CSRC Newsletter - May 2006

Yesterday, Los Angeles experienced two major marches, with more than 500,000 people. Nationwide rallies and a boycott rolled across the nation. Here at the CSRC we have long known that immigration is a hot-button issue, and we have the hate mail to prove it: we have received angry letters each time we have released a report that examines the role of immigrants in the economy and the body politic. For some, immigration is an issue that they would like to see just go away. In this view immigration is no longer the cornerstone of the American Dream (remember "We are a nation of immigrants"; remember "Give me your tired, your poor"?); it has become a nightmare about being overrun by Mexicans. But you can't have it both ways: wanting all the benefits of Mexican labor, but not wanting to grant basic human rights to the Mexicans who provide that labor. Although immigration is a complicated issue—and it is more deeply hardwired into our economy and social structure than anyone wants to admit right now—it is above all a human issue. There is no simple answer, but we would do well to remember our nation's values and promise with respect to immigration and human rights. We are, indeed, a nation of immigrants, and as Abraham Lincoln once said, paraphrasing Jesus in the New Testament, "a house divided against itself cannot stand."

 

 

The CSRC is pleased to announce that Horacio Roque Ramirez, assistant professor in the USCB Chicano Studies Department, and Martha Rivas, doctoral student in the UCLA Department of Education, have accepted the IAC Postdoctoral and Graduate Fellowships, respectively, for 2006–07. Ramirez received his PhD in ethnic studies from Berkeley; his research centers on oral histories of the LGBT community, which compliments this year's postdoctoral focus on oral history. Rivas has been awarded several prestigious academic fellowships, including a UC Regents fellowship and a Year of Engagement departmental fellowship. She co-authored (with Daniel G. Solorzano, CSRC associate director) a CSRC Latino Policy & Issues Brief titled “Community College as a Pathway to Chicana/o Doctorate Production.” During 2006–07, as part of her IAC-CSRC fellowship, she will contribute to the research, planning, and implementation of the 2007 Latina/o Education Summit, focusing on the community college segment of the education pipeline.

 

David Hernandez, UC Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at the CSRC for 2005-07, has accepted an offer to join the faculty of the UCLA Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. Hernandez has a PhD in comparative ethnic studies from UC Berkeley. His appointment will begin on July 1, 2006, but he will be on leave during 2006-07 to complete the second year of his CSRC fellowship.

 

Hundreds came to visit the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Press booth at the festival. Thanks to all those who bought items and shared stories. Every year we hear from people whose lives changed as a result of Chicana/o studies and Chicana/o professors at UCLA. It's always a pleasure to get these slices of history.

 

The immigration legislation pending in the U.S. Congress was the focus of a forum held Tuesday, April 18. An analysis of the bills being considered was given by Peter Schey, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law and executive director of Casa Libre/Freedom Home, a licensed emergency and long-term shelter for unaccompanied immigrant and refugee minors. Casa Libre has a community partnership grant with the CSRC for the 2005–06 academic year. Mark Sawyer, associate professor of political science, moderated an open discussion with Schey and UCLA faculty members. The event, attended by forty-nine people, was cosponsored by several UCLA programs, including the CSRC; the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics; the Department of Political Science, the Department of Asian American Studies; and the Bunche Center for African American Studies.

 

Alvaro Huerta, a graduate student affiliated with the CSRC, has been awarded a Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship. Administered by the National Research Council of the National Academies, it provides a three-year full fellowship, which Huerta will apply to doctoral studies at UC Berkeley in fall 2006. These awards are made to individuals who, in the judgment of the review panels, have demonstrated superior academic achievement, are committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level, show promise of future achievement as scholars and teachers, and are well prepared to use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.

 

Daniel Solorzano, CSRC associate director, has received the UCLA Department of Education's Distinguished Teaching Award for 2005–06. The annual award is given to a faculty member whose contributions to teaching are considered by both students and faculty to be exemplary, innovative, and creative. Two past award winners, Kris Gutierrez (1995–96) and Patricia McDonough (2004–05), are CSRC grantees. Congratulations Professor Solorzano.

 

In 1944, eighty-five Japanese Americans living in the concentration camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, refused to be drafted until their rights were restored and their families released from the camp. Three of the draft resisters, Frank Emi, Mits Koshiyama, and Yosh Kuromiya, will perform a dramatic reading of A Divided Community, a chronicle of the events, on Tuesday, May 2, 7:30–9:30 p.m., in 1220B Kinsey Pavilion. They will be joined by Paul Tsuneishi of the Japanese American Citizens' League, who supported their resistance, and Mike Hagiwara and Momo Yashima of East West Players. CSRC is co-sponsoring this event with the UCLA Asian American Graduate Student Association, UCLA Asian American Studies Center, UCLA Graduate Student Association, UCLA History Department, UCLA Asian American Studies Department, Asian American Association of Alhambra School District, National Coalition for Redress and Reparations, Japanese American Historical Society of Southern California, UCLA Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, and the César E. Chavez Center for Interdisciplinary Instruction. The event is free to the public.

