CSRC Newsletter - October 2014

Volume 13, Number 1

Director’s Message

 
“Spoke a language other than English at home.” I recently heard this phrase mentioned at a meeting on diversity. It refers to a question on the U.S. Census Bureau’s yearly American Community Survey, and it was cited as evidence of a decisive shift in cultural norms in America society. Indeed, nationwide one in five people speak a language other than English at home—nearly double the rate in 1980—and over 60 percent of those who speak another language speak Spanish. But if this cultural norm has changed, does the phrase adequately capture the essence of that change? The Census Bureau’s question itself reminds us that English should be norm, but in California, 44 percent of the population speaks a language other than English at home. In Greater Los Angeles that figure is almost 55 percent. My point is not about the change itself or whether it is good or bad. Demographic change has a way of ignoring the heated rhetoric of public debate and our media culture. It simply happens. But how we frame change is very much within our control and says something about who we think “we” are at this moment in time. One day soon, perhaps, the survey question will be posed another way: “Does this person speak a language other than Spanish at home?” Tal vez.
 
This month we welcome Marissa López as the interim director of the Chicano Studies Research Center. I will be on sabbatical for the fall quarter, dedicating myself to research and writing. Marissa, who has served as associate director for two years, has already done much to broaden the center’s research profile and public programming. As the author of an excellent literary study, Chicano Nations: The Hemispheric Origins of Mexican American Literature, she brings a transnational framework and deep historical perspective to a field that has often been mired in national and nationalist debates. And I’m talking about American Studies.... :)
 
Chon A. Noriega
Director and Professor
 

News

 
Visit the CSRC website to preview an essay by Los Angeles–based artist Linda Vallejo, who provided the cover art for the Fall 2014 issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies. “Make ’Em All Mexican” explores the artist’s personal history and the genesis of her newest series of work.
 
Welcome, Renato Ulises!
Rita Gonzalez, former CSRC arts project coordinator and currently curator of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and her partner Joseph Mosconi welcomed a baby boy in June. Congratulations Rita, Joseph, and Renato Ulises Gonzalez-Mosconi!
 
Dreamers to attend CSRC Education Summit
Ten students pursuing college degrees at East Los Angeles College (ELAC) under the DREAM Act will be attending the CSRC’s ninth annual Latina/o Education Summit, “Latina/o Education after DACA and the California DREAM Act,” on October 17 (see Events). To enhance the students’ experience, Mariana Zamboni, a doctoral student in Chicana/o studies at UCLA, will hold a pre-summit workshop at ELAC that will focus on the research report and policy brief published in conjunction with the conference (see Press).
 
CSRC to participate in Homeboy Industries 5K
On Saturday, October 18, the CSRC will proudly participate in “Every Angeleno Counts,” the annual 5K run/walk and community event hosted by Homeboy Industries. Special thanks to Carlos M. Haro, CSRC assistant director emeritus, for sponsoring the CSRC team. The race begins and ends at Homeboy Industries, 130 W. Bruno Street in downtown Los Angeles. The event will feature a Homeboy Marketplace, with music, art, food, vendors, and kids’ activities until noon. Homeboy Industries offers free services and programs to formerly gang-involved men and women and operates several enterprises that serve as job-training sites. For more information and to register, visit the event website: http://www.homeboyindustries.org/event-info. Join us! Every registrant receives a medal!
 
Undergraduate receives scholarship to conduct archival research
Fanny Julissa Garcia, a senior majoring in English, has been awarded an Undergraduate Research Scholars Program (URSP) scholarship to conduct research under the direction of Marissa K. López, associate professor of English and CSRC interim director. The URSP scholarship is awarded to juniors and seniors who have a strong commitment to research and who are completing a comprehensive research project or departmental honors thesis. Garcia is studying the impact of genre on representations of the Central American immigrant experience. She will receive $5,000 to conduct research during the 2014-15 academic year on the Hector Tobar Papers, which the CSRC acquired in March 2014. Tobar is a journalist who has written novels and creative nonfiction about Latinos in the United States.
 
Castillo image included in Chavez exhibition catalog
The Path to Knowledge and the False University, a mural designed by artist Roberto Chavez for East Los Angeles College (ELAC) in 1974, was photographed by Oscar Castillo shortly after its completion and before it was controversially whitewashed in 1979. The photograph is represented in the Oscar R. Castillo Photographic Archives at the CSRC, which lent the image for reproduction in the exhibition catalog Roberto Chavez and the False University: A Retrospective. The exhibition, on view at ELAC’s Vincent Price Art Museum through December 6, is co-curated by Sybil Venegas and William Moreno.
 
