CSRC Newsletter - September 2011

On Monday, August 29, 2011, my mailbox at the CSRC contained a large envelope from the Homicide Bureau of the L.A. Sheriff’s Department. Inside were documents related to the department’s investigation into Ruben Salazar’s death, which I had requested for placement in the CSRC Library, where they could be made available to students and researchers. My request was prompted by a recent column by Hector Tobar in the Los Angeles Times. (The documents are described below in the Library section.) My momentary thrill at gaining access to these documents was tempered by the irony of receiving them on the forty-first anniversary of Salazar’s death and by my consequent and profound sense of loss, both of his life and of what he represented for the Chicano community in the late 1960s. This fall the CSRC opens five exhibitions: one each at the Autry National Center, the CSRC Library, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and two at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Under the rubric of L.A. Xicano, these exhibitions explore Chicano art in Los Angeles during the period between 1945 and 1980. They capture the milieu in which Mr. Salazar emerged and developed as a Chicano journalist, but, just as important, they bring to life the community-based art scene that exploded in the wake of his death and helped re-imagine Los Angeles in the light of its “better angels.”

As we prepare to install and open the L.A. Xicano exhibitions, we are grateful for the support and collaboration we have had over the last eight years from the Getty Foundation (and its Pacific Standard Time initiative), the community-based institutions and the artists and advocates who sustained them, and the “mainstream” museums that share our expanded vision of Los Angeles. But we also mourn the loss of Gilbert “Magu” Sánchez Luján. If Salazar brought the Chicano movement to the mainstream news media, Magu helped bring the everyday life of the barrio to the art world. It is hard to imagine Chicano art without his presence as an artist, a curator, an intellectual force, and a facilitator. Magu also gave his time and his passion to supporting our research on Chicano art, providing in-depth interviews, sharing his extensive archive, and engaging in spirited dialogue over our Mapping Another L.A. exhibition at the Fowler Museum. We will miss him, especially his commitment, honesty, humor, and, most important, his vision of an expansive Chicano art.

The CSRC supports research that makes a difference, but we also honor those, like Salazar and Magu, who have been dedicated to living lives that make a difference.

 

 

Make “friends” with L.A. Xicano!
The best way to stay up-to-date on the L.A. Xicano exhibitions debuting this fall is through their dedicated Facebook page. And if you haven’t done so yet, befriend CSRC, too!

 

Best wishes to Crystal Perez
Crystal Perez, CSRC administrative assistant, left her position at the center on August 31 to pursue graduate studies in English at UCSD. She joins Wendy Belcher among CSRC career staff who have gone on to PhD programs. Please join us in wishing Crystal all the best with her scholarly endeavors!

 

Chon A. Noriega, CSRC director, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times story “‘La Reina Del Sur’ Pursues Primetime Emmy Consideration” on June 20. Noriega said that an Emmy nomination for a Spanish-language TV show would be a milestone. “But let’s be honest,” he added, “we still have a society that operates as if there aren’t multiple languages that are part of day-to-day culture.”

“Movie Miento,” part of KCET’s SoCal Focus blog, features a photo of Chon A. Noriega, CSRC director, speaking on July 22 at a Pacific Standard Time press event on the question of whether Chicanos should still be considered outsiders.

The July 10 Los Angeles Times story “Mexican Stars, Hollywood Dreams” quotes Chon A. Noriega, CSRC director, on the history of bilingual film productions on both sides of the border. Noriega notes that there has been “a kind of back-and-forth migration of creative personnel between Mexico and Hollywood,” a tradition dating back to the silent era.

A story in Current features Chicano filmmaker Efraín Gutiérrez, whose films La Onda Chicana (1976) and Chicano Love Is Forever (Amor chicano es para siempre, 1977) were restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive with assistance from the CSRC.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s forthcoming exhibition on the groundbreaking Chicano performance art group Asco—part of the Getty-sponsored Pacific Standard Time project—has received recent coverage in The New York Times and The Huffington Post. The L.A. Xicano exhibition Mapping Another L.A.: The Chicano Art Movement at the Fowler Museum at UCLA dovetails with the LACMA exhibition, examining the dynamics among nine Chicano arts groups active in the 1970s, including Asco.

The Latino Theatre Initiative/Center Theatre Group Papers, 1980-2005, recently published by the CSRC Press, was featured in the August 24 Los Angeles Times story, “L.A.'s Onetime Latino Theater Project Assessed in New Book.” The book is based on the Latino Theatre Initiative's collected papers, which are housed in the CSRC archives, and features an essay by Chantal Rodríguez. The book, volume 4 in the Chicano Archives series, can be ordered from the distributor.

