CSRC Newsletter - February 2016

 

Writer and artist Harry Gamboa Jr. and I recently spent a morning visiting Paramount Ranch in Topanga Canyon. First purchased by Paramount Pictures in 1927, this “movie ranch” served as the landscape for numerous Westerns. But it was also used to represent colonial America, ancient China, and a South Seas island. In the early 1950s, Paramount sold the ranch and it became a site for television Westerns, the last one being Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman in the 1990s. By then the ranch was under the custodianship of the National Park Service. Harry and I went on our road trip to see Paramount Ranch III, the final edition of an annual art fair set in the ranch’s small Wild West village. Looming above the tree line, Paul McCarthy’s giant inflatable Tree—suggestive of other things, too—signaled our arrival. On the grounds, contemporary art was on display in horse stalls, the saloon, and other “Western” spaces. Inside the train depot, high up on the walls, were three of Gamboa’s photographs of street actions by the conceptual art group Asco, including Asshole Mural, shot in 1974 in front of a storm drain outlet on a beach in Malibu. Outside the depot window one could see McCarthy’s Tree, establishing a dialogue between the two works that felt like an epic battle that would determine the fate of the art fair at the Wild West village. Whose visceral vision of the carnivalesque as a liberating force would win out? McCarthy’s monumental outdoor spectacle or Gamboa’s 35mm media-circulated commentary from an invisible population? In a way, the experience of viewing art at Paramount Ranch resonated with the site itself, which has become a national “park” not for its landscape, but for how the entertainment industry has used that space to conjure up fictions about the past and other places. What it all meant, I’m not sure, but as Harry and I rode off into the sunset, one thing was clear: it was good to get out of the city and enjoy the Wild West!

 

Chon A. Noriega

Director and Professor

 

 

CSRC receives support from Warhol Foundation for HOME

The CSRC has been awarded a major grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to support the implementation of Home—So Different, So Appealing, an exhibition the CSRC is organizing as part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: L.A./L.A. initiative. The exhibition will explore how contemporary U.S. Latino and Latin American artists explore the concept of “home.” It will open at LACMA’s Broad Contemporary Art Museum in June 2017 and then travel to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH), among other anticipated venues. The exhibition is co-curated by Chon A. Noriega, director of the CSRC; Mari Carmen Ramirez, the MFAH Wortham Curator of Latin American Art; and Pilar Tompkins Rivas, coordinator of curatorial initiatives at LACMA.

 

Villaseñor Black presents on Aztlán and state of Latina/o studies

Charlene Villaseñor Black, CSRC associate director, professor of art history and Chicana/o studies, and incoming editor of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, spoke at the University of Chicago on January 21. Her panel, titled “The State of Latino Studies,” included Lourdes Torres, editor of Latino Studies and the Vincent de Paul Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at DePaul University, and Frances R. Aparicio, professor of Spanish and Portuguese and director of the Latina and Latino studies program at Northwestern University. Villaseñor Black spoke about the state of Latina/o studies from the viewpoint of Los Angeles and UCLA, as well as the history of the journal and hopes for its future direction. The panel was created as part of the Reproduction of Race and Racial Ideologies workshop series at the University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture. This event was organized by Ramón Gutiérrez, the Preston and Sterling Morton Distinguished Service Professor in United States History and the College, and Alfredo Gonzales, a graduate student in political science and a former UCLA student.

 

National broadcast of No Más Bebés

On February 1 the documentary No Más Bebés will have its national broadcast premiere on PBS (check your local listings). The film tells the story of the ten women behind Madrigal v. Quilligan, a lawsuit brought against the Los Angeles County–USC Medical Center in 1975 for nonconsensual sterilization. Directed by Renee Tajima-Peña, professor of Asian American studies and the Alumni and Friends of Japanese American Ancestry Endowed Chair at UCLA, the film addresses the reproductive justice issues that Latinas continue to face, including the right to bodily autonomy and to information that is linguistically and culturally appropriate when accessing health services. A research grant from the CSRC supported aspects of the project, which included consulting the Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez Sterilization Papers at the CSRC.

 

Sanchez curates exhibition on “Blaxicans”

Nathalie Sanchez, artist, educator, and former Getty intern at the CSRC, has organized an exhibition opening on February 13 at Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park. Duality: Blaxicans of L.A. showcases the work of Walter Thompson-Hernandez, who uses a multimodal storytelling approach to explore questions of race, ethnicity, and identity among African Americans and Latinos in Los Angeles and the United States. Thompson-Hernandez is a Los Angeles­–based writer, photographer, and researcher and, currently, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration and the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) at the University of Southern California. The exhibition opens with a reception on February 13 and closes March 5. For more information, visit the gallery’s website.

 

New video on CSRC YouTube

 

 

“#OscarsSoWhite Hashtag Returns; It Starts with the Academy”

The CSRC Latino Policy and Issues Brief Not Quite a Breakthrough: The Oscars and Actors of Color, 2002–2012 (2012) was cited in an article on the lack of racial diversity among Academy Award nominees.

