CSRC Newsletter - May 2014

Volume 12, Number 9

Director’s Message

Congratulations to our colleague Reynaldo Macías for a much-deserved recognition: in April he received the 2014 National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholar Award. Reynaldo has a long and significant involvement with the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. As a student (BA, sociology, 1969; MA, education, 1973) he was among the CSRC’s founders. He also co-founded the CSRC’s Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies and served as assistant editor, co-editor, and then editorial board member during its first two decades. Reynaldo returned to UCLA as a professor in 1998 and served as chair of the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies and then as acting dean of the Division of Social Sciences. He has been a member of the CSRC Faculty Advisory Board during that time as well. In just one sign of Reynaldo’s far-reaching impact, he currently holds academic appointments in Chicana/o studies, education, and applied linguistics.
 
Former CSRC director Juan Gómez-Quiñonez received the award in 1990, and former CSRC librarian Richard Chabran received the award in 2003. Indeed, the CSRC thrives in large part due to the talents of the distinguished scholars, librarians, and students who were among its founders, and to all those who make this the premiere Chicano studies research center in the world. We are always pleased—and humbled—when these individuals are recognized for their broad positive impact on the field of Chicano studies and by extension the Chicano community.
 
Chon A. Noriega
Director and Professor
 

News

Ricardo Valverde retrospective to open at VPAM
The late Los Angeles–based photographer and artist Ricardo Valverde (1946–1998) will be featured in a career retrospective at the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College, May 17–July 26, 2014. The exhibition, Ricardo Valverde: Experimental Sights, 1971–1996, is the first survey of Valverde’s extensive body of work. The guest curator is Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, former chief curator for the Museum of Latino American Art in Long Beach and currently a CSRC visiting scholar. The show, undertaken in partnership with the CSRC, highlights more than one hundred artworks spanning a twenty-five-year period of production. The opening reception is Saturday, May 17, 4:00–6:00 p.m., and is free to all. For more information on the exhibition and related public programs, visit the VPAM website.
 
Ozomatli visits students at CSRC
On April 14 Los Angeles band Ozomatli visited the CSRC to converse with students about art and social activism. Over eighty students from CS/M116— Chicano Music in the U.S., taught by Francisco Javier Crespo-Diaz—attended the event, which concluded with an acoustic performance of two songs from the band's most recent album, Place in the Sun. For media coverage of this event, see In the News (below).
 
Salazar documentary includes images from CSRC collections
The documentary Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle about the legendary journalist and the controversy surrounding his death, premiered on PBS stations nationwide April 29. The documentary includes images from the La Raza Newspaper and Magazine Records at the CSRC. In summer 2011 the CSRC successfully requested that the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department to provide a copy of its investigative files—the copy of which contains electronic copies of photographs, redacted documents, and audio recordings from 1970—for public access through the CSRC Library and UCLA Digital Library. The L.A. County Sheriff’s Dept. Investigative Files pertaining to the death of Ruben Salazar are available through the UCLA Digital Library here.
 
CSRC plays Metadata Games
For one week starting on April 18, the CSRC teamed up with Dartmouth College's Tiltfactor Labs to apply the lab’s Metadata Games project to one of the CSRC’s special collections: the Nancy Tovar Collection of East L.A. Murals. Through crowdsourcing, Metadata Games collects metadata in the form of tags—words or phrases that describe an image, audio, or video clip—which make library and archival material more searchable and accessible. The project demonstrated how technology and crowds can help solve some of the challenges that archivists face in presenting and promoting the material they curate. For the CSRC’s test run, 525 images from the Nancy Tovar Collection of East L.A. Murals were uploaded to the Metadata Games website. Users contributed, on average, five to ten unique tags per image. CSRC associate director Marissa López led this effort for the CSRC. Over the summer López and CSRC staff will migrate the tags to UCLA's Digital Library, which hosts the Tovar collection.
 
