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CSRC Newsletter - February 2014

Volume 12, Number 6

Director’s Message

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Sunday morning, so we can expect six more weeks of winter—hardly a relief to those who’ve experienced an extreme cold wave that made polar vortex a household term. Last February I wrote about the connection between Groundhog Day and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. I concluded that, in the United States, “our geography is as diverse as our demographics and cultural history. But we are one nation, a nation that looks to Punxsutawney Phil for signs of the coming spring and to the Southwest for our demographic and economic future.” This year the CSRC shares signs of that future not only with other parts of the country, contributing to exhibitions and conferences in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, and New York, but also abroad, in Nottingham, Amsterdam, Marseille, and Bordeaux. L.A. being L.A., the CSRC is also developing programs in collaboration with partners in other parts of the city, starting later this month with a visit from El Paso-based media artist Willie Varela (see below). There are six more weeks of winter, but the Chicano vortex is a year-round phenomenon.  
 
Chon A. Noriega
Director and Professor
 

News

Spotlight: New DVD on pioneer video artist Willie Varela
This month we are pleased to spotlight Video Art by Willie Varela, volume 9 in the Chicano Cinema and Media Art DVD series, which preserves and showcases important and rare Chicano films and videos. This is the first DVD compilation of works by the avant-garde Chicano filmmaker, and it includes over six hours of material, from silent shorts created in the 1970s to an autobiographical feature-length film completed in 1989. The CSRC worked closely with the artist to produce this original collection. Varela’s videos emphasize the act of looking over storytelling and stress rhythm and repetition over linear development and direct associations. Varela’s films have been screened at venues around the country, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In conjunction with this DVD release, Willie Varela will be giving public talks in Los Angeles, February 20-22 (see Events).
 
Asco exhibition in Marseille co-organized by CSRC
Asco and Friends: Exiled Portraits, an exhibition organized by Le Cartel and the CSRC and co-curated by Celine Kopp, Chon A. Noriega, and Pilar Tompkins Rivas, has been announced. This is the first major exhibition in France of works by the Chicano artist collective Asco. It will take place March 8 through July 6 in the Tour-Panorama at Friche la Belle de Mai in Marseille, France. For more information, visit Le Cartel’s website.
 
LES issues statement supporting MyRA program
On January 29 the Latinos & Economic Security project (LES), of which the CSRC is a partner, issued a statement supporting President Obama's MyRA program, noting that the program is advantageous to Latinos, especially those who may not be knowledgeable about current retirement vehicles. In addition, the new program “lessens the risks of loss, mismanagement, and fraud, an issue important to immigrants, young Latinos, and older Hispanics who have been too often victimized by unscrupulous financial practices.” Read the full statement here. LES was very active on Twitter during the State of the Union address last week, providing commentary pertaining to the president’s statements and what they meant to Latinos. Follow LES at https://twitter.com/LatinoEconomic.
 
Asco image from CSRC collections illustrates catalog
The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago has published a catalog to complement the group exhibition Black Is, Black Ain’t, which was on view at the Society in 2008. Harry Gamboa Jr.’s photograph of Asco’s Decoy Gang War Victim (1974) is featured in “Babel Screened: On Race, Narcissism, and the Predication of American Video Art,” an essay by Huey Copeland. The CSRC furnished the digital image for the illustration. For more information about the catalog and to view a video of the December 2013 launch event, click here.
 
Health is a Human Right extended
The exhibition Health Is a Human Right: Race and Place in America at the David J. Sencer CDC Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, has been extended through April 25. The exhibition includes materials from the Edward R. Roybal Papers and Photograph Collection housed at the CSRC. A review of the exhibition in The Lancet, a journal on global health, can be found here.
 
Class uses Pocho Guide as model text
A class titled In the Between: At the Intersections of Writing, Art, Politics, being taught this winter through the Interdisciplinary Art Program at the University of Houston, will utilize as one of its texts the CSRC publication The Pocho Research Society Field Guide to L.A.: Monuments and Murals of Erased and Invisible Histories by Sandra de la Loza. As described by installation artist and course co-instructor Jen Hofer, “In the Between examines writing and art practices that engage public space and social relations with the aim of using aesthetic work to imagine and enact the potential for a more just and wondrous world.” The class is open both to university students and to members of the public. Author and artist de la Loza will be among the invited guests and will also participate in a course-related collective book project.
 
