CSRC Newsletter - December 2019

VOLUME 18,  NUMBER 3

Director’s Message

If you are like me, you have received numerous email reminders that today is Giving Tuesday (including ours below). You also heard about Cyber Monday and that last week ended with Black Friday. Hopefully your Saturday and Sunday were spent away from such exhortations, but I suspect not. So instead, let’s also remember the good idea beneath these three days of opening the wallet, as it were: the recognition, support, and appreciation of others. Last Tuesday, CSRC had a surprise visit from Crystal Perez, who worked here from 2008-11. She’s the one who took over the CSRC newsletter from me—which I had been writing for almost six years—and she also starred in our first online series, The CSRC Minute with Crystal, which always ran at least three minutes. My favorite episode is her interview with Gronk (one of many she did with him in 2010), in which she taped Gronk to a wall and declared herself an artist. Notice the little girl at the end who cheers in amazement as Gronk simply walks away from the wall, pulling the tape after him. There’s a lesson here about art, about oppression, about the fragility of life, and about helping each other to create meaning. In 2011, Crystal left CSRC to pursue a PhD. Eight years later, Dr. Perez is now teaching in the Bay Area, bringing Chicano literature to new generations of college students. Happy holidays to all our past and present CSRCers and to everyone who joins us in “research that makes a difference.” We’ll see you in 2020!
 
Chon A. Noriega
Director and Professor
 

News

Giving Tuesday is here!
On Tuesday, December 3—this year’s “Giving Tuesday”--consider making a gift to the CSRC! Every gift counts! Your support will help us continue our important work, and remain the go-to resource about the Chicano/Latino community through our extensive library and archival holdings, award-winning publications, cutting-edge research, and innovative community partnerships. To make a gift online, click here. To read about our various funds and additional ways to give, visit the CSRC website. Thank you for supporting research that makes a difference!
 
Chancellor’s Office issues statement on DACA defense
On November 12, Gene D. Block, UCLA chancellor, and Abel Valenzuela Jr., professor and special advisor to the chancellor on immigration policy and CSRC Faculty Advisory Committee member, issued a statement to the campus community asserting the University of California’s commitment to protecting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and to supporting and defending undocumented UC students. On that day, lawyers for the UC argued to the U.S. Supreme Court that the Trump administration acted unlawfully when it announced in 2017 that it would rescind the DACA policy. The court’s decision is expected in the spring. Included in the UCLA statement is a list of UC resources for undocumented students and an appeal to the campus community to support DACA recipients. UC’s “Defending DACA recipients” webpage offers suggestions for how to get involved. Read the statement in its entirety here.
 
CSRC joins campaign reflecting on Prop 187
On November 9, the “We Are California—25 Years Beyond Prop 187” campaign launched with the event “Rally for Our Rights” at Los Angeles State Historic Park. It was the first of many efforts that are being developed by the organization We Are CA to explore the background and impact of Proposition 187, an anti-immigrant ballot initiative that was voted into law by California’s electorate in 1994. Also planned are the publication of a series of policy briefs and the creation of a documentary that will tell the history of Prop 187, which arguably turned California into a pro-immigrant state. CSRC director Chon A. Noriega served on the planning committee for the campaign and documentary, which draws extensively from CSRC archival materials. For more information, visit https://www.wearecasomosca.org/weare
 
Anguiano to speak at Museum of Ventura County
Lupe Anguiano, Chicana activist and CSRC collections donor, will speak at the Museum of Ventura County about her decades of advocacy for civil and environmental rights. Anguiano will be joined by Debora Wright, author of Uncompromised: The Lupe Anguiano Story, which drew heavily from Anguiano’s papers archived at the CSRC. Awards and photos from the collection will be on display at the event, which will be on Sunday, December 8, 2:00–3:30 p.m. For more information, visit the museum website. The CSRC hosts the Lupe Anguiano Scholarship Fund, which supports those undergraduate and graduate students at UCLA who are the next generation of leaders working toward the advancement of Mexican Americans in society. To donate to this fund, click here.
 