Iribarren leads grant information session
On April 14, CSRC assistant director Javier Iribarren led an information session organized by the four IAC ethnic studies centers on applying for IAC grants for the 2014–15 academic year.
 
New summer course on Chicanos, Castro, and education
Carlos M. Haro, coordinator of the CSRC’s Education Project, has developed a seminar that will be offered through the UCLA Department of Chicana/o Studies during the second 2014 summer session. “Chicanas/Chicanos and the Schools: The Legacy of Mendez v. Westminster and Sal Castro” will present an overview of Chicana/o educational issues in the United States. Special emphasis will be placed on important historical events that exemplify the struggle for educational justice and that have affected Chicana/o education: the Mendez v. Westminster (1946) desegregation case and the legacy of Sal Castro, Chicano teacher and central figure in the 1968 walkouts in East Los Angeles. The course is also designed to introduce upper-division and graduate students to the Sal Castro Collection at the CSRC and to demonstrate how to utilize primary resources to conduct oral history research. The course will meet Mondays and Wednesdays, noon–2:00 p.m. in Dodd 161, and will run from August 4 through September 12. Enrollment is now open but spaces are limited. For more information, contact Professor Haro at charo@chicano.ucla.edu.
 
Belcher receives tenure
The CSRC congratulates Wendy Belcher, former CSRC Press editor, on her receipt of tenure. Belcher is a professor of African literature in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University.
 
Serna publishes Cinelandia
The CSRC congratulates Laura Isabel Serna, assistant professor of critical studies in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, on the release of her book Making Cinelandia: American Films and Mexican Film Culture before the Golden Age (Duke University Press, 2014). In 2009–10, Serna conducted research for the book while a CSRC visiting scholar. CSRC director Chon A. Noriega acknowledged Serna’s contributions to scholarship in a blurb printed on the back cover.
 
CSRC community partner for Friends of American Latino Museum
Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino is the only organization exclusively dedicated to the creation of an American Latino museum at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. The CSRC has signed on as a community partner in the organization’s efforts. On December 6, 2013, CSRC director Chon A. Noriega participated in a town hall discussion at USC concerning the need for such a museum. For more information, visit the organization’s website.
 

CSRC in the News

“Getty Internship 20th Anniversary”
In 2012 the Getty Foundation celebrated the twentieth anniversary of its Multicultural Undergraduate Internship program, designed to diversify staff at museums and visual arts organizations by providing students with opportunities to work at arts-related organizations as well as a modest stipend. CSRC director Chon A. Noriega is interviewed in the celebratory video, now online and viewable here. For a list of CSRC Getty interns since 2007, see the CSRC website.
 
“El Riesgo Se Llama César Chávez”
The April issue of the Mexican monthly Gatopardo includes a cover story on Diego Luna, director of the new feature film Cesar Chavez. The article cites the CSRC event on March 7 that featured an advance screening of the film and a panel discussion with Luna, producer Pablo Cruz, UFW president Arturo Rodríguez, and Héctor Calderón, UCLA professor of Spanish and Portuguese.
Gatopardo, April 2014 (PDF)
 
“Foro Mas Latino Presentacion de la Pelicula Cesar Chavez Actualizasion”
Foro + Latino, an online program of the TVC + Latino network, covered the CSRC’s advance screening of Cesar Chavez on March 7, interviewing the filmmakers as well as many of the evening's attendees. Watch the video here.
Foro + Latino, April 2, 2014
 
“Hammer Conversation with Roberto Tejana and Chon Noriega”
A September 24, 2009, conversation at the Hammer Museum between CSRC director Chon A. Noriega and University of Texas, Austin, art history professor Roberto Tejada on the work of artist Celia Alvarez Muñoz is now available online. Tejada is the author of a monograph on the artist published by CSRC Press.
Watch the video here.
 