Report on transgender Latina immigrants available
On Wednesday, January 15, the CSRC was pleased to host a screening of the 2013 documentary Transvisible: Bamby Salcedo’s Story. The event was curated by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, professor of English, Chicana/o, and women’s studies. Director Dante Alencastre and Bamby Salcedo were present at the event, which drew over fifty people, several from outside UCLA. The TransLatin@ Coalition, founded in 2009, advocates “for the rights and needs of transLatin@ immigrants in the US” A PDF of the Coalition’s 2013 report, TransVisible: Transgender Latina Immigrants in U.S. Society, is available on the CSRC website.
 
CSRC associate director on NPR
On January 21, Alex Ortega, CSRC associate director and professor in the UCLA School of Public Health, was interviewed for a story on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition about the high rate of diabetes among Latinos and the efforts being made to reduce it. Ortega leads the School of Public Health’s “Market Makeover” project in East Los Angeles, which converts small food markets in low-income areas into stores featuring fresh fruits and vegetables. The story can be heard here.
 
Culturally inspired nail decals by CSRC staffer make news
Congratulations to CSRC project coordinator and artist Ana Guajardo, whose nail decal business, Cha Cha Covers, was discussed on KQED’s California Report. Listen to the story here.
 
Azaceta exhibition opens in Newark
Luis Cruz Azaceta: Dictators, Terrorism, War and Exiles opened January 23 at Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art, in Newark, New Jersey. As described by guest curator Alejandro Anreus, the exhibition “represents Cruz Azaceta’s commitment to bearing witness to the political crisis of humanity. His work reflects how he identifies with isolation and oppression and speaks to both the horror and determination that is a part of the journey towards survival and freedom.” The exhibition is on view through April 26. Anreus has authored a book about Cruz Azaceta for the CSRC’s A Ver series that will be published this summer.
 
New videos on CSRC YouTube
Video recordings of more of our Fall 2013 and the first of our Winter 2014 public programs are now available for viewing on CSRC YouTube:
 
  • Exhibition Reception: You Found Me: Photographs by Christopher Anthony Velasco (January 23, 2014). As the artist describes, “You Found Me is an ongoing photographic exploration of the effects of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Using photographs of randomly found shopping carts, I describe feelings of depression, displacement, and abandonment that are triggered by the condition.” Velasco is a mixed-media artist working in Los Angeles. His photography and collage pieces explore the urban landscape, public and private space, and questions of identity.
 
  • Talk: Anna Indych-López Presents “Beyond the Controversy: Diego Rivera's Rockefeller Center Mural and the Politics of Space” (January 9, 2014). The destruction of Rivera's mural for the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in New York is one of the best-known examples of censorship in the United States. Although scholars have focused on Rivera's painted image of Lenin, this talk examines the controversy over his mural within the context of artistic and architectural collaboration and the diverging views of public art in the 1930s. Anna Indych-López is associate professor of art history at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She specializes in the modern art of Latin America, specifically Mexico.
 
  • Book Talk: Randy Jurado Ertll Presents The Life of an Activist: In the Frontlines 24/7 (December 3, 2013). Ertll served most recently as executive director of El Centro de Acción Social in Pasadena. The Life of an Activist (University Press of America, 2013) describes social movements and provides useful advice on how to successfully manage non-profits to accomplish positive social change that truly improves people’s lives. This talk concludes with a poetry reading by William A. Gonzalez.
 
  • Panel: Nuevas Voces Poeticas: A Dialogue with the Coalition of New Chican@ Artists (CONCA) (December 5, 2013) Over the past five years, Chicana/o poetics has been increasingly utilized as a mode of political activism. A growing number of poetry readings, chapbooks, magazine publications, and CDs of Latina/o writers reflect increasing identification with the political aspirations of the Chicano/a movement. This roundtable discussion was led by the four poets who compose the Coalition of New Chican@ Artists (CONCA): Christopher Carmona, Isaac Chavarria, Rossy Evelin Lima, and Gabriel Sanchez. Each has a different Chicana/o identity: Xicanindio, inmigrante, poch@, and the “fluid” Chican@. CONCA is based in South Texas.
 