Josten delivers talks
Jennifer Josten, the 2019–20 IAC visiting scholar at the CSRC, traveled to Pittsburgh and Chicago for a series of events in October. On October 25, spoke on the panel “Transnational, Hemispheric, and Cold War Arts: A Collective Book Launch,” in the Humanities Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Josten, an associate professor of the history of art and architecture at the university, was among faculty discussing how their respective recent books address the translation of twentieth-century artistic practices and programs across the U.S.-Mexico border, as well as across media and languages, from different disciplinary perspectives. On October 29, Josten presented the paper “Rethinking Mesoamerican Monumentality, from Midcentury Mexico City to Chicano Los Angeles” in the Mexican Studies Seminar at the Katz Center for Mexican Studies at the University of Chicago. This presentation included Josten's recent research at the CSRC on how, during the 1970s, artists David Botello and Don Juan/Johnny D. Gonzalez deployed ancient Mesoamerican and modern Mexican iconography in their visionary sculptural monuments and urban plans for East Los Angeles. Finally, on October 30, Josten led a small group of graduate students and faculty from the University of Chicago in a guided visit of the exhibition Pop América, 1965–1975, at Northwestern University's Block Museum of Art. The visit focused on Asco's No Movie Award (1975), which is on loan to the exhibition from the CSRC, as well as works by Rupert García and other artists and designers discussed in Josten's essay in the exhibition catalog. The exhibition catalog is available in the CSRC Library.
 
Documentary addresses activism in library practices
Jennifer Osorio, UCLA librarian for Latin American, Iberian, and ethnic studies, and CSRC Faculty Advisory Committee member, helped organize a screening and discussion at the Research Library on November 14. The focus of the event was Change the Subject: A Documentary about Labels, Libraries and Activism, which chronicles Dartmouth College students’ efforts to eliminate “illegal aliens” as a library subject heading, a mission that led to a Congressional debate. The screening was followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with student activists featured in the documentary. The event was the first in the new Doc Talks series being developed by UCLA Libraries.
 
Black coedits book
Charlene Villaseñor Black is coeditor of Renaissance Futurities: Science, Art, Invention, an anthology recently released by University of California Press. Black and her coeditor, Mari-Tere Álvarez, also wrote the book’s introduction, “The Future Is Now: Reflections on Art, Science, Futurity,” and Black contributed an essay as well. Black is professor of art history and Chicana/o studies and CSRC associate director; Álvarez is project specialist at the J. Paul Getty Museum and associate director of USC’s International Museum Institute.
 
Noriega contributes to catalog
Emiliano. Zapata Después de Zapata opened at Museo del Palacio des Bella Artes in Mexico City on November 27. The exhibition includes several images from CSRC collections. In addition, CSRC director Chon A. Noriega contributed to the exhibition catalog. Structured as an interview, Noriega discusses in the piece Zapata in US culture, his impact on Chicano culture, and his representation within media and public culture. The exhibition closes February 16, 2020.
 
New blog entry on the CSRC Post
In the latest blog entry for the CSRC Post, Angélica Becerra, artist and PhD candidate in the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies, discusses her watercolor portraits of emerging and established artivists—artist-activists who are responsible for visual culture in contemporary social movements. The portraits are currently being shown in Give Us Our Flowers: Latinx Artivist Portraits, an exhibition at the CSRC Library (144 Haines Hall). Give Us Our Flowers is on view through the fall quarter during regular library hours.
 
Opera and symposium celebrate Sor Juana
On November 22, Opera UCLA premiered Juana, an opera based on the historical novel Sor Juana’s Second Dream by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, professor of Chicana/o studies, English, and gender studies, chair of the LGBT studies program, and former CSRC associate director. Gaspar de Alba cowrote the libretto with Carla Lucero, who composed the music. The opera explores the life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695), a seventeenth-century Mexican nun, scholar, and poet who defied the Catholic Church by passionately defending a woman’s right to be a scholar and publish her work. A related two-day symposium was held at UCLA on November 22 and 23 to explore representations of Sor Juana in art, literature, musical performance, and, most recently, a Netflix miniseries. Among the symposium participants were Charlene Villaseñor Black, professor of art history and Chicana/o studies and CSRC associate director, and Cesar Favila, assistant professor of musicology and CSRC faculty advisory committee member. To see the full conference program, click here. Support for the symposium was provided in part by the Los Tigres del Norte Fund at the CSRC.
 