An August 18 Los Angeles Times story on the Pacific Standard Time project mentions CSRC in conjunction with a mural that former Asco member Willie F. Herrón III will paint in City Terrace. The mural, which has been commissioned by the CSRC, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Fowler Museum at UCLA, will commemorate Asco’s performance art piece Walking Mural (1972). It will be the focus of two art tours that will be offered by the Fowler this fall.

Various tributes to pioneer Chicano artist Gilbert “Magu” Sánchez Luján have appeared since his death on July 24, including those in the Los Angeles Times and its “Culture Monster” blog, as well as on KPCC public radio. People are also posting their remembrances on the artist’s website. Luján was a prolific painter, muralist, and sculptor, and he created works that reflect barrio life with humor but also address issues of concern to the Chicano community. He will be missed.

A recent op-ed piece by Alvaro Huerta, CSRC visiting scholar, on “Juan Crow” anti-immigrant laws was syndicated and published in sixteen newspapers (at last count) over the summer. A version of the piece can be found in the Berkeley Blog.

La Bloga, a Los Angeles-based website, ran an overview of all things CSRC on June 6.

The July 2011 issue of Tradición featured an article on Art Along the Hyphen: The Mexican-American Generation, which debuts October 14 at the Autry National Center. It is one of the CSRC’s five L.A. Xicano exhibitions.

Chon A. Noriega, CSRC director, was interviewed by Texas Tech Today about Constance Cortez’s book Carmen Lomas Garza, volume 5 of CSRC Press’s A Ver series. The book was awarded first place at the 2011 International Latino Book Awards. “As one of the handful of established art historians working on Chicano and Latino art, Connie was always on our short list for the series,” Noriega said. “Connie did amazing research on this project, including several interviews with the artist, and the book provides a wonderfully written account of a major Chicana artist.”

 

 

L.A. Xicano exhibitions opening soon
Icons of the Invisible: Oscar Castillo, the first of CSRC’s L.A. Xicano exhibitions, opens Sunday, September 25, at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Also opening this month is Chican@s Collect, at the CSRC Library. Three other exhibitions open next month:

Art Along the Hyphen: The Mexican American Generation opens October 14 at the Autry National Center.
Mapping Another L.A.: The Chicano Art Movement opens October 16 at the Fowler Museum at UCLA.
Mural Remix: Sandra de la Loza opens October 15 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

 

Salazar documents now available
CSRC is pleased to announce that the L.A. Sheriff’s Department has made available to the CSRC Library electronic copies of documents related to the department’s investigation into the death of Ruben Salazar. Salazar, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and also news director at KMEX, L.A.'s pioneering Spanish-language television station, was killed by a tear-gas canister fired by a deputy at a raid on a local bar on August 29, 1970, during the Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War. To access these documents for research purposes, please contact Lizette Guerra, CSRC librarian, at lguerra@chicano.ucla.edu.

Summer intern to continue with CSRC
The CSRC participates in the Getty’s Multicultural Undergraduate Internship program each year. The summer internships are structured around current CSRC archival projects. This year the CSRC welcomed Arthur Arciniega, a photography and art history student at East Los Angeles College. Arciniega processed four archival collections—the Adobe in L.A. Papers, the Maria Acosta Duran Papers, the James and Margarita Mendez Papers, and an addition to the Roberto Gutierrez Papers—and began a scanning project for two of them. He also helped archival staff carry out two acquisitions: an addition of 38 linear feet for the Edward R. Roybal Papers, and a new acquisition of 140 linear feet for the Esteban Torres Papers. He far exceeded our expectations and we are happy that he has offered to continue his work at the CSRC as a volunteer. We wish him the very best and look forward to working with him on future CSRC projects.

Special thanks to student workers
The CSRC Library staff would like to congratulate and thank Khanh Nguyen and Connie Tong, student workers who received their undergraduate degrees this past spring quarter. Both of these extraordinary women worked at the CSRC Library for four years. They helped process the Dan Guerrero Research Collection and portions of the Edward R. Roybal Papers, the Tomas Benitez Papers, and the Dionicio Morales Papers. They also were instrumental in our efforts to digitize several collections and place them on the UCLA Digital Library: the Yolanda Retter Vargas Collection of Orphan Photographs, the Edward R. Roybal Photographs, the Nancy Tovar Murals of East L.A. Collection, the Garment Workers of Los Angeles Photograph Collection, and the Oscar Castillo Photograph Collection.