“Rafael Ferrer”
A review of Rafael Ferrer, volume 7 in the A Ver series published by the CSRC Press. The reviewer notes that the author, Deborah Cullen, “masterfully weaves biography, social and cultural history” with “formal analysis of artworks” in this overview of the artist’s life and work.
The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History, 70:4 (April 2014) (PDF)
 
“Quand ASCO se met en scène à Marseille”
An online photo gallery of the exhibition Asco and Friends: Exiled Portraits, co-curated by Celine Kopp, Pilar Tompkins Rivas, and CSRC director Chon A. Noriega.
Le Monde, April 18, 2014 (PDF)
 
“L'art du happening des voyous superbes d'ASCO”
A review of the exhibition Asco and Friends: Exiled Portraits.
Le Monde, April 18, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Ozomatli at UCLA Today for Interactive Chicano Studies Session”
Los Angeles band Ozomatli visited the CSRC on Monday, April 14, to converse with UCLA students about art and social activism.
Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2014 (PDF)
UCLA Daily Media Coverage, April 15, 2014 (PDF)
Los Angeles Times coverage reblogged on Music News HQ, April 21, 2014 (PDF)
 
Exhibition in UCLA News
Asco and Friends: Exiled Portraits, co-organized by the CSRC, was cited in UCLA in the News.
UCLA in the News, April 11, 2014 (PDF)
 
“L'art en bande organisée”
Asco and Friends: Exiled Portraits was included in a story on exhibitions of art collectives currently on view in Paris and Marseille.
M, le magazine du Monde, April 11, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Writer Junot Díaz Speaks at Buskirk-Chumley”
A summary of events surrounding the Indiana University Latino Film Festival and Conference, which included speakers Junot Díaz, Edward James Olmos, and CSRC director Chon A. Noriega.
Indiana Daily Student, April 8, 2014 (PDF)
 
“Finding a Cure for Hate”
The CSRC study Using Biological Markers to Measure Stress in Listeners of Commercial Talk Radio (2012), co-investigated by CSRC director Chon A. Noriega, CSRC assistant director Javier Iribarren, and UCLA immunologist Hermes Garban, was cited in a story on hate speech research and current findings.
The Toronto Star, April 4, 2014 (PDF)
 
“La scène underground de Los Angeles débarque à Marseille”
A review of Asco and Friends: Exiled Portraits (see page 7).
Le Quotidien de l'Art, April 2, 2014 (PDF)
 
“The Fight against Fracking Is a Fight for Social Justice”
A profile on Chicana activist Lupe Anguiano and Stewards of the Earth, the environmental nonprofit she founded. The Lupe Anguiano Archive is housed at the CSRC.
Food & Water Watch, March 31, 2014 (PDF)
 
All “In the News” articles are available in PDF format on the CSRC website.
 

Events

Ocampo to discuss “Latinos of Asia”
On Thursday, May 15, 3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. in the CSRC Library, Anthony C. Ocampo, assistant professor of sociology at Cal Poly Pomona, will give the talk “The ‘Latinos’ of Asia: How Filipinos Break the Rules of Race.” The lecture will examine how Filipino Americans, the largest Asian group in California, negotiate their racial identity within a Latino-Asian racial spectrum that is becoming increasingly visible, and how the cultural residuals of Spanish and U.S. colonialism affect how Filipinos racially position themselves vis-à-vis Latinos and Asians, the two fastest-growing panethnic groups in the country. This event is organized by the CSRC and co-sponsored by the UCLA Asian American Studies Research Center, UCLA Asian American Studies Department, UCLA Department of Sociology, UCLA Program on International Migration, UCLA Department of Sociology Race/Ethnicity Working Group, and the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies. A reception with light refreshments will follow the lecture.
 