Velasco artwork in juried Instagram exhibition
A photograph by CSRC staff member Christopher Anthony Velasco is in the Instagram photo exhibition Stop the Cloud, I Want to Get Off. The exhibition, which is hosted and juried by 1650 Gallery in Echo Park, can be viewed here. Velasco’s photographs were showcased in You Found Me, an exhibition at the CSRC Library earlier this year.
 
Phantom Sightings named one of fifty most influential exhibitions
The 2014 publication Show Time: The 50 Most Influential Exhibitions of Contemporary Art, edited by Jens Hoffman, includes a chapter on the CSRC-LACMA exhibition Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement. Phantom Sightings, which opened in 2008 and traveled through 2010, was curated by CSRC director Chon A. Noriega, Rita Gonzalez, and Howard N. Fox. Jens Hoffmann is deputy director and head of exhibitions and public programs at the Jewish Museum, New York.
 
“Latino TV” wins SoCal journalism award
Congratulations to Carolina Miranda, Kim Masters, and Darby Maloney on winning first place for Entertainment Reporting/Criticism (Radio) at the 2014 Southern California Journalism Awards. Their story on Latino bilingual TV was produced for the KCRW program The Business in October 2013. CSRC director Chon A. Noriega was interviewed for the story, which can be heard here. The awards, sponsored by the Los Angeles Press Club, were announced June 29. For a full list of winners, click here.
 
Noriega and López speak at first International Latina/o Studies Conference
The inaugural International Latina/o Studies Conference was held in Chicago in July. The conference theme was “Imagining Latina/o Studies: Past, Present and Future,” and a Latina/o Studies Association was officially established at the event. CSRC director Chon A. Noriega spoke in the plenary session and participated in two roundtable discussions: “Archive as Social Practice: Contestation, Queer Gesture, and Chisme” and “Publishing in Latina/o Studies.” Marissa K. López, CSRC interim director and associate professor of English, participated in the roundtable discussions “Collaborative Scholarship and New Forms of Pedagogy: A Roundtable on the University of California Latino Cultures Network” and “Libraries, Institutional Pressures, and Cultural Politics,” as well as the panel “Nineteenth-Century Archival Formations.” The CSRC was a co-sponsor of the conference.
 
CSRC welcomes middle-school students
On July 29 the CSRC co-sponsored a UCLA field trip for students from the Global Education Academy, a charter school in South Los Angeles with a curriculum oriented toward social justice. As part of the school’s Aprendamos Summer 2014 mentoring program, thirty-two middle-school students and some of their family members, plus program staff and volunteers, visited the campus and attended a presentation by UCLA sociology professor Vilma Ortiz. Rebecca Epstein, CSRC communications and academic programs officer, spoke about the CSRC Library and its collections. The CSRC also donated books to the students and staff.
 
Noriega interviews artist and El Museo founder Montañez Ortiz
CSRC director Chon A. Noriega took part in an Uptown Bounce public program hosted by El Museo del Barrio and the Museum of the City of New York on August 13. The event included a eightieth birthday celebration for El Museo founder Raphael Montañez Ortiz. Noriega led a conversation with the artist, who spoke about his “destruction art” and the beginnings and legacy of El Museo.
 
Smithsonian spotlights Castillo acquisition
The photograph ’47 Chevy in Wilmington, California (1972) by Oscar Castillo appeared this summer on the cover of a brochure for the Smithsonian Latino Center. In the past year the Smithsonian acquired twelve photographs by the artist, most of which—including ’47 Chevy in Wilmington, California—were featured in the CSRC-organized L.A. Xicano exhibitions Icons of the Invisible: Oscar Castillo and Mapping Another L.A.: The Chicano Art Movement, both at the UCLA Fowler Museum. View the image on the brochure here (PDF).
 
New videos on CSRC YouTube
In 2009 Chon A. Noriega, CSRC director and professor of cinema and media studies, was a co-host for “Latino Images in Film,” one of a series of festivals on Turner Classic Movies that highlighted Hollywood’s treatment of race and ethnicity. The film introductions and post-screening discussions between Noriega and TCM’s Robert Osborne are now available on CSRC YouTube. The films that were featured covered a range of genres and periods in Hollywood and sociocultural history. Among those discussed are Ramona (1910), The Lawless (1950), Popi (1969), Boulevard Nights (1979), The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1983), Stand and Deliver (1988), The Mambo Kings (1992), My Family/Mia Familia (1995), and Lone Star (1996).
 