New video on CSRC YouTube
  • The CSRC 2019 Annual Open House (October 17, 2019) (video) This year’s open house launched the CSRC’s fiftieth anniversary celebration and served as the official opening of an exhibition featuring archival materials representing fifty years of Chicanx activism. Presenters included CSRC director Chon A. Noriega, CSRC librarian and archivist Xaviera Flores, CSRC community engagement coordinator Michael J. Aguilar, and artist Angélica Becerra.

In the News

Ethnic Studies Forum Examines Model Minorities and School Segregation”
The Daily Bruin featured a story on the Institute of American Cultures's Fall Forum, where the 2019–20 IAC visiting researchers and scholars from UCLA's four ethnic studies centers discussed their research. Jennifer Josten, this year’s IAC visiting scholar at the CSRC and associate professor in the department of history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh, discussed her research on revolutionary posters made in Cuba after 1959.
Daily Bruin, November 21, 2019 (URL) (PDF)
 
All “In the News” articles are available in PDF format on the CSRC website.
 

Events

Screening: The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo, plus Q&A with director Phillip Rodriguez
Tuesday, December 3, 6:30 p.m.–10:00 p.m.
James Bridges Theater, 1409 Melnitz Hall, UCLA
Please join us for a free screening of The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo (2017), the acclaimed documentary on the life and mysterious death of Oscar Zeta Acosta, the charismatic Chicano activist, author, and lawyer, and basis for the “Dr. Gonzo” character in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. At this screening, director Phillip Rodriguez will participate in a Q&A about the film, which includes materials from CSRC collections. There will also be a special announcement relevant to future research on Oscar Zeta Acosta. Reception with catering by Casablanca at 6:30 p.m.; screening at 7:30 p.m. Organized by the UCLA Department of English and co-sponsored by the UCLA Department of History, the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, and the CSRC. Please RSVP on Eventbrite.
 
Traveling Exhibition: UCLA: Our Stories, Our Impact
December 4, 2019–January 8, 2020, 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Bridge Gallery at City Hall, 200 North Spring Street, Los Angeles, 90012
UCLA: Our Stories, Our Impact will be displayed at the Los Angeles City Hall Bridge Gallery! The multimedia exhibition showcases the role of UCLA and its alumni in advancing equity and equality in America. The exhibition features the stories of present and former Bruins who have advanced and shaped social justice movements. The project is led by the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, the Labor Center, and the Chancellor’s Advisory Council on Immigration Policy, in partnership with the Institute of American Cultures, the American Indian Studies Center, the Asian American Studies Center, the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, and the CSRC.
 

CSRC Library

Flores lectures in UA information studies class
On November 18, CSRC librarian Xaviera Flores was a guest lecturer for LIS/INFO 540: Introduction to Archives, an online and live-class course offered by the University of Arizona School of Information. Using Zoom, Flores spoke to forty-one students about the CSRC archive, community archives, and ideas discussed in her 2014 article in The American Archivist, “Breaking the Language Barrier: Describing Chicano Archives with Bilingual Finding Aids,” which was cowritten with Elizabeth Dunham.
 
