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CSRC Newsletter - March 2021

Volume 19, Number 7

Director’s Message

Built in 1887, the Church of the Epiphany in Lincoln Heights is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places. For Bruin and lifelong activist Rosalio Muñoz, the church has been a key part of his life since childhood, but not as a haven from the world. Instead, generations of Chicanos like him have found it to be a place for Cub Scout meetings, student activism, social justice organizing, community-based journalism, civic engagement, artistic expression, and worship. The church’s basement was one of the key sites of the Chicano movement, serving as a meeting space for organizers during the Eastside walkouts and as the editorial offices of La Raza newspaper. The federal recognition of the church’s importance is long overdue, and it also signals a necessary shift in our collective thinking. Los Angeles is a city that is 70 percent non-white, but only 10 percent of its monuments reflect that population, not to mention women and LGBTQ communities. The Church of the Epiphany represents what my colleague Robert Chao Romero calls the Brown Church (in his book of the same title). It is a place from which we can start telling the story of Los Angeles. The CSRC congratulates the Church of the Epiphany and supports efforts to restore this landmark. We are also honored that the CSRC Library is the repository for the church’s papers, along with the Muñoz family’s papers and the La Raza Photograph Collection. These resources and others at the CSRC contribute to a history of Los Angeles that is larger and more inclusive than the smaller history currently told through the city’s official public monuments.

Chon A. Noriega
Director and Distinguished Professor
 

News

Josten edits contribution to visual culture journal
Jennifer Josten, associate professor of the history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh and 2019-20 IAC visiting research scholar at the CSRC, edited “Displaying Greater Mexico: Border-Crossing Exhibitions, 1990–2020,” the “Dialogues” section of the current issue of Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, published by University of California Press. Josten’s introductory essay is informed by research she conducted while in residence at the CSRC. Journal content is available on the University of California Press website.
 
Águilas wins Best Mini-Doc at Big Sky
Águilas, a fourteen-minute documentary about Águilas del Desierto (Desert Eagles), a humanitarian search-and-rescue group that looks for migrants who have gone missing in the Arizona desert, received the award for Best Mini-Doc at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, held February 10–28. The film is directed by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, professor of film in the School of Theater, Film, and Television and CSRC Faculty Advisory Committee member, and Maite Zubiaurre, professor of European languages, transcultural studies, and Spanish and Portuguese. Águilas will screen at SXSW this month. The making of Águilas was supported in part by an Institute of American Cultures research grant through the CSRC. A UCLA Newsroom story published on February 22 includes a trailer for the film and an interview with Zubaire; it can be viewed here.
 
Wong named director of VPAM
Curator, artist, and educator Steven Y. Wong has been named the new director of the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College. He comes to the position from the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, where he served as curator. Wong also previously served as interim executive director and senior staff curator at the Chinese American Museum and has taught as adjunct faculty at UC Santa Barbara, Ventura College, and Pasadena City College. Wong received his BA and MA in Asian American studies at UCLA and an MFA from UC Santa Barbara. VPAM is a community partner of the CSRC.
 
Anguiano to receive Rock Star award
Chicana civil rights activist and environmentalist Lupe Anguiano has been named the 2021 recipient of the Rock Star: Lifetime Achievement Award from Women’s Economic Ventures. Anguiano is the eleventh recipient of the award, which is presented annually to an individual who has made a significant impact on women’s lives. The award will be presented in an online event on May 21. The Rock Star award is one of several awards that are presented annually by Women’s Economic Ventures to recognize women entrepreneurs in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. More information can be found at the organization’s website. The CSRC holds the Lupe Anguiano Papers and hosts the Lupe Anguiano Scholarship Fund. 
 
Barrios to be honored by Voices de la Luna
Gregg Barrios, playwright, poet, journalist, and donor to CSRC special collections, will be honored during the fiftieth anniversary celebration of Voices de la Luna, a literature and arts magazine published in San Antonio. More information about the online event, which will be held on March 25, can be found here. Barrios currently sits on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle, where he serves as vice president for diversity and inclusion. The CSRC holds the Gregg Barrios Papers.
 