Also recently posted are the final class meetings of two courses from spring quarter 2014, which investigated performance and theories of narrative within the Chicano community.
  • “Gaytino! Performance and the Power of One,” CS 188.3/LGBTS 181.1, taught by independent producer and director Dan Guerrero, explored the intersection of gay and Chicano/Latino identity politics in performance. In the video students present five-minute autobiographical pieces as part of their final exam.
  • “The Art of Performance,” CS 188-4, taught by actress and guest lecturer Cristina Frias, examined seminal works by Chicana/o theater artists. Students focused on creating and performing personal histories, and the video contains their final presentations.
CSRC on Twitter!
For daily updates on public programs, publications, archive projects, calls for papers, grant information, impact, and more, follow @UCLA_CSRC.
 

CSRC in the News

 
“Collective Imaginaries”
In this essay, CSRC librarian Lizette Guerra talks about her mentor and predecessor, Yolanda Retter-Vargas. The essay was reprinted with permission from June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives: Making Invisible Histories Visible: A Resource Guide to the Collections (UCLA Center for the Study of Women, 2014). The post includes links to several related archives for which Guerra served as project archivist.
Mujeres Talk, September 9, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Luis Cruz Azaceta—First Major book on Cuban-American Artist”
The blog Repeating Islands announced the release of Luis Cruz Azaceta, volume 10 in the CSRC’s A Ver: Revisioning Art History series.
Repeating Islands, September 5, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Beyond Frida Kahlo: Covering Latino and Latin American Art in the U.S.”
Journalist Carolina Miranda discusses the lack of representation of Latino artists in the art world and U.S. art institutions. Miranda cites two shows co-organized by the CSRC as positive examples: Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement and Ricardo Valverde: Experimental Sights, 1971–1996. She also references the upcoming Getty initiative Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, for which the CSRC is part of the advisory team.
Radio Ambulante: Unscripted, August 28, 2014
Listen to the interview here.
 
“Scaremongering over Child Refugees Is Unacceptable”
CSRC visiting scholar Alvaro Huerta wrote an op-ed concerning remarks by Texas governor Rick Perry that link Central American child migrants to terrorist networks.
Fresno Bee, August 28, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Los Tigres Receive Star on Walk of Fame”
In this story celebrating the first norteño band to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, author Agustin Gurza mentions Los Tigres del Norte Foundation’s donation to the CSRC of $500,000 to support the Strachwitz Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican American Recordings and other efforts that explore Spanish-language musical heritage in the United States. Gurza is the author of the eponymous, award-winning CSRC reference guide to the Frontera Collection.
Variety, August 21, 2014 (PDF)
 
Noriega on The Sixties
CSRC director Chon A. Noriega appeared on the CNN documentary series The Sixties in the episode focusing on the decade’s social movements. In the episode, “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” Noriega commented on César Chávez and the farm workers’ movement. The full episode can be viewed online here.
CNN, August 7, 2014.
 
“Hootchy-kootchy Roles or Nothing? The State of Hollywood Diversity”
CSRC director Chon A. Noriega was quoted in a story concerning a recent report generated through the Media, Diversity, and Social Change Initiative at USC that highlights the continued lack of people of color within Hollywood films.
Los Angeles Times, August 6, 2014 (PDF)
 
“The Camera’s Secrets: Ricardo Valverde’s Visionary Images”
Max Benavidez, author of Gronk, the first volume in the CSRC Press’s A Ver series, reviewed the exhibition Ricardo Valverde: Experimental Sights, 1971–1996, a collaboration between the CSRC and the Vincent Price Art Museum.
Huffington Post, July 23, 2014 (PDF)
 