Additions to archival collections
Over the summer, the CSRC acquired an additional 38 linear feet from the Roybal Family, which will be added to the existing 732 linear feet of material in the Edward R. Roybal Papers. This addition contains congressional papers and, primarily, materials that date to Congressman Roybal’s retirement years, when he continued to advocate for improvements in health care.

The archive also acquired an additional 2 linear feet of material for the David Damian Figueroa Papers. These new materials document Figueroa’s career as a civil rights advocate through his work in MALDEF. They include photographs, correspondence, ephemera, books, serials, and audio and visual materials representing many Chicana notables, including Dolores Huerta, Eva Longoria, and Hilda Solis.

New archival collections
Esteban E. Torres Papers
The CSRC is proud to announce the acquisition of the Esteban Torres Papers. Congressman Torres was appointed the first U.S. ambassador to UNESCO in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter; he served in this position for two years. He was then appointed as special assistant to President Carter and functioned as the director of the White House Office of Hispanic Affairs. In 1982 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he represented the 34th District in California, which includes segments of East Los Angeles, Pico Rivera, Whittier, Santa Fe Springs, and other portions of the San Gabriel Valley. Congressman Torres served in the House of Representatives from 1983 to 1999. This collection includes 140 linear feet of diplomatic and congressional materials documenting his years of civic service from 1977 to 1999. It includes photographs, correspondence, ephemera, and his working papers.

Maria Acosta Duran Papers and James and Margarita Mendez Papers
The CSRC acquired these two archival collections from Victor Mendez over the summer.

The Maria Acosta Duran Papers documents the life of Mendez’s grandmother, an early Chicana activist from Arizona. Mrs. Duran was an active member of La Alianza Hispano-Americana and, later, the Community Services Organization and Edward R. Roybal’s campaigns for public office. According to the Roybal family, she was part of the inner circle of people who were very active in supporting Roybal’s career as a civic leader. The collection’s large component of photographs includes documentary images of one of the many Chicano moratoriums that took place throughout the country during the 1970s. These images, along with earlier photographs dating as far back as the 1920s, are in the process of being digitized and will be accessible on the UCLA Digital Library this winter.

Complementing the Maria Acosta Duran collection is her daughter and son-in-law’s collection, the James and Margarita Mendez Papers. This small collection (2 linear feet) includes papers, photographs, and realia (including a Japanese flag) from James Mendez’s military tour in Japan during WWII. The collection also includes materials from his years following his Army service and his use of the GI Bill and loans that were available to returning servicemen. This collection, along with the American GI Forum of California Papers, represents a continuation of the CSRC’s efforts to document the lives of the post-WWII generation of Latinas and Latinos whose frustration with inequality resulted in activities, organizations, and political careers aimed at increasing representation and finding solutions to the many social ills that plagued their communities. The photographic record included in this collection will be digitized and available on the UCLA Digital Library in early 2012.

Researchers who wish to consult these collections may contact Lizette Guerra, CSRC archivist and librarian, at lguerra@chicano.ucla.edu.

CSRC to participate in NEH-funded initiative
Lizette Guerra, CSRC archivist and librarian, is currently working part time as the project archivist for a collaborative project that includes the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, the UCLA Library, and the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archive. “Making Invisible Histories Visible: Preserving the Legacy of Lesbian/Feminist Activism and Writing in Los Angeles,” a three-year project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, is aimed at documenting early lesbian history in Los Angeles since the 1930s. It includes the preservation of eighty archival collections totaling 365 linear feet of materials and 700 hours of recorded sound and moving images that will be digitized and made accessible on the UCLA Digital Library. For more information or to learn more about the previous phase of this project, visit the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archive.

MALCS Summer Institute
This year the MALCS Summer Institute was held at California State University–Los Angeles on August 3–7. Lizette Guerra, CSRC archivist and librarian, participated in a panel titled “Chicanas and Latinas in Archives” along with CSULA librarian Romelia Salinas and UCLA retired librarian Norma Corral. The purpose of this panel was to provide an overview of community archives, specifically those that collect women’s stories, as well as to introduce attendees to the value of archival research.

Guerra also held a workshop titled “The ABCs of Archiving Latinas,” which introduced attendees to the basics of archival practice. She not only discussed the importance of community archiving but also went over basic professional practices that should be applied when documenting and preserving personal and organizational materials: archival appraisal, acquisition, preservation, description, storage, and access.

