CSRC Newsletter - April 2019

April 3 marked the official opening of the CSRC exhibition The 1968 Walkouts: Selections from UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Collections at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights. The exhibition was installed in the school library as part of a ten-year loan from the CSRC. The opening commenced with music provided by Roosevelt’s own mariachi group. Students, parents, school staff, and members of the community walked around the library to view the forty-one photographs taken during the walkouts, many of which were taken at Roosevelt. Some of the older community members looked at the images and reflected on their involvement in the walkouts and other civil rights actions.

 

After the mariachi performance, Monica Garcia, president of the LAUSD Board of Education, spoke about the significance of the exhibition for Roosevelt High School students and the Boyle Heights community. She noted that the school’s students made history in 1968 and that it was important for students today to be aware of their activism. Then, several current students presented research projects on the walkouts that they had created in their ethnic studies courses. Two students read the list of student demands that had energized the 1968 protest. They noted where progress has been made but also where the public education system continues to fail the Chicana/o community.

 

As I sat listening to school staff and students, I began to consider that progress. A lot has indeed changed at Roosevelt, my alma mater, since I attended in the mid-1960s. In his introductory remarks, Ben Gertner, the school’s principal, spoke about Roosevelt’s efforts to help students succeed academically and to prepare them for college. Today the school is proud of the number of Roosevelt graduates who are college bound. I do not recall the principal ever mentioning high expectations for Mexican American students when I attended Roosevelt. In the 1960s, nearly 50 percent of Roosevelt students were pushed out before graduation. For many, their greatest ambition was to work in the service sector. Also, during my time at Roosevelt no teacher would have assigned a research project focusing on Chicana/o history, and there were no ethnic studies courses. Finally, as community members and parents commented on the presentations and exhibition, many spoke in Spanish. The Roosevelt I knew had a “No Spanish” rule for students, and because few staff spoke Spanish at that time, the school did not consider parents a resource. Needless to say, mariachi music on the campus was unheard of.

 

The CSRC is proud to share this exhibition with the Roosevelt community. It provides a look at a major event in Chicana/o history and demonstrates what can happen when a community demands change. 

 

Chicago Magazine published a feature on the acclaimed exhibition Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, which is now on view at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago through August 18. The exhibition was organized by the Vincent Price Art Museum in collaboration with the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.   

Chicago Magazine, March 28, 2019 (PDF)

 

Ventura County Star profiled Chicana feminist and environmental activist Lupe Anguiano on the occasion of her ninetieth birthday in an article and video. The CSRC holds the Lupe Anguiano Papers, 1944–2007 and hosts the Lupe Anguiano Leadership Scholarship Fund.   

Ventura County Star, March 16, 2019 (PDF)

 

An announcement on e-flux for the exhibition Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, mentioned CSRC director Chon A. Noriega as a panelist for a related event, “Artists Respond: A Symposium,” held on March 15. Noriega discussed how artists of the Vietnam War era addressed their varied experiences of the war period through artwork.  

e-flux, March 15, 2019 (PDF)

 

UCLA Daily Bruin produced a video of Charlotte Lerchenmuller, president of the Sal Castro Foundation, in which Lerchenmuller reflects on the history of the Chicano Youth Leadership Conference (CYLC) at Camp Hess Kramer. The camp, co-founded by late Mexican-American education activist Sal Castro (Lechenmuller’s husband), was severely damaged by the Woolsey fire in November 2018. Carlos Haro, CSRC assistant director emeritus, is also interviewed. The CSRC holds the Sal Castro Collection.

UCLA Daily Bruin, March 15, 2019 (PDF)

 

A press release from UC Santa Cruz Newscenter promoted the recently published anthology Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology from Duke University Press, which was co-edited by Jennifer A. González, C. Ondine Chavoya, Terezita Romo, and CSRC director Chon A. Noriega.

UC Santa Cruz Newscenter, March 14, 2019 (PDF)

 

Former CSRC visiting scholar Atsuko Niitsu was quoted in a piece by Al Día about interest in and influence of Chicano culture in Japan.

Al Día , March 12, 2019 (PDF)

 

A listing announcing the Los Angeles City Historical Society Annual Gala and Awards Ceremony appeared in Broadway World. This year’s honorees include CSRC librarian Xaviera Flores, who was selected to receive the 2019 Archives Education and Advocacy Award.

Broadway World, February 08, 2019 (PDF)

 

 

About … Productions presents Evangeline, the Queen of Make-Believe, a musical about an Eastside high school graduate who is a devoted daughter by day and a West Hollywood go-go dancer by night. Evangeline incorporates a Grammy Award–winning songbook by Louie Pérez and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos. The Evangeline remount is part of the two-year Evangeline Initiative, which launched in 2018 and expands opportunities for highest-risk and educationally disadvantaged youth to learn about the Chicano movement and civil rights actions of 1968. This production is co-sponsored by the CSRC. For tickets and more information, click here.