“City Museum and El Museo to Host Summer Block Parties”
Harlem World previewed the Uptown Bounce series of public programs hosted by the City Museum of New York and El Museo del Barrio in August. The preview mentions CSRC director Chon A. Noriega’s scheduled appearance on August 13, when he joined El Museo’s founder, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, for a conversation about the history and legacy of the museum and Ortiz’s “destruction art.”
Harlem World, July 23, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Mick Jagger, Low Riders, and Men in Suits: Images from L.A. Photographer Ricardo Valverde’s First Retrospective Invite You to Slow Down, Look, and Look Again”
A commentary and slideshow of works exhibited in Ricardo Valverde: Experimental Sights, 1971–1996.
Zócalo Public Square, July 12, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Ricardo Valverde at Vincent Price Museum: Fresh Look at a Probing Eye”
Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight reviewed the exhibition Ricardo Valverde: Experimental Sights, 1971–1996.
LATimes.com, June 26, 2014 (PDF)
Los Angeles Times (print edition), June 24, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Mission Artist Yolanda López Puts Eviction on Display”
This profile on artist Yolanda M. López, a pioneer in feminist and Chicana art, describes how she used garage sales as a site of artistic performance after she was evicted from her home. López is the subject of volume 2 in the CSRC’s A Ver: Revisioning Art History series. The article includes an illustration from the CSRC’s A Ver image archive.
SFGate.com, June 26, 2014 (PDF)
 
“A Survey of Queer Feminist Artists Who Are Challenging Today’s ‘Body Oppression’”
A review of the exhibition After Our Bodies Meet: From Resistance to Potentiality at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York that includes an illustration of a work by Chicana artist Laura Aguilar; the digital image was lent by the CSRC.
Huffington Post, June 19, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Why You Need to Know the Photography of Ricardo Valverde”
A feature on Ricardo Valverde: Experimental Sights, 1971–1996.
Los Angeles Times, June 10, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Art, Politics, and Female Power”
A preview of the exhibition After Our Bodies Meet: From Resistance to Potentiality at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, a group show that includes photographic prints and a digital image by Laura Aguilar lent by the CSRC. One of these works is reproduced in the preview.
The Advocate, June 4, 2014 (PDF)
 
All ‘In the News’ articles are available in PDF format on the CSRC website.
 

Events

 
A conversation with KPCC reporter Guzmán-López
Thursday, October 16, 5:00–7:00 p.m.
UCLA Powell Library, East Rotunda
Rubber bullets coming out of LAPD guns, corrupt politicians yelling profanities, Baby Jesus-Fixers, and a DREAMer who imagines herself a salmon when she is asleep. Adolfo Guzmán-López could not have imagined that these would be the true-life stories that he would cover when he took his first journalism job in 1996. Guzmán-López will talk about these and other stories and how he has avoided the guillotine in the multiplatform journalism revolution (so far). Whether you’re interested in journalism, Southern California history, writing, or Latino issues, his informal talk will inform, engage, and make you laugh. Guzmán-López has been a reporter at NPR-affiliate KPCC 89.3FM since 2000. Reservations are requested; RSVP here. Sponsored by the UCLA Career Center, the UCLA Department of English, and the CSRC.
 
QGrad Conference: “Queers w/o Borders”
Friday, October 17, 8:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.
UCLA Royce Hall
The UCLA LGBT Studies Department hosted its first QGrad conference in 1999. Since then QGrad has brought together the best research from graduate students across the country. “Queers w/o Borders” will examine cross-cultural and global themes in queer studies. For more information and to register, visit the conference website: http://qgradconference.com/. Co-sponsored by the UCLA Social Sciences Division and the CSRC.
 
2014 CSRC Latina/o Education Summit: “Latina/o Education after DACA and the California Dream Act”
Friday, October 17, 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
UCLA Faculty Center
The ninth annual Latina/o Education Summit, presented by the CSRC in cooperation with the UCLA School of Law and the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, will bring together legal scholars, social scientists, advocates, and administrators in order to assess the impact and implications of the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program and the 2011 DREAM Act on Latina/o students. According to keynote speaker Michael A. Olivas, there are roughly 1.7 million immigrants currently in the United States who might meet the requirements for DACA. The featured speaker is Rachel Moran, dean and Michael J. Connell Distinguished Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law; the keynote speaker is Michael A. Olivas, William B. Bates Distinguished Chair of Law and Director, Institute of Higher Education Law and Governance, University of Houston Law Center. Tickets are $35 and include lunch. To register, go to Eventbrite, here. Conference registration is available through Eventbrite ONLY. Sign-in is at 10:30 a.m.; the program begins at 11:00 a.m. The conference program is available on the CSRC website.
 