Library exhibitions continue
Currently on view at the CSRC Library are three mini exhibitions and an installation. They celebrate fifty years of Chicanx and Latinx activism through art, literature, and scholarship and mark the CSRC’s fiftieth anniversary. Profiles of Activism gathers together prints, photographs, and books from the collections of the CSRC Library. In Give Us Our Flowers: Latinx Artivist Portraits, artist and UCLA doctoral candidate Angélica Becerra presents watercolor portraits of four emerging or established artivists—artist-activists who are responsible for visual culture in contemporary social movements. Salomón Huerta’s Portrait Series of Chicana/o-Latina/o and Mexican–Latin American Icons honors the leaders—both women and men—who have played a key role in making positive differences in the United States and Mexico. The exhibitions will remain on view through the fall quarter in the library and vitrine and are viewable during regular library hours: Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
 
Exhibitions with CSRC loans
The following off-campus exhibitions opening this month or currently on view include images and artworks from CSRC collections and publications:
 
  • Queer Forms, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, through December 7, 2019
  • Pop América, 1965–1975, Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, through December 8, 2019*
  • Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A., Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, through December 9, 2019*
  • Art After Stonewall, 1969–1989, The Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami, Florida, through January 5, 2020
  • Emiliano. Zapata después de Zapata, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico, through February 20, 2020
  • The 1968 Walkouts: Selections from UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Collections, Theodore Roosevelt High School Library, Los Angeles, California, through April 1, 2029
  • LA Starts Here! Plaza de Cultura y Artes, Los Angeles, California, ongoing, permanent exhibition
*Exhibition catalog available in the CSRC Library
 
To schedule a tour of the CSRC Library, contact CSRC librarian Xaviera Flores at floresx@ucla.edu or fill out the form on the CSRC Library Services page.
 

CSRC Press

CSRC Press’s annual holiday sale
Give the gift of books! CSRC Press books are now 50 percent off (tax and shipping additional) through December 19. This offer includes the Press’s latest anthologies—The Aztlán Mexican Studies Reader, 1974-2016 and The Chicano Education Pipeline—as well as the award-winning exhibition catalogs Home—So Different, So Appealing, Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, and L.A. Xicano, plus all titles in the award-winning A Ver: Revisioning Art History series! Stop by 183 Haines Hall, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.–5:00 p.m., or contact Ari Hoyos at ahoyos@chicano.ucla.edu or 310-794-9167 to make your purchases. Browse CSRC Press titles on our website. Please note: Subscriptions to Aztlán are not included in the sale.
 
Forthcoming from CSRC Press: La Raza
The release of CSRC Press’s latest book, La Raza, is just a few weeks away. Developed for the exhibition at the Autry Museum of the America West in 2017, La Raza features more than a hundred photographs and cover reproductions, most drawn from the CSRC’s La Raza Photograph Collection of over 25,000 images. Photographers for La Raza newspaper and magazine recorded important movimiento events from 1967, when the newspaper was founded in Lincoln Heights, through the early 1970s. Illustrations include photos taken during the Eastside walkouts in 1968 and 1969, the National Chicano Moratorium in 1970, and the Marcha por la Justicia and the Marcha de la Reconquista in 1971. Everyday life in communities from Boyle Heights to Whittier is documented by photos taken on busy streets and at a variety of events. Essays offer not only scholarly assessment of the role of Chicana/o photography in social movements and art history but also personal perspectives from La Raza staff. The book was edited by Colin Gunckel; the exhibition was curated by Luis C. Garza and Amy Scott. La Raza will be available in late January and may be pre-ordered from the distributor, University of Washington Press.
 

Opportunities

Job opening: Faculty position in Chicana/o studies
The UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies invites applications from outstanding candidates for an open position at the rank of Assistant Professor to begin July 1, 2020. Over the past decade, the department has grown in undergraduate and graduate course offerings, including opening one of the first PhD programs in Chicana/o studies and offering introductory courses that draw over 800 students. Due to the high demand for classes among a diverse and growing Latina/o student body at UCLA from Central America, the department welcomes applicants who have expertise in Central American communities but are open to any substantive area within Chicana/o or Latina/o studies. The department is particularly eager to consider applicants who take a social scientific approach that complements departmental strengths in evidence-based research methods (e.g., interviews, ethnographies, quantitative, archival research, etc.). Applicants are encouraged to show how their research and teaching will both complement current department strengths as well as contribute new topics and themes. The department seeks applicants with a PhD in Chicana/o studies, ethnic studies, sociology, anthropology, history, criminology, public affairs, political science, geography, gender and sexuality studies and other related fields in hand by June 30, 2020. Pending administrative approval, we may consider outstanding candidates at the rank of Associate Professor. To apply, visit https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF05047.
Deadline to apply: December 15, 2019
 
