| El Beisbol: The Story of Latinos in Baseball
Principal Investigator: A.P. Gonzalez, Professor, UCLA Film, Television and Digital Media
Professor Gonzalez will expand his ongoing research on Latinos’ involvement in baseball, focusing on questions of race/ethnicity and racial mix. The research will contribute to a documentary on Latinos in baseball that is being developed by Professor Gonzalez.
A.P. Gonzalez Visits the Dominican, November 20, 2009 (view PDF)
Understanding the Breast Cancer Experience in Ethnically Diverse Women: A Predictive Model
Principal Investigator: Betina Yanez, Professor, Psychology
This project will use qualitative methodology to identify ethnic and cultural mechanisms and their relationship to psychological factors that have an influence on health outcomes. The focus of the study will be on the experiences of white and Latina women with breast cancer. Findings from the study will contribute to the psychosocial oncology literature.
A New Dictionary of Valley Zapotec
Principal Investigator: Pamela Munro, Professor, Linguistics
The original Zapotec dictionary, co-authored by Munro, was published by CSRC in 1999. Professor Munro’s revision will add words, correct errors, and incorporate a new user-friendly spelling system that has been used successfully in Zapotec classes at UC San Diego and UCLA. Additional funding has been requested from an external source to print and distribute the revised edition. The new dictionary will facilitate the study of Oaxacan languages and culture (for example, in the Zapotec courses offered through the UCLA Latin American Institute). It will also be of value to Zapotec-speaking immigrants in Los Angeles and for projects dealing with Native American issues.
Low Wage Workers and Labor Union Law Violation in Los Angeles
Principal Investigador: Ruth Milkman, Professor, Sociology
This project addresses a most timely issue: violation of U.S. labor law as it affects vulnerable populations in Los Angeles. There are no reliable data on the magnitude of this problem, neither in terms of the industries where violations occur nor in terms of who is most affected. In fact, most government surveys tend to miss the type of workers that will be included in this study: undocumented Latinos, ex-felons, and the homeless. Results derived from this study have the potential to have a tremendous impact in the policy realm. The project will result in a national policy report, scholarly articles, and, potentially, a book.
Lideres Campesinas: Transnational Migrant Organizing Strategies
Principal Investigator: Maylei Blackwell, Assistant Professor, Chicana/o Studies
Labor groups representing immigrant women are grossly understudied, yet an understanding of local labor groups is crucial for evaluating the larger processes associated with globalization, such as mass migration and the establishment of transnational labor rights. This study will examine the experiences of women in Lideres Campesinas, a statewide organization that works with women farm workers in California. This project’s ethnographic approach will elicit the voices of individuals, their values, and their motivations, enabling a portrayal of grassroots labor groups. Results will enrich the fields of transnational and Chicana/o studies by exploring the intersectionality of the women’s experiences in terms of negotiating multiple systems of power, oppression (e.g., different cultural systems, different forms of patriarchy), and self-empowerment at a binational level. The study will show how these negotiations with different hegemonic structures are creating new diasporic subjectivities (i.e., subjective transnationalism). Results from this study will provide information for policymakers at local, national, and transnational levels.
On the Shoulders of Generations: The Brown Berets of Aztlán in the Long Civil Rights Era
Principal Investigator: Milo Alvarez, PhD Student, History
Although the Brown Berets was the biggest and most geographically extensive Chicano group in the civil rights era, very little research has been done on the group or its impact. This project frames the Brown Berets as distinctive from other social movements during the 1960s and 1970s. Mr. Alvarez will use a historiographical perspective to assess the Brown Berets’ brand of Chicano nationalism and how it was rooted in a long tradition of Mexican American political customs. The study will incorporate data from previously conducted interviews with former Brown Berets and draw on material from a variety of sources: FBI archives, public archives, personal archives, speeches, posters, and so on. The emphasis on oral histories is particularly well-suited for this project since many Brown Berets were subjected to government surveillance.
“Protecting and Serving Outcast Communities”: Chicana/o Performance and Performativity in Chicano Secret Service Teatro
Principal Investigator: Lauren Mason, PhD Student, Applied Linguistics
This study will highlight the critical social commentary that is integral to the sketch comedy of Chicano Secret Service, a Chicano comedy troupe. This project, a multidimensional examination of language, identity, and performance, will analyze videotaped performances and audience reactions, field notes made during events, reflection notes made after events, and records of spoken communications. It will contribute to the field of creative Chicano cultural production and the growing body of multi-layered, multi-site ethnographies, which, by giving a voice to the research participant, moves away from analyst-centered research.
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