CSRC Research Grants, 2016-2017
The Politics of Localization: Indigenous Women’s Social Movements in Guerrero and Oaxaca
Principal Investigator: Maylei Blackwell, UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies
This project aims to examine how effective transborder movements navigate and negotiate the complex borders of race, class, gender, indigeneity, sexuality, and citizenship status that often shift due to migration. Blackwell argues, “Oaxacan migration to Los Angeles, along with the Mayan diaspora from Guatemala, opens up new productive conversations about the meaning of Latinidad and indigeneity and how indigeneity has been mobilized in the field of Chicana/o Studies.”
Based on collaborative research with the Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales (FIOB) including critical ethnography, participant observation and oral histories, Blackwell will focus her research on organization’s journey toward more equitable leadership structures for women and theorizes the uneven transnational terrains of power over which gender and indigeneity are articulated.
The Xicano Future is Now
Principal Investigator: Marissa López, UCLA Department of English and César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies
Funds will provide support to explore the relationship between human and machine in the work of Adrian Molina, a Denver-based poet, performing artist and activist. López will explore what Molina’s use of technology means for the burgeoning field of “chicanafuturism.” By attending Molina’s workshops and conducting an oral history interview with him, López believes these two dyads—human/machine and performance/text—and their transformations through various media in Molina’s work might ground a theory of ethnic literary arts and the future.
Transgressing boundaries: Latinxs Navigating family, labor, and spirituality
Principal Investigator: Jacqueline Caraves, PhD student, UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies
This study explores the ways in which transgender Latinxs experience the three realms of their lives: family, labor, and spirituality. Through surveys conducted in Southern California and interviews with the queer and trans community, Caraves seeks to explore these sites as places that displace and reject her subjects. In addition, this dissertation project examines how this community makes meaning of the inclusion, exclusion or shades of both that they experience as they transgress multiple boundaries on a daily basis.
Supported in part by the Tamar Diana Wilson Fund
Healing with HeART: Resilience and Coping with State Neglected Immigrant Children
Principal Investigator: Silvia Patricia Rodriguez Vega, PhD student, UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies
This dissertation project examines the experiences of children in immigrant families growing up in harsh conditions by using artistic pedagogies that provide them tools to cope with their daily stressors and identify their risk factors. Vega will work with children, mainly Mexican and some Central and South Americans (age 6-17), in Los Angeles, CA and Phoenix, AZ through a ten-week art curriculum grounded in Community Cultural Development methods and Theater of the Oppressed through their school or local community center. The project’s objective is to bring to light the cultural, emotional, academic, and creative experiences of a vulnerable population.
Supported in part by the Tamar Diana Wilson Fund
Spatialized Racial Views: The Influence of Geography and Economic Restructuring in American Perceptions of Racial Progress
Principal Investigator: Jessica Lynn Stewart, PhD student, UCLA Department of Political Science
This study examines the influence of contextual factors on racial progress attitudes for African-Americans, Latinos, and Whites. Due to labor market shifts over the past three decades that facilitated a "Great Divergence" of American cities along economic and educational lines, Stewart argues racial progress attitudes have become more geographically differentiated over time. Using a series of survey questions related to racialized public policy, discrimination, and improvement in the social position of marginalized groups, this dissertation project seeks to understand how economic restructuring has shaped these racial progress attitudes.
Nuevos Destinos, Nuevas Posibilidades?: The Incorporation and Citizenship Experiences of Puerto Ricans in Orlando, Florida
Principal Investigator: Ariana Valle, PhD student, UCLA Department of Sociology
IAC funds have been awarded for the continued study of the contemporary intersection of citizenship, incorporation, and racialization by studying the experiences of Puerto Ricans in Florida. Because Puerto Ricans do not encounter barriers to enter the mainland, and yet, “like other migrants, they cross cultural, linguistic, and political boundaries.” Valle argues that Puerto Ricans are an ideal subject through which to study citizenship, incorporation, and racialization “frameworks.” Valle will interview 130 Puerto Ricans in Orlando in her attempt to examine a set of factors–phenotype, gender, education, and nativity–which has not been previously explored for this group or in this location.
DIEZ: Ten Artists, Ten Stories
Principal Investigator: Charlene Villaseñor Black, UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies and Department of Art History
The IAC-Parsons Foundation Faculty Research Grant has been awarded to support research on the lives of aging Chicana/o artists in East LA and their desire to pass on their knowledge and political commitments to the younger generation. DIEZ will be a feature length film intended to shine a light on major East Los Angeles Chicana/o artists, veteranos of the Chicano activist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, many of whose work remains unknown within mainstream arts institutions. Filming and editing will be led by filmmaker Roberto Oregel. The project objective is to create a new kind of art history, one documented by a filmmaker and one that makes significant contributions as: 1) a scholarly resource, documenting the lives and art of these important but unstudied artists; 2) a pathway to introduce a new generation to this art; and 3) an opportunity to preserve a piece of Los Angeles’s artistic and cultural heritage.