CSRC Newsletter September - October 2004

Welcome back! We have a lot on our agenda this academic year, including conferences on Chicano history, education, style, and … Selena! We continue to develop our new DVD series and expect to have the first book in our A Ver series go to press by summer. We are also expanding our community partnerships this year in order to continue meeting our mission of supporting research that makes a difference. We look forward to seeing you at our open house on October 13 and at our other events throughout the year.

 

 

This fall we welcome Daniel Solorzano as associate director of the CSRC. Solorzano is professor and chair of the education department in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and has a joint teaching appointment as professor in the Cesar Chavez Center for Chicana/o Studies. He will be an important part of the center's programs and research projects for 2004-05. We thank outgoing associate director Alicia Gaspar de Alba for her many contributions to the center during her term.

 

Max Benavidez joins the center as a resident scholar starting this month. He will be working on a book about the Chicano artist Gronk and contributing to other CSRC activities related to the arts. During his tenure as senior executive director of Media Relations and as senior advisor to the vice chancellor of Executive Affairs, Benavidez fostered excellent relations with the Los Angeles Times, guided UCLA through a number of complex communications challenges, and made key contributions to many of UCLA's media accomplishments. Benavidez is leaving his executive director position at UCLA on October 1 to focus on his new consulting business, Public Communications Strategies, which has a strong focus on Latino issues.

 

The Ford Foundation awarded CSRC a $50,000 grant for its project A Ver: A Revisioning of Art History, a major research initiative and monograph series on the cultural, aesthetic, and historical contribution of Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other U.S. Latino artists. To date, CSRC has commissioned ten books on the life and work of Latino and Latina artists.

 

On October 27, the CSRC will announce a five-year agreement with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to facilitate community relations and develop exhibitions and special collections. More details will follow in a separate notice.

 

The center will host its annual open house on Wednesday, October 13, from 4:00 to 7:00 pm. This year, the event will include a silent art auction, a premiere of an episode from the landmark television series Visiones: Latino Art and Culture, a book sale, and refreshments. Stop by to find out about upcoming programs and projects and to meet and greet CSRC scholars and staff. For more information and to RSVP, please contact the front office.

 

On October 14, the center will host a luncheon for Gilberto Cardenas, the Julian Samora Chair in Latino Studies and assistant provost and director of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Cardenas will speak about Chicano studies in the Midwest and the Inter University Program in Latino Studies. For more information, please contact the front office.

 

The CSRC Library is pleased to report that two major collections, the CARA Collection and the Pedro Gonzalez Collection, have been processed and are now searchable. The CARA Collection, 40 linear feet in size, documents the traveling gallery show Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation with papers, photographs, and slides. The Pedro Gonzalez Collection, 18 linear feet in size, contains the papers, photographs, and other documents of Gonzalez, who worked as a telegraph operator during the Mexican Revolution and went on to become the founder of Spanish-language radio on the West Coast and a political organizer. Finding aids for these and other CSRC collections can be found on the CSRC Library website and the Online Archive of California. In addition, The Chicano Art and Poetry Special Collection has been processed and is now available for research in the librarian's office.

 

Stop by the CSRC Library and pick up the premiere issue of ¡Caramba!, the new Latino college magazine. The CSRC Library will be the UCLA distribution site for future issues of the magazine.

 

As we enter our thirty-fifth year of publishing ground-breaking Chicano studies research, we are happy to report that the press was very active last year--releasing three briefs, two research reports, ten newsletters, and two issues of Aztlán as well as participating in the launching of the Chicano Cinema and Media Art Series and the new CSRC website. We look forward to continuing to support the endeavors of Chicano studies scholars and the inevitable expansion of the field. Needless to say, the press would not stand today without your ongoing financial and intellectual support. Keep it up!

 

The press is launching two new book series as well as continuing with its regular publication schedule of briefs, reports, newsletters, and journal issues. Under the leadership of Director Chon A. Noriega and with major funding from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the CSRC is embarking on a series of books devoted to forwarding and preserving the work of Latino/a artists (our official launch will be in February, but the first ten books are already in progress). This fall, the CSRC will release CSRC Research Report no. 4: "Looking for Latino Regulars on Prime-time Television." Written by Ali Hoffman and Chon A. Noriega, it offers a detailed analysis of minority regular characters on television. The report will be available electronically on the CSRC website. In addition, the CSRC is starting a new series titled Chicano Archives in Context, which will provide critical sources on special collections in the CSRC Library. Finally, the CSRC will also be hosting two mini-conferences this year that will result in edited volumes on Selena and Chicano style.

 

Interest remains high in the three DVDs that the CSRC has released on Chicano art of the 1970s and 1980s. The DVDs document two pivotal art exhibitions in Los Angeles (Los Four and Murals of Aztlán) and the early “conceptual dramas” directed by Harry Gamboa Jr., a co-founder of ASCO. These works - with the originals archived in the CSRC Special Collections - have been restored and are being made available for the first time. For information on how to purchase these historic DVDs, see our media website or contact the CSRC press.

 

The next issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies is at the printer's. If you are not an Aztlán subscriber and want to be one, e-mail your postal address to the CSRC Press in order to receive a subscription package!