CSRC in the News

“Napolitano Releases UC-wide Guidelines to Address Discrimination”
CSRC director Chon A. Noriega was quoted in a Daily Bruin story concerning the anti-discrimination measures recently mandated by UC President Janet Napolitano for all UC campuses.
Daily Bruin, January 29, 2014 (PDF)
 
“California Arts Figure José Montoya Remembered for His Contributions”
A summary of remembrances of the late Chicano poet and activist, including the Los Angeles Times obituary that quotes CSRC director Chon A. Noriega.
VOXXI, January 27, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Los Angeles Artist Brings Immigrant Labor into Focus”
CSRC director Chon A. Noriega was interviewed for this radio story on artist Ramiro Gomez, who currently has a solo exhibition on view at the Charlie James Gallery in downtown Los Angeles.
KPCC 89.3 FM, “Multi-American,” January 21, 2014 (PDF)
Also mentioned in UCLA News, January 21, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Malaquias Montoya”
Chon A. Noriega’s foreword to A Ver: Malaquias Montoya was reprinted in the digital journal Apuntes.
Apuntes, January 13, 2014 (PDF)
 
All “In the News” articles are available in PDF format on the CSRC website.
 

Events

The first ten RSVPs for the CSRC Gonzales and Varela events will receive free parking! UCLA faculty, students, and staff are not eligible. Contact Rebecca Epstein, CSRC Events, at repstein@chicano.ucla.edu.
 
Solis to give Doby lecture
Hilda Solis, former U.S. secretary of labor, has been named the 2014 Dr. Winston C. Doby Distinguished Lecturer. She will deliver her address on Wednesday, February 12, at the UCLA Anderson School of Management’s Korn Convocation Hall. The program begins at 5:00 p.m. The Winston C. Doby Lecture Series was established by the UCLA Academic Advancement Program (AAP) to honor its first director and to recognize his many contributions to higher education and the UCLA community. In 1970 Doby created AAP, the nation’s largest university-based student diversity program, to assist first-generation college students, students from low-income families, and students from historically underrepresented communities. For more information and to RSVP, visit the AAP website. The CSRC is a co-sponsor of this event.
 
Political scientist to present new book on violence against migrants
On Wednesday, February 19, 3:00–5:00 p.m., the CSRC will welcome Alfonso Gonzales, assistant professor of political science at Lehman College, City University of New York. Gonzales will discuss his new book, Reform Without Justice: Latino Migrant Politics and the Homeland Security State (OUP, 2013). Placed within the context of the past decade’s war on terror and emergent Latino migrant movement, the book addresses the issue of state violence against migrants in the United States. The author argues that Latino migrant activists—especially youth—and their allies can change this reality and help democratize the United States. Joining the discussion will be Leisy Abrego, assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano studies; Alvaro Huerta, CSRC visiting scholar; and Raymond Rocco, associate professor of political science. This event is co-sponsored by the UCLA Latin American Institute.
 
CSRC welcomes avant-garde Chicano filmmaker
In celebration of the recent release of Video Art by Willie Varela, part of the CSRC’s Chicano Cinema and Media Art DVD series, the CSRC will welcome the experimental video artist and photographer to UCLA for a brief residency. In addition to lecturing to film students in FTV100B, a senior symposium, Varela will discuss his work with CSRC director Chon A. Noriega at the CSRC Library on Thursday, February 20, 4:30–6:00 p.m., followed by a reception. On Saturday, February 22, 5:00–6:30 p.m., Varela will present a selection of his work at the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park. Both programs are free. This is a rare opportunity to meet the El Paso–based filmmaker, who was a pioneer in the experimental video and photography movement in the United States.
 