FOX2Now.com, January 19, 2016 (PDF)

 

“Diane Rodriguez Appointed to National Council on the Arts”

Diane Rodriguez, associate artistic director of Los Angeles’s Center Theatre Group (CTG), was confirmed by the United States Senate as a new member of the National Council on the Arts, the advisory body of the National Endowment for the Arts. Rodriguez, who has been on the staff of CTG for over twenty years, served as co-director of CTG’s Latino Theatre Initiative and dramatically increased the diversity of CTG productions. The CSRC has the Latino Theatre Initiative/Center Theatre Group Papers, which reflect much of Rodriguez’s groundbreaking work. Mentioned in the story is the CSRC Press publication dedicated to that collection.

Arts.gov, January 6, 2016 (PDF)

 

“LACMA Names Two UCLA Students as Curatorial Fellowship Recipients”

The Daily Bruin profiled two students chosen to be first-year Andrew W. Mellon undergraduate curatorial fellows at LACMA. The fellowship program, developed in part by CSRC director Chon A. Noriega, aims to provide training in the curatorial field to undergraduates from groups that are historically underrepresented on museum curatorial staffs. This year, both first-year LACMA fellows are UCLA students.

Daily Bruin, January 5, 2016 (PDF)

 

“Latino Representation in U.S. Art History Departments”

In an interview discussing Latino representation in university art history departments in the United States, Adriana Zavala, associate professor of art history and director of the Latino Studies program at Tufts University, reflects on her article, “Latin@ Art at the Intersection,” which she published in the Spring 2015 issue of Aztlán journal. 

Hyperallergic, January 4, 2016 (Interview PDF) (Aztlán Article PDF)

 

All “In the News” articles are available in PDF format on the CSRC website.

 

 

Colloquium: “Coming Out As . . . .”

Monday, February 8, 2:00–5:00 p.m.

UCLA Charles Young Research Library—Room 11360

This colloquium will focus on how the phrase “coming out” has expanded, migrated, and been re-purposed by various marginalized groups, such as transgender individuals, undocumented immigrants, and the plural marriage rights movement. Speakers include Kristen Schilt (University of Chicago), Laura Enriquez (UC Irvine), and Nicole Iturriaga, Abigail Saguy, and James Schultz (UCLA). The event is part of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women’s Research and Equity Committee initiative, which is supported by the Office of Interdisciplinary and Cross Campus Affairs. It is organized by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women and the Williams Institute and cosponsored by the CSRC, the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies, UCLA LGBT Studies, the UCLA LGBT Resource Center, the UCLA Library, and the UCLA Sociology of Gender Working Group. For more information, visit: https://csw.ucla.edu/event/coming-out-as. To RSVP, click here.

 

Book Talk: Mario T. García in conversation with Rosalio Muñoz and Raul Ruiz

Thursday, February 11, 5:00-7:00 p.m.

CSRC Library—144 Haines Hall

Join us for a presentation by Mario T. García of his latest book, The Chicano Generation: Testimonios of the Movement (University of California Press, 2015). Joining García for a discussion of the Chicano movement in Los Angeles will be Rosalio Muñoz and Raul Ruiz, two key activists whose first-person accounts are featured in the book. García is a professor of Chicana and Chicano studies at UC Santa Barbara. A book signing and a reception featuring catering by Casa Blanca will follow the discussion. Books will be available for purchase. The first five people to email avargas@chicano.ucla.edu will receive free parking.

 

Screening: Latino Americans, Episode 2: “Empire of Dreams”

Monday, February 22, 4:00-6:00 p.m.

CSRC Library—144 Haines Hall

The CSRC will present a screening of “Empire of Dreams,” the second episode of the PBS series Latino Americans. This episode examines widespread immigration to the United States from Latin American countries and deportations between 1880 and 1942. After the screening, Marissa K. López, associate professor of English and Chicana/o studies, will lead a discussion on topics raised in the episode. López’s areas of expertise include Chicana/o literature from the nineteenth century to the present, with an emphasis on Mexican California. A reception will follow the discussion. This screening and screenings of other episodes of Latino Americans (see below) are part of a national public programming initiative titled Latino Americans: 500 Years of History. It is produced by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA) as part of the NEH’s The Common Good: Humanities in the Public Square initiative. Latino Americans was broadcast on PBS in 2013.

 

Screening: Please, Don’t Bury Me Alive!

Tuesday, February 23, 6:00 p.m.

UTEP Union Cinema —El Paso, Texas

The 2016 El Paso Community College Spring Arts Festival will present a fortieth-anniversary screening of Please, Don’t Bury Me Alive! Considered the first Chicano feature film, it was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2014. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Efraín Gutiérrez. The CSRC is a cosponsor of this event. For more information, visit the filmmaker’s website.

 

Screening: Latino Americans, Episode 4: “The New Latinos”

Thursday, February 25, 12:00-1:30 p.m.

CSRC Library—144 Haines Hall

The CSRC will present a screening of “The New Latinos,” the fourth episode of the PBS series Latino Americans. This episode explores the three waves of large-scale immigration between 1946 and 1965. Following the screening, Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, assistant professor of film at UCLA, will lead a discussion on topics raised in the episode. Guevara-Flanagan is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her most recent feature, Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines, traces the evolution and legacy of the comic book hero Wonder Woman as a way to reflect on society’s anxieties about women’s liberation.

