CSRC Newsletter - May 2004

The billboard on Cahuenga Blvd. was simple and direct: “On May 14 there will be no Mexicans in California.” Was this a dream come true for anti-immigration advocates? Or was it a jolt to the numerous industries and families that rely upon Mexican labor? In either case, because of complaints, the billboard was removed within hours of being installed. Welcome to Hollywood. The billboard announced Sergio Arau's new film A Day Without a Mexican, which opens on May 14 on fifty screens across Southern California, followed by a national rollout. This mockumentary examines the devastating impact of the sudden and unexplained disappearance of one-third of California's population: Mexicans. The film calls for acknowledging that Latinos -- and Mexicans, in particular -- have been the key to the California Dream. It is a well-timed morality tale for the state as it grapples with budget cuts, cuts that are having a disproportionate impact on the Latino community. (For the second year in a row, UCLA has had a decline in Latino admissions.)

 

 

Visit our new web site at www.chicano.ucla.edu.

 

CSRC Director Chon A. Noriega was named to the Los Angeles Mayor's Arts Task Force. The task force was established in response to community concerns about the proposed consolidation of the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. The task force is charged with developing “strategies to address support for the arts in our communities and to intensify the focus of the Department on cultural tourism.” The task force will meet several times during the Spring and then submit recommendations to the mayor and the Los Angeles City Council.

 

On April 23, the center co-hosted “New Directions in Chicano Music and Musicology,” a daylong conference that brought together nearly a dozen presenters and some fifty participants to assess the state of the field. Professor Steven Loza, a CSRC Faculty Associate, co-organized the conference with CSRC Director Chon A. Noriega. The event was co-hosted by the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology and sponsored by the Dean of the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture.

 

The CSRC -- and the other ethnic studies research centers -- have now been added to the UCLA Campaign Web Site. This site provides an easy way to donate money to the important work of the centers.

 

Thanks to everyone who made our booth on April 24 and 25 such a success! Authors Otto Santa Ana and Steven Loza sold dozens of copies of their books in just minutes and hundreds snapped up our heavily discounted books and brand new DVDs. The popular Isis Rodriguez Little Miss Attitude t-shirts will soon be available via our website. Contact the CSRC Press for more information.

 

Professor Ruben Hernandez-Leon, assistant professor in the sociology department, will present his talk “Restructuring at the Source: High-Skilled Industrial Migration from Mexico to the U.S.” at Thursday, May 6 at 2:00 pm, in Haines 179. Light refreshments will be provided, so please RSVP.

 

The CSRC will host an advance screening of A Day Without a Mexican on Friday, May 7, at 4:00 pm in the James Bridges Theater (1409 Melnitz Hall). Director Sergio Arau (a pioneer of Rock-en-Español), actress Yareli Arizmendi (best known for her role in Like Water for Chocolate), and consultant and erstwhile actor Raul Hinojosa (UCLA Chicano studies professor) will be present for a Q&A after the film. The screening is free and open to the public.

 

Chicano studies faculty and students are invited to meet candidates for a new Chicano studies position in the UCLA Department of Information Studies and another in the UCLA School of Public Health. The CSRC, Information Studies, and Public Health are conducting a joint-search to fill a UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Institutional Faculty FTE. Faculty and students are encouraged to attend the job talk and to provide feedback to the search committee. more information, contact the front office. Upcoming job talks by potential faculty members include:

 

 

MEChA continues its screenings on Thursday, May 13 at 5:30 pm in the CSRC Library, Haines 144. The title will be announced soon.

 

The CSRC will host a daylong conference on race and independent media on Friday, May 14 from 9:00am to 5:00pm in the CSRC Conference Room (179 Haines Hall). This event is the culmination of a three-year-long collaboration among ten scholars nationwide who work on issues related to Latino, African American, American Indian, and Asian American media. For more information, please contact the front office.

 

In 1946, a landmark desegregation case successfully ended de jure segregation in California. Was it Brown v. Board of Education ? No, it was Mendez v. Westminster School District. The CSRC will host a one-day symposium on this little-known case, bringing together scholars, students, artists, and experts from across California. Presenters will include the children of Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez, who were the main plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, as well as a number of former students who attended Hoover School, the Westminster School District's designated “Mexican School” in the 1940s. Friday, May 21, 2004, from 9:00am to 5:00pm in the UCLA Faculty Center's California Room. For more information, contact the front office or visit our website. For directions to UCLA, visit the UCLA map. The event is free and open to the public.

 

The CSRC will co-host a panel featuring the work of three Chicana/o queer scholars published in a new cultural studies anthology Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture & Chicana/o Sexualities edited by CSRC Associate Director Alicia Gaspar de Alba. Speakers include: Deena Gonzalez, professor and chair of Chicana/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University; Rich ard T. Rodriguez, assistant professor of Chicano Studies at Cal State Long Beach; and Gabriel Estrada, visiting lecturer at Palomar College. Thursday, May 27, 2004, 4:00-5:30 pm, CSRC Library, 144 Haines Hall. Co-presented with the UCLA Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Program. Free and open to the public.  

 

Search engines are now up and running for three of our archived collections: the Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation exhibit; the Comisión Femenil de Los Angeles records; and the Paulina Sahagan Collection of TENAZ (Teatro Nacional de Aztlán). Other collections will soon be on-line. These collections can be found on the UCLA library website and on the CSRC Library website.

 

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.

 

The CSRC released two DVDs this month on Chicano art of the 1970s and 1980s. The first DVD compiles two documentaries on pivotal art exhibitions in Los Angeles: Los Four, the first exhibition of Chicano artists held at a major art museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in 1974; and Murals of Aztlán, an exhibition of portable murals held at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in 1981. The second DVD presents early “conceptual dramas” directed by Harry Gamboa Jr., a co-founder of the influential Chicano art group, ASCO (1971-1987). These works -- with the originals archived in the CSRC Special Collections -- have been restored and are being made available for the first time. For information on how to purchase these historic DVDs, contact the CSRC press.

 

The CSRC Press is in the last stages of preparing an exciting new anthology for publication. In ethnic studies, the "I" has been an assertive part of scholarship. One has only to look at the history of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies (founded in 1969) to observe the way the personal and the textual have intertwined to shape the field since the beginning. We have selected twelve essays to demonstrate the range of personal writing in Chicano studies and how scholars see their identities shaping their scholarship. Essays address fathers, classrooms, fieldwork, cinema, home, family, cockfighting, Latina lesbian publishing, censorship, and art to break down barriers. To order a copy in advance now, email CSRC Press.

 

The spring issue of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies has been sent to subscribers. If you are not a subscriber and want to be one, e-mail your postal address to the CSRC Press in order to receive a subscription package!

 

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)

 

Undergraduates interested in working for the summer for the Mexican Cultural Institute, located at historic Olvera Street, should contact Ms. Maria Garcia, Assistant Director. They have two paid Internships this summer, funded by the Getty Grant Program. This is for a ten-week period from June to August for 40 hours a week for a total of $3,500. Applicants must be of African American, Asian, Latino/Hispanic/ Chicano, Native American, or Pacific Islander descent, must be currently enrolled undergraduates who reside or attend college in Los Angeles County, must have completed at least one semester of college by June 2003, and should not have graduated before December 2003. All areas of study welcome; bilingual-speaking (Spanish & English) applicants are preferred. Deadline for all applications is this Friday, May 7.

 

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).

Please note that most e-mails at the center recently switched from @csrc.ucla.edu to @chicano.ucla.edu. For instance, it is now press@chicano.ucla.edu. If you need someone's new e-mail, please e-mail the front office.