CSRC collection featured at the Mexican Cultural Institute
Items from the Carlos Vasquez Papers as well as the CSRC Serials Collection are currently on display at the Mexican Cultural Institute (MCI), located across from the historic Placita Olvera in the heart of Los Angeles. The exhibition, titled El Movimiento en Los Angeles: Origins and Legacy, includes photographs, newspapers, archival material, and video presentations that document a series of events that advocated for education and immigration reform, including the numerous Chicano moratoriums that were held throughout the country during the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition runs through September 19. For more information, visit the MCI website.

Online exhibition
Lizette Guerra, CSRC archivist and librarian, is co-curator of “Mexico y Aztlán: Culturas e identidades de la frontera,” an online bibliographic exhibition organized and hosted by the Casa de las Americas en Cuba. It documents the Latino and Chicano presence in the United States from shortly before the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 to the present. Materials reflect discourses about the border, mestizaje, and the notion of Aztlán. The exhibition includes a selection of scholarly books and journals as well as artistic and literary works.

CSRC archival materials on loan
The CSRC Library is loaning dozens of archival items to area museums for exhibitions being presented this fall in conjunction with the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time initiative.

More than twenty items from the Gronk Collection have been sent to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972–1987. The CSRC Archive is also contributing one item from the Gronk Collection to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s Under the Big Black Sun: California Art, 1974–1981.

Over thirty items from the Richard Valverde Digital Collection and The Fire of Life: The Robert Legorreta–Cyclona Collection have been loaned to the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach for MEX/LA: Mexican Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930–1985.

On loan to the Autry National Center for Art Along the Hyphen: The Mexican-American Generation are works by Domingo Ulloa from the Elsa Ulloa collection and works by Hernando Villa.

In addition to the Pacific Standard Time events, CSRC Library has loaned materials for two other exhibitions. Antonia, a portrait of Antonia Hernandez by artist Barbara Carrasco, is at the Forest Lawn Museum in Glendale, where it will be displayed as part of ¡Adelante! Mexican American Artists: 1960s and Beyond. The exhibition opens September 9. Four scrapbook pages from The Fire of Life: The Robert Legorreta–Cyclona Collection appeared in El Museo del Barrio’s Arte ≠ Vida: Actions by Artists of the Americas, 1960-2000, which opened in New York in December 2010 and then traveled to Mexico City, Puebla, Mexico, and Bogota, Colombia. The exhibition concluded in March 2011.

New A Ver volume just released
Malaquias Montoya, the latest volume in the CSRC Press’s award-winning A Ver: Revisioning Art History series, explores the life and work of an extraordinary individual known for his ongoing commitment to activist art. Terezita Romo discusses not only the silkscreen prints for which Montoya is best known but also his drawings, paintings, and murals, all in the context of the artist’s political beliefs. The A Ver series is distributed by the University of Minnesota Press. Click here to order.

Exhibition catalog available this month
The exhibition catalog for L.A. Xicano surveys Chicano art in Los Angeles from its postwar beginnings through the Chicano movement of the 1970s to a contemporary take on Chicano muralism by local artist Sandra de la Loza. Illustrated essays explore the work of the individuals and groups represented in the exhibition. Contributors are Terezita Romo, writing on six Chicano artists who were active after World War II; Karen Mary Davalos, on Goez Art Studios and Gallery; Reina Alejandra Prado Saldivar, on Mechicano Art Center; Sandra de la Loza, on Chicana/o muralism; Harry Gamboa Jr., on the photography of Oscar Castillo; and Chon A. Noriega and Pilar Tompkins Rivas, on Chicano art groups. A plate section showcases art from each of the exhibitions, and a checklist, exhibition history, and bibliography round out the volume. The catalog, published by CSRC Press, will be available in mid-September. Order today from the distributor, University of Washington Press.

How to be a guerrilla historian
In The Pocho Research Society Field Guide to L.A.: Monuments and Murals of Erased and Invisible Histories, visual and performance artist Sandra de la Loza presents a wry commentary on the Chicano history of Los Angeles. She documents the exploits of the Pocho Research Society, an organization dedicated to commemorating sites in Los Angeles that are of importance to the Chicano community but that have been erased by urban development or neglect. The Guide, published by CSRC Press, will be available from the distributor, University of Washington Press, in mid-September.

Aztlán mailing soon
The fall 2012 issue of Aztlán celebrates the history of Chicana/o art, examining the artists and organizations that have fostered powerful and diverse expression since the postwar era. Essays on the self-fashioning of Pattsi Valdez and the Humanscapes of Mel Casas are joined by essays that explore the representation of Native Americans in Ruiz de Burton’s novels and the political cohesiveness of the farmworkers’ movement. The dossier section considers the vital role of “Grupos y Centros” in the development of Chicano art; these pieces look at Self Help Graphics & Art, Centro de Arte Público, Plaza de la Raza, and the founder of Group Workshop, Raymond Moreno. The artist’s communiqué and cover presents the sculpture of Dora De Larios.