Spine of Califas, featuring Taco Shop Poets with Los Illegals
Friday, October 24, 7:00–8:00 p.m.
UCLA Powell Library Rotunda
“Your heart beats at the speed of the spoken word pulsing with the rhythm of California Interstates 5, 15, 405 and Route 78. . . .” Join us for Spine of Califas, a performance by Taco Shop Poets Adolfo Guzmán-López, Adrián Arancibia, and Tomás Riley, who will rhyme and rap their way from San Diego and Los Angeles to San Francisco’s Mission District, and then back south, through the San Joaquin Valley to the border. Willie Herrón and Jesus Velo—better known as members of Los Illegals, the legendary East L.A. punk rock band—will provide the music for the trip. A book and CD signing will follow the performance. Free; RSVP requested through Eventbrite, here. Sponsored by the CSRC and the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies, the UCLA Department of English, the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures, the UCLA Division of the Humanities, the UCLA Division of Social Sciences, MEChA de UCLA, and the UCLA Library.
 
CSRC Annual Open House
Wednesday, October 29, 4:00–7:00 p.m.
CSRC Library—144 Haines Hall
The CSRC invites you to its annual open house! This year we’ll celebrate a new library exhibition developed in collaboration with the UC Santa Barbara Library Department of Special Collections, That’s Entertainment: Dan Guerrero and the Making of a Hollywood Original, and the CSRC’s new Oral Histories Series, which includes an oral history by Guerrero. We’ll have an update on all things happening at the CSRC, and you’ll have the opportunity to meet the staff, purchase CSRC publications at a special rate, and enjoy food from Casablanca on the patio. Virginia Espino, program coordinator for Latina and Latino history at the UCLA Center for Oral History, is the faculty curator of this event. Join us!
 
Gonzales presents lecture on annexation of New Mexico
Friday, October 31, 1:30–3:00 p.m.
CSRC Library—144 Haines Hall
The UCLA Department of Sociology and the CSRC are pleased to welcome Phillip B. (Felipe) Gonzales, professor and associate chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of New Mexico. His presentation, “Política: The Forced Annexation and Political Incorporation of the Nuevomexicanos, 1821–1871,” will examine the consequences of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended a two-year war with Mexico. Under the terms of the treaty, the United States annexed the Mexican Departmento de Nuevo México, subordinating the Spanish-speaking citizens of New Mexico to the rule of a foreign nation. Gonzales will discuss how the process of imposing modern versions of U.S. liberalism and the U.S. political party system on a traditional Mexican territory enabled the Nuevomexicanos to activate civil resistance. A reception will follow the lecture. Co-sponsored by the Race and Ethnicity Working Group, the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, and the Contentious Politics and Organizations Working Group.
 
Latino Literacy Now’s Latino Book and Family Festival
Saturday, November 1, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
East Los Angeles College, 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez, Monterey Park
Celebrate Día de los Muertos with the CSRC at this year’s Los Angeles Latino Book and Family Festival, a presentation of Latino Literacy Now and East Los Angeles College. The festival will feature author signings and panel discussions, as well as educational activities for the whole family. Look for the CSRC booth near the entrance. We’ll be showcasing our award-winning publications and selling posters and t-shirts. For more information about this free festival, visit the Latino Literacy Now website: http://www.lbff.us/LAFestival.php
 
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

 
Compton high school youth visit CSRC Library
On July 24, CSRC librarian Lizette Guerra welcomed to the CSRC approximately thirty high school youth from Compton as part of the “UCLA for the Day” initiative organized by the UCLA Compton Pipeline Task-Force. The Task-Force supports the city of Compton by providing community services such as after-school care, mentoring, parental guidance, resource referrals, community outreach, and academic outreach and mentoring on and off the UCLA campus.
 
Project update: “Documenting and Preserving the Post-WWII Generation of Mexican Americans in Los Angeles”
With support from the National Endowment of the Humanities, the CSRC Library is in the final stages of processing a total of 553.5 linear feet of material from six archival collections: the Julian Nava Papers, the Dionicio Morales Papers, the Grace Montañez Davis Papers, the Ricardo Muñoz Papers, and the Edward R. Roybal Papers, all housed at the CSRC, and the Edward Ross Roybal Papers, housed at the UCLA Library. These collections include photographs, correspondence, personal papers, and organizational papers documenting three broad areas: nearly a century of personal, familial and social life among Mexican Americans in Los Angeles; the rise of Mexican American civic participation following World War II; and the professional development and careers of exemplary civic leaders in local, national, and international contexts since the late 1940s. Common threads and historical connections tie together these collections, offering a comprehensive resource that goes beyond the documentation of individual biographies. These six collections provide evidence of the difficulties that the post-war generation of Mexican Americans surmounted to become civic leaders, first at a local level and then nationally and internationally. To date, the CSRC Library has created finding aids for four of the collections (Julian Nava Papers, Dionicio Morales Papers, Grace Montañez Davis Papers, Edward Ross Roybal Papers), exceeding its goal. Processing continues on the Ricardo Muñoz Papers and the Edward R. Roybal Papers, and their finding aids should be completed by the end of this calendar year.
 