 

Wendy Belcher, manager of the CSRC Press, will give a talk, “Problematizing Africa as the Dark Continent for Women: Gendered Power in Medieval African Literary Texts,” on Thursday, May 4, at 4:00 pm in 314 Royce Hall. The representation of Africa as the place where women are most oppressed has deep roots in Western thought. An examination of Kebra Nagast, a medieval Ethiopian text, suggests otherwise: women have often had a quite different role in the history and politics of Africa than is imagined outside the continent. The event is part of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women's speaker series.

 

The landmark film Raíces de sangre (Roots of Blood) will be shown at the Third Annual Reel Rasquache Film Festival on Friday, May 5, 7:00 p.m., at the Luckman Fine Arts Intimate Theatre, CSULA. Released in 1976, Raíces de Sangre was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “an ambitious film that dramatizes the plight of Chicanos and Mexicans.” It the first major Chicano motion picture financed by the Mexican government. Jesús Salvador Treviño, the writer and director, and cast members, including Richard Yñiguez, Roxanna Bonnila-Giannini, Pepe Serna, and Leon Singer, will be honored. A print of Raíces de Sangre, a gift of the Mexican Cultural Institute of Los Angeles and the Consulate General of Mexico, is archived at the CSRC Library. For more information on the festival, click here.

 

The annual UCLA Latino Alumni Association Membership Networking Event will take place on Thursday, May 18. You are invited to come and network with fellow UCLA Latino alumni and learn more about the UCLA Latino Alumni Association. Details about the location and time will be available soon on the UCLA Latino Alumni Association website.

 

The CSRC will host a one-day symposium on the Chicano Youth Leadership Conference (CYLC) and the efforts of Sal Castro and CYLC alumni to reform education for Chicano students and to develop leaders for the Chicano community. The event, which will be held on Friday, May 26, 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., on the UCLA campus, will bring together CYLC alumni, CYLC volunteers, and scholars to discuss the historical and educational impact of the high school leadership conferences, which were established in 1963.

 

The CSRC Library announces a new project to digitize photographic collections representing Chicano and Latino experiences. These digitized images will be made available through a searchable web-based database similar to the Frontera collection, which contains over 30,000 digitized recordings. To date, the CSRC Archive has digitized over 2,500 images from the Oscar Castillo photograph collection, which spans four decades of social and cultural events in Los Angeles. A database for these images will be created over the summer. The CSRC Archive is also currently digitizing other photograph collections, as well as primary documents, for a project sponsored by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

 

Frederica Nascimento, CSRC Archive staff member, recently returned from Portugal, where she designed the costumes for Fiore Nudo, an opera based on Mozart's Don Giovanni. Directed by Nuno M. Cardoso, the production has completed its initial run at the National Theatre São Joao in Oporto and will tour various European cities. Nascimento, an architect, received her MFA in scenic and production design from NYU.

 

The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) is often credited as a significant source of funding for emerging minority and community-based arts organizations in the 1970s. Unfortunately, reports Mirasol Riojas in a newly released CSRC Research Report, much of this history is anecdotal. The study, The Accidental Arts Supporter: An Assessment of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), examines available data to assess the impact of CETA on the arts as a whole, rather than on particular arts organizations or programs. To read or download the report, please go to the reports webpage.

 

When compared with the entire American population over 65, twice as many elderly Latinos face poverty, yet working-age Latinos contribute disproportionately more into Social Security than other groups do, according to Patricia A. Halliwell and Kathleen H. Wilber of the USC Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center. Their report, Impact of Social Security on the Latino Community, addresses the status of social security in America and the potential effects any changes in the system might have, especially in regard to the Latino population. The report is published by UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging, USC Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center, and the CSRC. To read or download the report, please go to its webpage.

 

The spring issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies has been sent to subscribers. If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now so that you can read about two films, Star Maps (1997) and El Norte (1983), that are “part of a wide range of fantasies and ideas about U.S. national identity”; about the history of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, which helped exonerate seventeen Chicano youths who were convicted of murder in Los Angeles in 1942; about the material benefits that result from educational pursuits made by Mexican-American women; and about the pioneering Mexican rock band Maldita Vecindad y los Hijos del 5 Patio. The dossier section—Loss Angeles—brings together prose, personal memoir, and poetry composed by three Los Angeles–based Chicana/o writers who reflect on the recent loss of a family member.

 

If you are not a subscriber and want to be one, e-mail your postal address to the CSRC Press to receive a subscription package!

 

The Latino Alumni Association (LAA) is currently accepting applications for their 2006­–07 Latino Alumni Association Scholarship. Any incoming and continuing student at the undergraduate and graduate level and AB540 students are eligible to apply.

 

The Department of Community and Rural Sociology at Washington State University invites applications for a permanent, tenure-track extension specialist (E-2, assistant professor) in a twelve-month, tenure-track position in Hispanic/ Latino(a) Community Development, to be located at the university's Tri Cities' campus (Richland, WA). The successful candidate will be responsible for taking a leadership role in developing a program focused on social, political, and economic opportunities for Hispanic/Latino(a) residents throughout Washington State. Deadline: August 15, 2006.