores the history of Latino theater in Los Angeles in The Latino Theatre Initiative/Center Theatre Group Papers, 1980–2005. Established in 1992 by Los Angeles’s Center Theatre Group, the Latino Theatre Initiative sought to diversify audiences by diversifying theatrical programming. Until 2005, when it was suspended, the program resulted in the production of eleven new main-stage plays at the Mark Taper Forum. It was also key in the development of new and emerging Latino artists, the production of second-stage works, and the incorporation of community-based events into theater programming. Dr. Rodríguez draws on the CSRC’s extensive collection of Latino Theatre Initiative papers in this first extended historical account of the program. The book, volume 4 in The Chicano Archives Series, will be released this month and may be ordered online.