Institute for Latino Studies - Young Scholars Symposium 2020
Annually, the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies (ILS) convenes advanced graduate students and junior scholars from across the nation for a dynamic Young Scholars Symposium, to enhance their research in Latino Studies. The symposium is hosted by the Institute for Latino Studies Director Luis R. Fraga. Professor Fraga is the Rev. Donald P. McNeill, C.S.C., Professor of Transformative Latino Leadership and Joseph and Elizabeth Robbie Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.  

The 2020 Senior Scholar who will mentor the participants of the Symposium in the field of Art History is Dr. Charlene Villaseñor Black, Professor of Ibero-American Art and Chicana/o Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles.  

Selected participants will present a completed essay that will be reviewed by Professor Villaseñor Black and members of the Notre Dame faculty affiliated with ILS. All expenses are covered by ILS including an honorarium of $500. Up to six participants will be selected. More information can be found on our website.

Applicants in their final year of graduate study and junior faculty who have not yet published their first book are eligible to apply to the ILS Young Scholars Symposium.
Applicants should submit the following:
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • One letter of recommendation from a faculty advisor
An application letter, under 2 pages, that presents:
(a) a summary of the dissertation project and/or overall research program,
(b) a précis of the proposed essay submission for the symposium,
(c) a statement of progress to date on the overall project and on the proposed essay, and
(d) a statement of how specifically the ILS Distinguished Visiting Professor Charlene Villaseñor Black’s expertise and mentorship will enhance your research.
The deadline to apply is Monday, January 6, 2020. 
 
IUPLR/UIC Mellon Fellowship Program for 2020-21
The Inter-University Program for Latino Research is now accepting applications for the IUPLR/UIC Mellon Fellowship Program (academic year 2020-21). The program supports doctoral students in the humanities who are writing dissertations in Latina/o studies. Doctoral students in the social sciences whose research uses humanities methods may also be considered.

IUPLR will select fellow affiliated with the following six designated research centers:
 
The fellowship includes a $25,000 stipend, participation in an intensive summer institute, a structured writing program, faculty mentorship, and ongoing professionalization support. For more information and to view the online application, visit https://mfp-lals.uic.edu.
 
Deadline to apply: January 30, 2019. All queries should be directed to the Mellon coordinator, Dr. Jennifer Boles, jlboles@uic.edu. UCLA applicants are additionally asked to contact Rebecca Epstein, CSRC assistant director, repstein@chicano.ucla.edu.
 
IAC 2020-2021 Research Grant Program in Ethnic Studies
The Institute of American Cultures (IAC) invites applications for support of research on African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Chicanas/os for 2020-2021. The Institute also invites proposals on interethnic relations that will increase collaboration between the UCLA ethnic studies research centers and/or between the centers and other campus units.
 
Eligibility Requirements:
UCLA faculty, staff, graduate students, and IAC visiting research scholars
 
Funding: The Research Grant Program is on a reimbursement-basis only. Funds for the purchase of permanent equipment will be provided only under exceptional circumstances. Conference travel, whether the applicant is presenting or attending, is not eligible.
 
Grant Period: July 1, 2020 through May 31, 2021.
 
Deadline to apply: March 1, 2019. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed. Applicants will be notified in May. Prior to submission of the application, applicants should briefly discuss their proposal with the coordinator of the appropriate center, or in the case of interethnic proposals, with each applicable center. All grant recipients, where appropriate, must comply with UCLA’s Protection of Human Subjects in Research before receiving funding. All grant recipients, where appropriate, must comply with UCLA’s Protection of Human Subjects in Research before receiving funding. If you have been awarded this grant for the last two academic year (2018-19 and 2019-20), you are not eligible to apply for a 2020-21 grant.
 
The application is available online at https://sa.ucla.edu/IAC/ResearchGrant.