 

In Eating Tomorrow (The New Press, 2019) Timothy A. Wise explores how agribusiness effectively controls food policy by supporting corporate interests rather than working to eliminate starvation and foster sustainable food production. Wise is a senior researcher at the Small Planet Institute, where he directs the Land and Food Rights Program. He is also a senior research fellow at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute, where he founded and directed its Globalization and Sustainable Development Program. This event is organized by the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and co-sponsored by the Center for Mexican Studies and CSRC.

 

Join us for a screening of America; I Too, which tells the stories of three undocumented immigrants who attempt to fight deportation after arrest. Inspired by true events, the narrative film stars Academy Award nominee Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) and features the music of Quetzal. The film is part of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles’ (CHIRLA) “Know Your Rights” video series. Following the screening, Chris Zepeda-Millán, associate professor of public policy and Chicana/o studies at UCLA, will moderate a Q&A with director Anike Tourse. A reception will follow. This event is organized by the CSRC in partnership with CHIRLA and the UCLA Library. This event is free and open to the public, although RSVP is encouraged on Eventbrite.

 

The seventh annual UCLA Latin American, Latinx & Iberian Film Festival will feature award-winning films, Q&As, and roundtable discussions based on the theme “Women’s Voices.” The festival is hosted by the UCLA Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Co-sponsorship is provided in part by the Los Tigres del Norte Fund at the CSRC. For more information, visit https://www.spanportfilmfest.com/

 

In The Fight for Time (Oxford University Press, 2019), Paul Apostolidis explores the experiences of migrant day laborers and how their struggles in desperate circumstances reflect an increasingly precarious working world for all. Apostolidis will discuss the meaning of “precarity” and the kinds of organizations that attempt to improve the lives of all working people. Apostolidis currently teaches at Whitman College. In June, he will begin a faculty appointment at the London School of Economics and Political Science. This event is organized by the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and co-sponsored by the CSRC.

 

 

On March 13, CSRC librarian Xaviera Flores spoke on a panel concerning outreach and advocacy strategies for media-related collections. Flores discussed strategies employed at the CSRC regarding its audiovisual holdings and film archives. The panel was arranged for graduate students taking ETHNMUS C100/200, “Audiovisual Archiving in 21st Century” (nine students), and INF STD 480, “Introduction to Media Archiving and Preservation” (twelve students).

 

On March 25, CalArts professor and filmmaker Nina Hoechtl brought her class of nine students to the CSRC to explore the CSRC’s zine holdings. The course, “Divided Spaces, In-Between Spaces, Future Spaces: The U.S.-Mexico Borderlands in Theory, Performance, Literature, Film and Art,” requires a project based on zines. CSRC librarian Xaviera Flores assisted the students as they consulted the collection. Costa-Rican-American artist and animator Jeaux Janovsky was also present, and he shared zines that were showcased recently at the Latino Comics Expo in Modesto, California.

 

Sonidos de la Frontera: Music across Borders and Time, currently on view at the UCLA Music Library, highlights the Strachwitz Frontera Collection of Mexican and Mexican American Recordings, the world’s largest repository of commercially produced Mexican and Mexican American musical recordings. The exhibition provides a gateway to the collection by using a fraction of the music in combination with material from more than a dozen of the CSRC’s archival collections to present significant moments in Mexican and Mexican American music history. Curated chiefly by CSRC archives specialist Doug Johnson, in collaboration with CSRC librarian Xaviera Flores and music inquiry and research librarian Matthew Vest, the exhibition includes photographs, posters, clippings, pamphlets, flyers, songbooks, and audio recordings in a variety of formats. CSRC collections represented in the exhibition include the Humberto Cané Papers, the Pedro J. Gonzalez Papers, and the Anthony Beltramo Collection. The exhibition, which is a collaboration between the Music and CSRC Libraries, will be on view outside the Music Library Reading Room at the Schoenberg Music Building through June 2019. The Music Library is open seven days a week during regular session. For hours, click here. An online version of Sonidos de la Frontera: Music across Borders and Time, featuring images of artifacts and links to recordings, is now available as a UCLA Library Research Guide. The recordings in the Frontera Collection are available to the public through the University of California’s Digital Library Program.

 

The following off-campus exhibitions opening this month or currently on view include images and artworks from CSRC collections and publications:

 

 

Steven Loza, UCLA professor of ethnomusicology, is the author of the forthcoming Barrio Harmonics: Essays on Chicano/Latino Music, a collection that explores Chicano, Mexican, and Cuban musical forms and styles, their transformation in the United States, and the individuals and groups who developed and performed them. Employing musical, historical, and sociocultural analyses, Loza addresses issues such as marginality, identity, intercultural conflict and aesthetics, postnationalism, and mestizaje—the mixing of race and culture—in the production and reception of Chicano/Latino music. The essays in Barrio Harmonics were first published between 1985 and 2011. Order today from the distributor, University of Washington Press.

 

Opportunity