CSRC Newsletter - March 2004

The center has lost a good friend and an important voice for Latinos in California. Frank del Olmo, an associate editor and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, died of an apparent heart attack in his office on Thursday, February 19, 2004. He was 55. Frank joined the Los Angeles Times thirty-four years ago as an intern, around the time that renowned journalist Ruben Salazar was shot and killed by an officer of the L.A. Sheriff's Department while covering the Chicano Moratorium Against the Vietnam War. Frank soon emerged as a new voice for the Chicano community. In 1975, he won an Emmy as writer for the documentary The Unwanted. In 1984, he shared a Pulitzer for the Los Angeles Times series "Southern California's Latino Community." Later, as an assistant to the editor, he became the first Latino to be listed on the paper's masthead, while spearheading the Latino Initiative to improve coverage of the Latino community throughout the entire paper. Most significantly, Frank helped open the door to numerous Latino journalists. In the mid-1970s, he co-founded the California Chicano News Media Association, starting a scholarship program that continues today. I first met Frank just two years ago, but I felt an immediate affinity with him. (My father had been a journalist in the 1950s and 1960s; and I later worked with him after he had moved into public relations.) Frank had a generous and easy manner, but he also conveyed a palpable sense of integrity and a resolve to do the right thing, from defending immigrant rights to his soulful meditations on his own son. He left a strong impression on me, not just for his support of our center, but for the quiet way in which he provided a role model for bringing about necessary changes in the world. I will miss him.

 

 

On February 13, 2004, the CSRC, in collaboration with the three other ethnic research centers, held a meeting in the CSRC Library to discuss the Faculty Diversity Initiative. Vice Chancellor Claudia Mitchell-Kernan gave a keynote address to the nearly 100 faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members who came out to support the initiative. On February 20, the CSRC and Self-Help Graphics co-hosted a major Latino Arts Summit, bringing together eighteen Latino arts organizations in Los Angeles to discuss preservation and strategize the future.

 

On February 12, CSRC Arts Coordinator Rita Gonzalez curated a screening and led a discussion panel at UC Davis. The program, "Perfect Memories and Dirty Laundry: Latino/a Filmmakers in the Archive," focused on the intersection of personal video footage and historical events. On February 17, CSRC Director Chon Noriega spoke at "Diversifying Hollywood: Practices, Principles, and Policies," hosted by the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies and the Congressional Entertainment Caucus. Over seventy people attended the conference to discuss solutions to the lack of diversity within the entertainment industry's job ranks. On February 26-29, the National Association of Latino Independent Producers, co-founded by CSRC Director Chon Noriega, held its fifth-year anniversary celebrations in Santa Barbara. Co-chaired by Noriega, the conference featured a twentieth anniversary screening of El Norte, followed by a conversation with Director and UCLA Alum Gregory Nava. Click here to learn more about NALIP.

 

Deborah Koniak-Griffin, professor of nursing at UCLA, was named the first Audrienne H. Mosley Chair in Women's Health. Professor Koniak-Griffin has done extensive research into promoting healthy lifestyles, parenting skills, and sexual-risk reduction among low-income Latino teen parents. Her research is supported by a CSRC grant from the Latino Research Program.

 

Joaquin Avila, member of the CSRC Faculty Advisory Committee, reports that the UCLA Moot Court Team placed first in the Western Regionals of the Frederick Douglas Moot Court Competition. Further, one student he coached was awarded Best Oralist. The team has secured a place in the upcoming national competition.

 

Mas all de los gritos, a documentary by Martin Sorrendeguy, will be shown as part of the film series 8 or 9mm ? at the CSRC Library, 144 Haines Hall, at 1:30 pm on Wednesday, March 3. A Q & A session with Mike Amezcua, Chicano Punk Scholar, will follow.

 

The CSRC will co-host a Meet 'n Greet with new faculty and staff on Thursday, March 4, at 5:30 pm in the CSRC Library, Haines Hall 144. Please take this opportunity to get to know CSRC Librarian Yolanda Retter-Vargas and Assistant Professor Maylei Blackwell. Also, we will welcome the visiting faculty and the postdoctoral fellows at the center. Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP by calling 310-206-7696 or emailing here.

 

Michelle Raheja, assistant professor at UC Riverside and member of the CSRC Race and Independent Media Project, is giving a talk, "Tears and Trash: Playing Indian in the 1970s," on Monday, March 8 from noon to 2:00 pm in Campbell 3232. Lunch will be served.

 

The CSRC Library is pleased to report that two major collections, the CARA Collection and the Pedro Gonzalez Collection, have been processed and will be searchable in the coming weeks. The CARA Collection, 40 linear feet in size, documents the traveling gallery show Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation with papers, photographs, and slides. The Pedro Gonzalez Collection, 18 linear feet in size, contains the papers, photographs, and other documents of Gonzalez, who worked as a telegraph operator during the Mexican Revolution and went on to become the founder of Spanish-language radio on the West Coast and a political organizer.

 

The Library has acquired two new collections: the James Tartan Collection, consisting of thirty-seven early documentaries and public service announcements by and about Latino people and culture, and the Harry Gamboa Jr. Collection, which includes the original master tapes of his 1980s video art.

 

In order to continue our development of a state-of-the-art library serving the community, we are asking for contributions to the CSRC Library Fund at UCLA Giving.

 

CSRC Library now offers Document Delivery; for more information go to CSRC Library Document Delivery.

 

On March 9, the CSRC will release CSRC Research Report no. 3: "Looking for Latino Regulars on Prime-time Television: The Fall 2003 Season." Written by Ali Hoffman and Dr. Chon Noriega, it offers a detailed analysis of minority regular characters on television for the Fall 2003 season. Later in March, the CSRC will release its fourth CSRC Research Report, "Minority Filmmakers, Media Institutions, and Press Discourse: A Comparative Analysis by the Race and Independent Media Project," written by Hye Seung Chung and Jun Okada, with assistance by Maja Manojlovic. Both reports will be available electronically on the CSRC website.

 

You won't want to miss the next issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies! Subscribe now so that you can read about how two "legendary" male figures from the Chicano movement (César Chávez and Rudolfo "Corky" Gonzalés) negotiated their images in media and politics, and how the post-revolutionary Mexican presence in Los Angeles exerted a profound influence on the emergence and consolidation of sound film in Hollywood. Several Spanish-language articles address transculturality at the San Diego-Tijuana border. Check out the provocative photography of Sandra de la Loza, who deconstructs the archetypal Mexican figure of "La Maria" on our cover, and the newly recovered files of the tech-illa network by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Guillermo Gomez-Pena. Reviews address, among other texts, LA's downtown cathedral, interracial intimacy, and Chicano efforts in higher education.

 

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If you would like to receive electronic versions of the Latino Policy & Issues Brief or the CSRC Research Report, please email CSRC Briefs and Reports and include in the body of your message the line (and nothing but the line) SUBSCRIBE CHICANO [first name, last name] (don't enter the brackets, just your name)

 

The CSRC welcomes undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in Chicano studies to work as interns and volunteers in various areas of the center. If interested, send an email to Carlos M. Haro.

 

To learn more about us, visit our website or email us. To subscribe to this newsletter, e-mail CSRC Newsletter and include in the body of your message the line (and nothing but the line) SUBSCRIBE CHICANO [first name, last name] (don't enter the brackets, just your name).

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