CSRC Newsletter - May 2007

CSRC Newsletter Volume 5, Number 8

Director's Message

CSRC events in May span oral history research, the visual arts, and education, and offer an introduction to the center’s digital resources. Our second annual Latina/o Education Summit, which will focus on the critical role of community colleges in increasing the number of Latina/os with undergraduate and graduate degrees, will take place at the end of the month. A new policy brief on the community college transfer function will be issued in anticipation of the summit. We are also pleased to announce the release of the DVD for the first Chicano-directed feature film, Please, Don't Bury Me Alive! (1976). It’s a fascinating film that I helped recover and archive in 1996. CSRC and the UCLA Film and Television Archive teamed up to undertake the lengthy process of restoring the print, and Mike Stone, manager of the CSRC Archive, produced the DVD, which includes optional subtitles and Mike’s extensive interview with the filmmaker. Visit our online store to learn more about this important film. Hope to see you at one of our events!

Chon A. Noriega, Professor and Director
 

News

The UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center extends its grateful appreciation to Stanley and Elyse Grinstein for their support of CSRC’s A Ver: Revisioning Art History series. Mr. Grinstein is co-founder of Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited), an artists’ workshop and publisher of limited edition prints located in Los Angeles. G.E.L. has been at the forefront of exciting developments in contemporary art since its establishment in 1966. Its groundbreaking works include lithographic prints, etchings, woodcuts, screenprints, and prints using a combination of processes, as well as sculpture in diverse media. Mr. Grinstein is also a trustee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Grinsteins’ support will be directed to the upcoming book on Chicano artist Malaquías Montoya, currently an art professor at UC Davis, whose works include acrylic paintings, murals, and drawings with a focus on Chicano culture and history. Professor Montoya is known primarily for his silkscreen prints, which have been exhibited internationally. He is credited by historians as one of the founders of the social serigraphy movement in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1960s. The author of the Montoya volume is Tere Romo, CSRC arts project coordinator and a longtime curator of the Chicano arts.
 

Events  

Ron Arias Lecture
The UCLA Undergraduate Spanish and Portuguese Association, the UCLA Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and the CSRC present “Autobiography and Family Secrets: From L.A. Barrio to the World and Back Again,” a lecture by writer and journalist Ron Arias. The event will be held Tuesday, May 8, 4:00 p.m., in 362 Royce Hall. Refreshments will be served. Mr. Arias, senior writer for People and People en español, is one of the most widely recognized Chicano writers of our time. His novel The Road to Tamazunchale is one of the founding texts in contemporary Chicano/a literature, and a recent work, Moving Target: A Memoir of Pursuit, has won several awards, including the Latino Literary Hall of Fame award for best biography.
 
Digital Innovation at UCLA
The CSRC’s Chicano Archives Digitization Project will be featured during a half-day event showcasing digital innovation at UCLA. The event, “Countries, Cultures, Communication,” will begin with a brief program, and then guests will be able to view pioneering digital research projects developed by UCLA faculty and students. The keynote speaker will be Willard McCarty from King’s College, London. The event will be held Thursday, May 10, 4:00–8:00 p.m., in 1302 Perloff Hall. Please RSVP to attend.
 
Venezuela’s “Revolucion Bolivariana” Forum
Firsthand commentary and analysis of one of the most important, yet misunderstood political and social dynamics in Latin America today will be offered at a forum co-sponsored by the CSRC. “Venezuela’s ‘Revolucion Bolivariana’: (mis)Perceptions by U.S. Media and Policy Makers” will be held Monday, May 14, 12:00–2:00 p.m., in Covel Commons on the UCLA campus. Speakers include Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera; Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute; and California community leader Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America. The forum, open to the UCLA community, will be moderated by Raul Hinojosa, professor in the UCLA Department of Chicano Studies and the César E. Chávez Center for Interdisciplinary Instruction.
 
Oral History Research Conference
“Why Oral History? Perspectives from Communities of Color,” a conference on issues in oral history research, will be held Friday, May 18, 9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m., in the UCLA Faculty Center, Downstairs Lounge. The keynote speaker will be George Lipsitz, University of California, Santa Barbara. Oral History Case Studies will be presented by 2006–07 IAC Postdoctoral/Visiting Scholars Mellisa K. Nelson, Horacio Roque Ramirez, Irum Shiekh, and Daniel Widener. Roundtable discussions with experts in the field will focus on two topics: the ethical, political, and theoretical issues involved in collecting oral histories in communities of color; and representing people of color on film. CSRC is a co-sponsor of the conference, which grows out of a yearlong collaboration with the UCLA Center for Oral History Research and the other UCLA ethnic studies research centers.
 