 

In this fall issue, Catherine Ramirez explores the visual art of Marion C. Martinez, Jose Orozco explores the life and art of Roberto Gutierrez, Joon Kim elucidates the process by which U.S. agriculture has come to depend on Mexican workers and provides a foundation for creating a viable temporary or seasonal foreign worker program today, and James Barrera documents the 1968 Edcouch-Elsa High School walkout in South Texas with rare archival sources. The dossier section, “Affirming Action,” edited by Adela de la Torre, considers current debates surrounding the implementation of affirmative action policies in academic institutions. Finally, in our artist communiqué, Professor William (aka Guillermo) Gómez-Peña, Ph.D., and a ragged research team of anthropolocos and radical historians, offer “A Brief History of U.S. Latinos.”

Information about all our publications is available at the CSRC Press website.

 

The CSRC welcomes three postdoctoral fellows and a visiting scholar for 2004-05. Lisa Garcia Bedolla, assistant professor of Political Science and Latino Studies at UC Irvine has been awarded the Institute of American Cultures (IAC) Postdoctoral Fellowship for her project The Right to Good Government: Race and Citizenship in California, 1840-1875. L.S. Kim, assistant professor of Film and Television at UC Santa Cruz, was awarded the IAC Postdoctoral Fellowship for her project Maid in Color: The Figure of the Racialized Domestic in American Television and will be hosted at the Bunche Center for African American Studies. Eve B. Oishi, associate professor of Women's Studies at CSU Long Beach will join the center as a Chicano Studies Research Center Fellow with her project Bodies Without Borders: Transnationality and Queer Identity in Independent Film. Finally, Ellie D. Hernàndez, assistant professor of Women's Studies at UC Santa Barbara, will be in residence at the center working on her book project Gender and Sexuality in the Americas. Three additional scholars will continue their affiliation with the CSRC during 2004-05. Robert Chao Romero, UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship, Anthony Macias, assistant professor, Ethnic Studies, UC Riverside, and Raul Homero Villa, assistant professor, Occidental College, will have visiting scholar status at the CSRC.

 

The CSRC welcomes IAC Predoctoral Fellow Nadine Bermudez, Ph.D. candidate in Education. Bermudez will be completing her dissertation Mendez v Westminster School District : The Story of a Mexican American Community's Struggle to End Race Discrimination in Their Neighborhood Schools.

 

The CSRC awarded the following research grants for this academic year: Laura Gomez, Law, Manifest Destinies: Law and Race in the 19th Century Southwest; Maylei S. Blackwell, Chavez Center, Project Title: Contested Histories: Chicanas in Movement; Kris D. Gutierrez, Education, Identifying Critical Conditions in Critical Times: Increasing College Access for English Learners; Debra Pounds, Ed.D. staff researcher, Latino/a Transition to College: The Role of Outreach; Olivia Veronica Martinez, Ph.D. Student Applied Linguistics/TESL, Making the First Dictionary for San Juan Guelavia Zapotec; Gloria Gonzalez, Ph.D. Student Sociology, Body Image Influences for Mexican Immigrant and Chicana Adolescent Girls; Christina Lorraine Chang, Ph.D. Student Clinical Psychology, Family Warmth and Social Support in Mexican-Americans with Schizophrenia; David Gumaro Garcia, Ph.D. Student History, The Evolution of a Critical Race Theater: Culture Clash and Chicana/o Performance Art, 1965-2004; Erica Harriet Bennett, M.A. Student Information Studies/Archival Studies, El Primer Dia De Classes: In Search of Mendez vs. Westminster; Omar Gabriel Gudino, Ph.D. Student Psychology, Cultural Values, Parental Socialization Goals & Shyness in Mexican-American Children; and Glenda Rossana Aleman, Ph.D. Student Education, Voices from the Margins: Experiences of Racial and Sexual Identity Construction for Urban Latino Youth.

 

The CSRC administers the Latino Research Program that provides research grants to faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students for the promotion of policy relevant research on Chicano and Latino issues in California. This year's faculty recipients include Raymond Rocco, Political Science, "Latino Political Incorporation and Community Advocacy Groups"; Vilma Ortiz and Edward Telles, Sociology, "Socioeconomic Mobility Among the Mexican American People"; Daniel Solorzano, Education, "The Doctoral Records Project" and Steven Paul Wallace, Public Health, "Health Care Access in a Transborder Context." Graduate student recipients include Maria Estela Zarate, Education, "When Grades Don't Matter: Schooling and Family Experiences of College-Bound and Non-College Bound Latinas"; Katy Maribel Pinto, Sociology, "'Mi Familia': Family and Gender Attitudes in Mexican American Families"; and Maria Rebeca Burciaga, Education, "'La educacion nace en la cuna' Surviving And Succeeding In The Academy: Latina Experiences and Reflections on Graduate School, Academic Careers, Sexuality and Family."

 

The CSRC welcomes undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in Chicano Studies to work as interns and volunteers in various areas of the Center. If interested, send an inquiry to Carlos M. Haro.

The CSRC Library is now hiring work study students with prior library experience. For more information, please e-mail the Head Librarian, Yolanda Retter Vargas.

A UCLA Psychology Department research lab focusing on stress, culture, and pregnancy invites interested undergraduates from all departments to participate in lab meetings, learn more about stress, culture, and health, and assist with lab and library duties. Please contact Cleo Abdou at with “Psychology Research Assistance” in the subject line for more information.

 

To learn more about us, visit our website or email us. To subscribe to this newsletter, e-mail CSRC Newsletter and include in the body of your message the line (and nothing but the line) SUBSCRIBE CHICANO [first name, last name] (don't enter the brackets, just your name).