Hernández discusses IAC archive project on Mellon panel
Kelly Lytle Hernández, professor and Thomas E. Lifka Chair in the UCLA Department of History and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, was among the speakers for “Storytelling for Justice: How Libraries and Archives Hold History to Account,” an online conversation hosted by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation on February 10. Hernández spoke about “Million Dollar Hoods,” a research project she directs, as well as “Archiving the Age of Mass Incarceration,” an initiative that will create an archive of materials related to policing and incarceration. The initiative, a collaboration of UCLA’s four IAC ethnic studies research centers, recently received a three-year grant from the Mellon Foundation. A recording of the discussion can be found here.
 
New publications feature La Raza collection photographs
Two new books feature images from the La Raza Photograph Collection at the CSRC. Rewriting the Chicano Movement: New Histories of Mexican American Activism in the Civil Rights Era, edited by Mario T. García and Ellen McCracken, is now available from the University of Arizona Press. Kids on the March: 15 Stories of Speaking Out, Protesting, and Fighting for Justice, by Michael G. Long and published by Algonquin Young Readers, will be released March 23.
 
Online event to feature artist Freddy Rodriguez
On March 21, Dominican American multimedia artist Freddy Rodriguez will be the featured guest in the online event “Impredecible/Unpredictable: A Conversation with Distinguished Artist Freddy Rodriguez and Professor Araceli Tinajero,” hosted by the Dominican Studies Institute at City University of New York. The event will be held in English with simultaneous Spanish interpretation. To register, click here. Rodriguez is the subject of a forthcoming monograph in the A Ver: Revisioning Art History series from CSRC Press.
 
Frontera Collection live show on YouTube
Don’t miss this month’s live shows from Frontera Collection ¡En Vivo!, featuring music from the Arhoolie Foundation’s Frontera Collection. Hosted and DJ’d by Juan Antonio Cuellar, the two two-hour bilingual programs will feature music from the collection. Tune in Thursday, March 4, and Thursday, March 18, starting at 6:00 p.m. on YouTube. For more information, visit the Arhoolie Foundation website. Complement your experience by exploring the Strachwitz Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican American Music, which is hosted by the CSRC, the Arhoolie Foundation, and the UCLA Digital Library and features blog posts by music writer Agustín Gurza.
 

CSRC in the News

Rita Gonzalez, head of contemporary art at LACMA and former CSRC arts project coordinator, and Mari Carmen Ramirez, curator of Latin American art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, director of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas, and co-curator of the CSRC-organized exhibition Home—So Different, So Appealing (2017–18), discuss supporting Latin American and Latinx Art during and after the pandemic. The discussion mentions Home and the exhibition Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement (2008), which was curated by Gonzalez, Howard Fox, and CSRC director Chon A. Noriega.
ARTnews, February 23, 2021 (PDF)
 
KCRW reported on the new IAC archival project “Archiving the Age of Mass Incarceration,” funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Bunche Center director Kelly Lytle Hernández was interviewed for the story.
KCRW blog, February 10, 2021 (PDF)
 
This story about a webinar hosted by Cornell University on February 24 named Ella Maria Diaz as one of the panelists. Diaz is the author of the recently released José Montoya, volume 12 in the A Ver: Revisioning Art History series from CSRC Press.
Cornell Chronicle, February 9, 2021 (PDF)
 
A story about the Church of the Epiphany in Lincoln Heights being added to the National Register of Historic Places. La Raza newspaper was founded and produced in the basement of the church, and the story includes images from the La Raza Photograph Collection at the CSRC.
Religion News Service, February 8. 2021 (PDF)
Reprinted in Sight, February 9, 2021 (PDF)
Reprinted in ENS: Episcopal News Service, February 10, 2021 (PDF)
 
CSRC director Chon A. Noriega and Bunche Center director Kelly Lytle Hernández were quoted in this story about the Mellon-funded archival project “Archiving the Age of Mass Incarceration,” a collaboration of UCLA’s four ethnic studies research centers.
Los Angeles Sentinel, February 5, 2021 (PDF)
 
The exhibition Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, organized by the Vincent Price Art Museum in collaboration with the CSRC and now on view at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art through May 9, was recommended in a roundup of current exhibitions in New York City.
The Art Newspaper, February 5. 2021 (PDF)
 
All “In the News” articles are available in PDF format on the CSRC website.
 