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

 
Just released: Luis Cruz Azaceta
Cuban American artist Luis Cruz Azaceta addresses what author Alejandro Anreus calls the “wounds and screams” of the human condition. Although Cruz Azaceta’s work is widely shown and widely collected, this is the first book-length monograph on the artist’s life and his graphically powerful work, which is represented by more than eighty color illustrations. Anreus traces Cruz Azaceta’s career and explores the themes that are the focus of his singular art, particularly the Cuban diaspora—the experience of exile has found expression through starkly forceful self-portraiture in many of his works—but also current events, including the AIDS epidemic, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Luis Cruz Azaceta is the tenth volume in the CSRC Press’s award-winning A Ver: Revisioning Art History series. A Ver volumes may be ordered from the distributor, University of Minnesota Press.
 
New publications assess educational equity, DACA program
Two new publications, written in conjunction with the CSRC’s ninth annual Latina/o Education Summit, look at how Latina/o students are faring in the education pipeline.
 
In The Growing Educational Equity Gap for California’s Latina/o Students, Lindsay Pérez Huber, Verónica N. Vélez, and Daniel G. Solórzano challenge recent studies that suggest that educational attainment is improving for Latina/o students. The authors show that when the changing demographic picture of California is taken into account, it becomes clear that Latina/o students are falling further behind their white peers. Latino Policy and Issues Brief No. 29 is available here. (PDF)
 
The federal DACA program, enacted in 2012, has helped thousands of undocumented students pursue their dreams of a college education by protecting them from deportation. DACAmented in California: The Impact of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program on Latina/os, by Lindsay Pérez Huber, Brenda Pulido Villanueva, Nancy Guarneros, Verónica N. Vélez, and Daniel G. Solórzano, assesses the impact of the program for Latina/os in California. CSRC Research Report No. 18 is available here. (PDF)
 
Fall issue of Aztlán now available
The Fall 2014 issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies opens with an exploration of the institutionalization of race and gender. The first essay analyzes mid-century authorization records for compulsory sterilization in California, an effort that targeted women of Mexican origin. The second traces the history of colorism and examines the experiences of four women of Mexican descent whose narratives reveal that colorism is perpetuated in the family. The third essay relates the formation of the Association of Latin American Gardeners of Los Angeles and its remarkable victory for its working-class members. Rounding out the essay section is an analysis of the use of the butterfly as a metaphor for queer Chicanos and Latinos—mariposas—and how this imagery can facilitate the development of an empowering “mariposa consciousness.”
 
The dossier section honors Sal Castro, a major historical figure of the Chicano movement, who is perhaps best known for his role in the 1968 “blowouts,” when thousands of Chicana/o students walked out of their East LA classrooms to protest educational inequities. In the artist’s communiqué, Los Angeles artist Linda Vallejo talks about the inspiration for her Make ’Em All Mexican series.
 
A subscription to Aztlán includes full online access to every article published—more than forty years of groundbreaking scholarship relevant to and informed by the Chicana/o and Latina/o experience. Institutional and individual subscriptions are available. To order, click here.
 
CSRC Press publications win International Latino Book Awards
Two CSRC Press publications received recognition at the Latino Literacy Now’s 2014 International Latino Book Awards on June 28. Pepón Osorio, by Jennifer A. González, won 2nd Place, Best Arts Book (English), and Honorable Mention, Best Latino-Focused Book - Nonfiction (English). Ricardo Valverde, by Ramón García, won 2nd Place, Best First Book - Nonfiction (English); 2nd Place, Best Latino-Focused Book - Nonfiction (English); and Honorable Mention, Best Arts Book (English). For a full list of winners, click here.
 

Opportunities

 
Call for papers: IUPLR SIGLO XXI Conference
The fifth biennial IUPLR Siglo XXI conference will take place April 23-25, 2015 at the University of Notre Dame. The conference theme is “Intra-Latinas/os: Entre Latinas/os: Reconceptualizing Nations, Regions, and Disciplines.”
For information and guidelines, visit the Inter-University Program for Latino Research (IUPLR) website: http://iuplr.uic.edu/iuplr/2015-siglo-xxi-conference
 
Deadline: October 13, 2014