IRLE presents annual conference
The UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE), in coordination with the Critical Race Studies Program and the UCLA School of Law, presents the conference Race, Labor, and the Law at Young Research Library on Friday, February 28 and Saturday, March 1. Join leading legal scholars, social scientists, humanists, and practitioners for a reframing of the relationship between race, gender, class, and labor in the United States. Through interdisciplinary approaches to the subject, panelists will examine interlocking forms of oppression; consider how the interplay between them shapes labor markets, labor hierarchies, and labor and employment law; and investigate the repressive and insurgent forces involved. Panels will discuss the transformation of the labor movement; immigration; the rights of indigenous peoples in the United States; worker voice and labor speech; prison labor and re-entry; intimate labor; and women in low-wage work and organizing. For more information, visit the IRLE website. To register, click here. The CSRC is a co-sponsor of this conference.
 
All CSRC events are free unless otherwise noted. Programs are subject to change. For the most current information, visit the Events page on the CSRC website.
 

CSRC Library

You Found Me exhibition continues
The exhibition You Found Me: Photographs by Christopher Anthony Velasco remains on view at the CSRC Library through March 21 during regular library hours (Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.). The exhibition is free and open to the public.
 
CSRC Library welcomes students from Watts
On January 30, CSRC librarian Lizette Guerra gave a library tour to students from INSPIRE Research Academy (IRA), an alternative high school located in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. IRA, which serves approximately seventy-five students from seventeen to twenty-four years of age, offers students the opportunity to earn a GED and to engage in community-based research and leadership training. It is operated by the Institute of Service-Learning, Power, & Intersectional Research, a Watts-based non-profit organization that seeks to build alternative spaces for knowledge production in partnership with local universities and colleges.
 
Additions to existing collections
The CSRC has acquired an additional linear foot of material for the Homeboy Industries Records. These new materials were donated by Father Gregory Boyle. They include photographs, correspondence, ephemera, books, serials, and audio and visual materials documenting his work at Homeboy Industries and the organizational day-to-day activities of this non-profit organization.
 
New additions have also been made to the Francesco Siqueiros Papers. Siqueiros, an artist, educator, and printmaker, recently contributed additional personal papers to his collection as well as cassette tapes containing twelve interviews of Chicana/o artists, which were recorded in the late 1980s. The CSRC will be digitizing this material to preserve it and make it available for researchers.
 
New archival collections
The CSRC is proud to announce the addition of the Ben Juarez Collection of Chicano Moratorium Photographs and the Edward V. Moreno Papers. Juarez’s collection includes thirty-six black-and-white images that he shot at the Chicano Moratorium on August 29, 1970, in East Los Angeles. Moreno’s papers document Chicano and Latino civic engagement and activism in the San Fernando Valley between the 1960s and 1990s. Moreno was a founding member of AMAE (Association of Mexican American Educators) and worked closely with the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation, the Community Service Organization, the United Farm Workers union, and several activists who have donated archival materials to the CSRC Library, including Julian Nava, Ralph Arriola, Grace Montañez Davis, and Edward Roybal.
 
To learn more about CSRC collections and projects please email your queries to the CSRC librarian, Lizette Guerra, at lguerra@chicano.ucla.edu.
 

CSRC Press

New edition of Self Help Graphics & Art
Now available! The second edition of Self Help Graphics & Art: Art in the Heart of Los Angeles brings the original edition, published in 2005, up to date, adding breadth and depth to the history of the historic East L. A. arts center. Joining the original essay is a chapter that covers the period from 2005 through 2013 and an essay that considers the organization’s interventions in the conception of art and community. Also new is an interview with five prominent artists associated with Self Help Graphics who discuss the organization’s foundational years and longstanding influence.
 
Accompanying the finding aid to the Self Help Graphics & Art archives at the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA) is a guide to the CSRC Library’s Self Help Graphics & Art Research Collection, which includes documents related to events and exhibitions, administrative papers, and 100 original prints produced at Self Help Graphics.
 
Contributors are Michael Amescua, Yreina Cervantez, Karen Mary Davalos, Armando Durón, Evonne Gallardo, Salvador Güereña, Colin Gunckel, Kristen Guzmán, Leo Limón, Chon A. Noriega, Peter Tovar, Linda Vallejo, and Mari Cárdenas Yáñez. Self Help Graphics & Art may be ordered online from the University of Washington Press.
 