CSRC Library

Flores to speak at SXSW about open archives
CSRC librarian and archivist Xaviera Flores will participate in the online panel “The Future of Open Archives: Hidden Voices” during this year’s SXSW Conference, March 16–20. Flores, named a 2020 Open Archive Fellow by the Alliance for Media Arts and Culture’s Open Archive Initiative, will discuss the goals of the initiative with other fellows. The panel is part of “Cultural Resilience in the Arts,” one of seven themes that organize the conference sessions. The Open Archives Initiative is made possible by funding from the MacArthur Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts CARES program. For more information, visit https://www.sxsw.com/.
 
Flores provides instruction
On February 2 and 4, Xaviera Flores met with two discussion groups for CCAS 10B: “Social Structures and Contemporary Conditions,” taught by professor Leisy Abrego. Flores provided library instruction and research support to forty of the 218 students enrolled in the lecture course.
 
Finding aid updated for the Border Control Research Papers
The finding aid for the Kelly Lytle Hernández Collection of Border Patrol Research Papers has been updated. Hernández, professor and Thomas E. Lifka Chair in the UCLA Department of History, is the director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies and a former CSRC associate director. The collection contains research materials she gathered for her book MIGRA! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (University of California Press, 2010) and consists mostly of Border Patrol internal documents, including reports, statistics, correspondence, and surveys spanning the years 1907 to 1990. The finding aid can be viewed at the Online Archive of California.
 
Finding aid for Fire of Life collection updated
The finding aid for The Fire of Life: The Robert Legorreta—Cyclona Collection has been updated. Born September 15, 1952, in El Paso, Texas, Legorreta grew up in East Los Angeles. He began performing in drag along Whittier Boulevard while in his teens, and in 1969 he adopted the persona Cyclona, named for a character in a play written by Gronk. In subsequent years he created several provocative pieces of performance art. The collection consists of books, periodicals, photographs, artwork, writings, videos, and correspondence, as well as ephemera and artifacts that depict kitschy or stereotypical images of Latinos. The collection also contains audio recordings, mostly vinyl LPs, of Latin jazz and dance music, plus easy listening, surf pop, and novelty records. The finding aid can be viewed at the Online Archive of California. The CSRC Press publication about Legorreta and his archive, The Fire of Life: The Robert Legorreta—Cyclona Collection by Robb Hernández (volume 2 in the Chicano Archives series from CSRC Press), is available through the book’s distributor, University of Washington Press.
 
Exhibitions with CSRC loans
The following exhibitions, opening this month or currently on view, include images and artworks from CSRC collections and publications:
 
Library and archive available remotely
In accordance with Chancellor Gene Block’s directive to suspend most on-campus operations, the CSRC Library and its archive are closed until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. During this time, CSRC Library staff will remain available via email, and we look forward to engaging with community members remotely. For assistance, please email librarian@chicano.ucla.edu.
 

CSRC Press

Latest issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies
The Spring 2021 issue of Aztlán opens with a special tribute to Juan Gómez-Quiñones, professor emeritus in the UCLA Department of History, who died on November 11, 2020. These memories of colleagues, friends, students, and fellow activists were compiled by Aztlán’s editor, Charlene Villaseñor Black. The essay section explores Chicanx invocations of Spanish culture that look toward a global Latinades paradigm; the decolonizing potential of testimonios of colorism and of Plascencia’s The People of Paper; and how the movement of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture from Southern California to Australia informs ideas of race-making. The work of Rudolfo Anaya is the focus of the dossier section, which is curated by Spencer R. Herrera. Artist Shizu Saldamando is featured on the cover and in the artist’s communiqué, which includes reproductions of Saldamando’s recent work.  The digital issue will be available soon at IngentaConnect. For a print copy, contact Ari Hoyos, CSRC business assistant, at support@chicano.ucla.edu.
 
Aztlán available for download
All back issues of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, as well as individual essays, are available for download at IngentaConnect. Print and digital subscriptions are also available through this platform. To explore all issues from the past fifty years, and purchase or subscribe, click here.
 
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CSRC available remotely
In accordance with Chancellor Gene Block’s directive to suspend most on-campus operations, the CSRC is closed until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. During this time, CSRC staff will remain available via email (http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/about/staff) and at csrcinfo@chicano.ucla.edu.
 
 
The UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands). As a land grant institution, we pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders) and ‘Eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.