New Policy Brief considers reactions to anti-ethnic studies bill
Andrea J. Romero and Anna Ochoa O’Leary examine student reactions to proposed legislation that would prohibit classes focusing on ethnic studies in the latest Latino Policy & Issues Brief. Undergraduate Student Responses to Arizona’s “Anti-ethnic Studies” Bill: Implications for Mental Health reports on the authors’ study of student stress related to SB 1108. The authors show that a positive ethnic identity and civic engagement helped protect the mental health of youth from the effects of stress arising from the bill’s possible passage.

Teacher’s Guide now online
The Teacher’s Guide for Celia Alvarez Muñoz is available online. The guide offers three lessons, closely tied to the book, that include discussion prompts, writing assignments, and art projects. The activities touch on themes that will engage students in grades 6 through 12: depicting personal memories through artist’s books, creating visual representations of border issues, and constructing a cabinet of curiosities filled with items of historical, artistic, or scientific interest. Celia Alvarez Muñoz, by Roberto Tejada, is available from the distributor, University of Minnesota Press.

CSRC Latino Policy & Issues Brief graphic tells the story
The Museum of Teaching and Learning in Fullerton is reproducing a graphic from Latino Policy & Issues Brief No. 13 (March 2006), on Chicana/o academic performance. Drawn from U.S. Census data, the graphic depicts how the education system is failing Chicana/o students. It will be included in the exhibition A Class Action: The Grassroots Struggle for the Desegregation of Schools in California, which opens September 10. The brief, Leaks in the Chicana and Chicano Educational Pipeline, by Tara J. Yosso and Daniel G. Solorzano, is available on the CSRC website.

 

Call for articles
Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies is currently considering submissions for 2012. Each issue of Aztlán presents three types of articles: peer-reviewed essays, thematic dossiers, and book reviews. All submissions are considered on a rolling basis and should be sent to our submission inbox at submissions@chicano.ucla.edu. For complete information about Aztlán and the submission guidelines, please visit the CSRC Press website. To ask questions or discuss ideas with the journal’s staff, please contact Assistant Editor David O’Grady at dogrady@chicano.ucla.edu.

CSRC welcomes visiting scholars for 2011–12
David Avalos, faculty member in the visual and performing arts department at California State University, San Marino, will be working on a book of his collected writings during the fall.

Julia Echeverría is a doctoral candidate in film studies at the University of Zaragoza in Spain. She will be working on a film genre dissertation during the fall and winter.

Ramón García, a professor in the Department of Chicana/o Studies at California State University, Northridge, will continue his research on the documentary photographer Ricardo Valverde (1946–1998) through the fall. His research will be presented in a monograph to be published by CSRC Press as a volume in the A Ver series.

Reynal Guillen has a doctorate in history from UCLA, where he concentrated on the history of science. This year he plans to conduct research, publish findings, and develop programs that engage Los Angeles Chicana/o communities with science education and public outreach.

Carlos Haro, CSRC assistant director emeritus of the CSRC, will continue his research into Chicano education and the history of Chicanos and the schools, oral histories, and comparative and international education. Haro is responsible for CSRC’s annual Latina/o Education Summit series at UCLA, which assesses the critical issues facing Latina/os in the education pipeline from kindergarten through graduate studies.

Alvaro Huerta, doctoral student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, will continue his research on immigrant workers and their social networks during the academic year.

Lindsay Perez Huber holds a doctorate from the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. She will work this year on a project that examines the perpetuation of nativism in California’s education policies.

Sandra de la Loza, who holds a master’s in fine art from California State University, Long Beach, will continue her work this year as a member of the research team for LA Xicano and as curator of the exhibition "Mural Remix: Sandra de la Loza.”

Jennifer Rose Nájera, assistant professor in ethnic studies at the University of California, Riverside, is the IAC Post-Doctoral Visiting Scholar for this academic year. This fall she will complete her revision of a book manuscript titled “The Borderlands of Race: Mexican Segregation in a South Texas Town.”

Abigail Rosas is CSRC’s 2011–12 IAC Post-Doctoral Fellowship recipient. She received her doctorate in American studies and ethnicity from the University of Southern California. During the academic year she will conduct archival research and prepare an article and a book for publication.