 

Screening: Latino Americans, Episode 5: “Prejudice and Pride”

Thursday, March 3, 7:30 p.m.

Fowler Museum—Lenart Auditorium

In collaboration with the Fowler Museum, the CSRC will present a screening of “Prejudice and Pride,” the fifth episode of the PBS series Latino Americans. The episode examines the emergence of the Chicano movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Following the screening, Chon A. Noriega, CSRC director, will lead a discussion with Ernesto Chávez, associate professor of history at University of Texas at El Paso and former CSRC visiting researcher, about the Chicano movement’s activation of a cultural as well as a political nationalism. This event is presented in conjunction with the exhibition José Montoya’s Abundant Harvest: Works on Paper/Works on Life at the Fowler Museum, February 21–July 17, 2016.

 

All CSRC events are free and do not require an RSVP unless otherwise noted. Programs are subject to change. For the most current information, visit the Events page on the CSRC website.

 

 

Processing begins on Esparza Papers

With the assistance of Michael Aguilar, a graduate student in library and information science at UCLA, the CSRC has completed its survey of the Moctesuma Esparza Papers, a major collection comprising over 400 linear feet of material. Performing a survey is the necessary first step before a collection can be processed and preserved in the CSRC library. Esparza is a producer, entertainment executive, entrepreneur, and community activist. He is the CEO of Maya Cinemas, a theater chain catering to U.S. Latino audiences. In 2007 he founded Maya Entertainment, a vertically integrated media content company. Esparza received his BA and MFA in television production from UCLA. The Esparza Papers at the CSRC, which pertain to Esparza’s extensive career in film and television, will be available to researchers in the near future.

 

Community college students visit CSRC

In collaboration with the UCLA Center for Community College Partnerships, on January 14 the CSRC welcomed twenty-eight students from local community colleges to spend the morning learning about UCLA and its admissions process for transfer students. Approximately 85 percent of the students attending were Chicana/o students. Connie Heskett, MSO, and Rebecca Epstein, communications and academic programs officer, gave presentations on the CSRC and the services and work-study opportunities offered by the library. Students also received copies of CSRC Press books and journals.

 

 

Call for submissions: Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies

Aztlán, the premier journal of Chicana/o studies, is inviting new submissions! Aztlán publishes scholarship relevant to Chicana/o studies from all disciplines and interdisciplinary research as well. We welcome submissions in English and Spanish. We are seeking submissions for all three areas of the journal:

 

Essays

Our essays are research-based and come from a wide variety of disciplines—literature, sociology, history, political science, the arts, linguistics, gender studies, ethnic studies, and many other fields—but they always engage the Chicana/o experience. All essays are peer reviewed and are frequently revised to meet the journal’s standards for quality research. Essays typically run about 10,000–12,000 words in length.

 

Dossiers

The dossier section provides a forum for multiple and shorter engagements with a specific theme that examines an aspect of Chicana/o studies; this might be an object of study, theoretical or disciplinary questions, a methodology, or one scholar’s work. The dossier section, while still of a scholarly nature, is designed to be exploratory, provocative, or experimental in approach. Aztlán will consider working with a guest curator—a scholar who wishes to create a dossier theme and can help manage dossier development. Contact Heather Birdsall at hbirdsall@chicano.ucla.edu to explore this opportunity.

 

Book Reviews

If you are interested in writing a book review for us, we will gladly consider suggested titles, or we can recommend a book for you that matches your field of interest. To inquire about reviews, contact our book review coordinator, Daniel Zweifach, at revieweditor@chicano.ucla.edu.

 

To submit: All submissions should be sent to our submission inbox at submissions@chicano.ucla.edu. For complete information about Aztlán and our submission guidelines, please visit the CSRC website. Please direct queries to Heather Birdsall, assistant editor, at hbirdsall@chicano.ucla.edu. We look forward to receiving your submissions!

 

 

IAC Research Grant Program in Ethnic Studies

The Institute of American Cultures invites applications from UCLA faculty, staff, graduate students, and IAC Visiting Scholars/Researchers for support of research on African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Chicana/os for 2016-17. The Institute also invites proposals on interethnic relations that will increase collaboration between the Centers and/or between the Centers and other UCLA campus units.

 

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

UCLA faculty, staff, graduate students, and IAC Visiting Scholars/Researchers only.
 

Grant Period
July 1, 2016, through May 31, 2017

Deadline
Applications must be received by April 20, 2016, 11:59 p.m.

 

Grant recipients using human subjects will be required to submit her or his research proposal or exemption materials to the UCLA Institutional Review Board for approval. For those doing research on human subjects, funds will be available to grant recipients after completion of training and certification in the Protection of Human Research Subjects.

 

For more information, visit: http://www.iac.ucla.edu/fellowships_research.html

The application is available online at: https://sa.ucla.edu/IAC/ResearchGrant