Opportunities

FINAL CALL: IAC Visiting Scholar/Researcher Program in Ethnic Studies
The UCLA Institute of American Cultures offers awards to visiting scholars and researchers to support research on African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Chicanas/os. Applications are especially encouraged that advance our understanding of new social and cultural realities occasioned by the dramatic population shifts of recent decades, including greater heterogeneity within ethnic groups and increased interethnic contact.
 
Two types of awards will be offered: Visiting Scholar appointments for persons who currently hold permanent academic appointments and Visiting Researcher positions for newly degreed scholars. In 2014–15, IAC Visiting Scholars/Researchers will receive funding for one or more quarters, with a maximum stipend of $32,000 to $35,000 for three quarters (contingent upon rank, experience, and date of completion of their terminal degree) and will receive health benefits. 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. Awardees may receive up to $4,000 in research support (through reimbursements of research expenses), $1,000 of which may be applied toward relocation expenses.
 
Eligibility
Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States and hold a Ph.D. from an accredited college/university (or, in the case of the arts, a terminal degree) in the appropriate field at the time of appointment. UCLA faculty, staff, and currently enrolled students are not eligible to apply.
 
Deadline
Applications are available in December and due by 5:00 p.m., February 5, 2014. Recipients are notified in April.
 
For more information and the application, visit the IAC website.
 
FINAL CALL: IAC Graduate and Predoctoral Fellowships in Ethnic Studies
Current UCLA students with a demonstrated interest in ethnic studies are eligible to apply for graduate and predoctoral fellowships to aid in completion of a thesis or dissertation. Applications are especially encouraged that advance our understanding of new social and cultural realities occasioned by the dramatic population shifts of recent decades, including greater heterogeneity within ethnic groups and increased interethnic contact. Fellowships will be awarded on a competitive basis to current UCLA graduate students and predoctoral candidates with demonstrated interest in the field of ethnic studies to aid in the completion of a thesis or dissertation. The terms of awarded fellowships may range from one to three quarters and will cover in-state tuition and fees plus a maximum stipend of $6,000 per quarter. The acceptance of a fellowship carries with it the commitment to make a contribution to the activities of the sponsoring Ethnic Studies Research Center.
 
Awards are for one academic year or quarter.
 
Unfortunately, the Chicano Studies Research Center and the American Indian Studies Center will not be awarding 2014–15 Graduate/Predoctoral Fellowships due to budget constraints.
 
Eligibility
Open only to UCLA students with a demonstrated interest in African American or Asian American studies. Application for the fellowship in African American Studies is open only to doctoral students who will have advanced to candidacy by the beginning of the fellowship year. Applicants may apply to only one research center during a given funding cycle.
 
Deadline
Applications are available in December and due by 5:00 p.m., February 5, 2014. Recipients are notified by mid-April.

For more information and the application, visit the IAC website.
 
IAC Research Grant Program in Ethnic Studies
The UCLA Institute of American Cultures invites applications for support of research on African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Chicanas/os for 2014–15. The Institute also invites proposals on interethnic relations that will increase collaboration between the Centers and/or between the Centers and other campus units.
 
The Chicano Studies Research Center is also able to offer two student research awards of $2500 from the Tamar Diana Wilson Fund. These awards are used to conduct original research projects in the United States, Mexico and Central America on urban poverty and poverty alleviation as they apply to Latinos and Mexican and Central American indigenous populations. To apply, check both the Chicana/o Studies and the Tamar Diana Wilson Fund boxes on the IAC application.
 
The Research Grant Program is on a reimbursement basis only. Ordinarily, faculty projects will be funded for no more than $10,000 and graduate student projects for no more than $7,000. Funds for the purchase of permanent equipment will be provided only under exceptional circumstances. Conference travel, whether the applicant is presenting or attending, is ineligible.
 
Eligibility
Open only to UCLA faculty, staff, graduate students, and IAC Visiting Scholars/Researchers.
 
Deadline
Applications must be received no later than 5:00 p.m., April 22, 2014. Awards will be announced in mid-May.
 
For more information and the application, visit the IAC website.