Gronk Book Signing
Max Benavidez, author of Gronk, the first volume in CSRC’s A Ver: Revisioning Art History series, and the artist will autograph copies of the book at two signings this month. On Friday, May 18, 7:00 p.m., Benavidez and Gronk will be at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd, W. Hollywood, CA 90069. The second signing will be Saturday, May 26, 5:00 p.m., at Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90027.
 
Latina/o Education Summit 2007
The CSRC will hold its annual Latina/o Education Summit on Friday, May 25, 8:30 a.m.–7:00 p.m., in UCLA’s Tom Bradley International Hall. This year the conference will focus on the community college segment of the educational pipeline and the perspective of Latina/o transfer students. Of the Latina/o students who pursue graduate degrees in California, nearly two-thirds begin at the community college level. Summit participants will engage in a critical discussion regarding the role of the transfer function and of community colleges, four-year colleges, and graduate institutions in addressing the educational needs of the growing Latina/o student population. Sorry, registration for the Education Summit is now closed.
 

CSRC Library and Archive

Collections in Process
Work is proceeding on five collections in the CSRC Archive: The Richard Griswold Del Castillo Papers, The Laura Esquivel Papers, The Joe Ortíz Collection, The Comisión Femenil Papers, Volume III, and The Tomas Benitez Postcard and Periodical Collection.
 
New Video
The CSRC Library would like to congratulate photographer Laura Aguilar for the completion of her new video Untouched Landscapes. Ms. Aguilar has donated a number of her photographs and papers to the Library and, in addition, has deposited a significant portion of her work. The CSRC provided support for the video.
 

CSRC Press

Two New DVDs Released
The first feature-length Chicano film ever made is now out! You can buy Please, Don’t Bury Me Alive!/Por favor, no me entierren vivo! (1976), produced and directed by Efraín Gutiérrez, at our online store. This independent film, a slice-of-barrio-life that was shot and shown in South Texas, outperformed All the President’s Men in some small towns, and it single-handedly broke Mexico’s monopoly over the four hundred Spanish-language theaters in the United States. The film inspired an independent film movement not only in Mexico, where the state controlled the industry, but also among Chicano filmmakers in the United States, who further refined Gutiérrez’s successful grassroots marketing strategy. The film is important as an instance of regional filmmaking, as a bicultural and bilingual narrative, and as a precedent that expanded the way that films were made in two nations. It is a compelling film about the dilemmas facing a young Chicano in the spring of 1972 amid the Chicano Movement, one made on a dream and a shoestring! The DVD includes an hour-long bonus interview with the filmmaker.
 
No Movie: A Journey Through the Archives of a Man Named Gronk, directed, produced, and with original music by Steven La Ponsie, is also now available. Drawing from Gronk’s extensive personal archive of photos and drawings, and narrated by the artist himself, No Movie takes viewers on a journey through a diverse and prolific artistic career. No Movie begins with Gronk’s participation in the conceptual art group Asco, documents his collaborations with Jerry Dreva, Tomata du Plenty, James Bucalo, and others, then continues to more recent installation paintings and the acclaimed set design for the Santa Fe Opera’s production of Ainadamar. The film offers an intimate portrait of a unique, multifaceted artist who has worked across the boundaries of punk art, mail art, Chicano art, performance art, and gallery painting, defying categories and challenging convention in the process.
 
Download Our Movies
You can now download all CSRC films! Just go to the Filmfresh website, do a search on the word Chicano, and click on the film of your interest. You pay the fee with your credit card and download the film directly to your computer. If you are just renting it, you pay only $4.99. If you are buying it, the cost is $12.99. It can’t get easier than that!

Contacts

To learn more about us, visit our website or email us.
UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center • 193 Haines Hall • Box 951544 • Los Angeles, CA 90095-1544 Campus Mail Code: 154403 • Tel: (310) 825-2363 • Fax: (310) 206-1784
 

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