Mazer project culminates with symposium
On Friday, May 16, 2:00–6:00 p.m. in the Charles E. Young Reference Library, the symposium “Making Invisible Histories Visible: Preserving the Legacy of Lesbian Feminist Activism and Writing in Los Angeles” will celebrate the completion of a three-year project involving the UCLA Center for the Study of Women (CSW), the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archive, and the UCLA Library. The event will include presentations delivered by some of the participants in the project and will feature Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer, a Vietnam veteran, Bronze Star recipient, and Mazer Archive donor. With her lawyer, UCLA Law School alum Mary Newcombe, who will also be present, Cammermeyer successfully challenged the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military. Lizette Guerra, CSRC Librarian, was the archivist for this project, which was funded in part by an NEH grant. Michael Stone, CSRC Archives Manager, served as the digital project manager. The event, which is free and open to the public, is organized by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women and the UCLA Library and cosponsored by the Williams Institute. The CSW has published a resource guide to the archives' collections that includes essays by Guerra and Stone, among others. For information, contact csrcinfo@chicano.ucla.edu.
 
Valverde exhibition to open
Ricardo Valverde: Experimental Sights, 1971–1996, the first survey of the late photographer and artist’s extensive body of work, opens Saturday, May 17, 4:00–6:00 p.m. at the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park. The guest curator is Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, former chief curator for the Museum of Latino American Art in Long Beach and currently a CSRC visiting scholar. The show, undertaken in partnership with the CSRC, highlights more than one hundred artworks spanning a twenty-five-year period of production.
 
Brown Berets to discuss organization’s genesis
On Wednesday, May 21, 3:00–5:00 p.m. in the CSRC Library, the CSRC will welcome David Sanchez and Ralph Ramirez, former Brown Berets founders, for the panel discussion “The Birth of a New Symbol: The Founding of the Brown Beret Organization.” Rona M. Fields, whose 1970 dissertation was an ethnographic study of the organization, will also be a panelist.
 
Esparza to perform The Flower Carriers
On Thursday, May 29, 4:30–6:00 p.m. in the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden, the UCLA Center for Performance Studies in collaboration with the CSRC will present the site-specific performance The Flower Carriers by Rafael Esparza. Esparza is a Los Angeles–based multidisciplinary artist who is interested in history, personal narratives, and kinship and inspired by his own relationship to colonization and disrupted genealogies. He stages situations where he attempts to experience a time and space inaccessible to him. This event concludes the event series “Prop Q: Queer Performance & Politics,” organized by the UCLA Center for Performance Studies. For more information on the artist, visit his website.
 
All CSRC events are free unless otherwise noted. Programs are subject to change. For the most current information, visit the Events page on the CSRC website.
 

CSRC Library

New library exhibition features women of color at Self Help Graphics
The CSRC is pleased to announce the library exhibition Embodied Aesthetics: Thirty Years of Chicana and Women of Color Printmakers at the Self Help Graphics Atelier, curated by fourth-year undergraduate student Cristal Gutierrez Alba. With a tightly curated selection of twelve prints from the Self Help Graphics Atelier Print Collection at the CSRC, the exhibition surveys the visual imaginary created by Chicanas and women of color printmakers at Self Help Graphics & Art from 1980 through 2010. Alba is a Chicana/o studies major with an interest in Chicana visual creations. Her honors thesis, “Exploration of a Gender Galaxy through Body Space in the Work of Diane Gamboa,” is being written under the guidance of Alicia Gaspar de Alba, chair of the LGBT studies program and professor of Chicana/o studies, English, and gender studies. The exhibition will be on display in the library and vitrine May 7–June 13, during regular library hours. A reception will take place Wednesday, May 14, noon–2:00 p.m. on the Haines Hall patio sponsored by the UCLA Cesar E. Chavez Center of Chicana/o Studies. Embodied Aesthetics is the second student-curated exhibit at the library utilizing CSRC collections.
 
Favela poster donated to CSRC
The Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society at Incline Village, Nevada, has donated to the CSRC a rare poster from the 1970s by Ricardo Favela. The lodge’s manager contacted the CSRC in hopes that the poster, which is signed by the artist, would be preserved and appreciated here. The CSRC sincerely thanks the society for this important donation to its collection of Chicano posters and related holdings.
 
Service learning with IS students
The CSRC is once again working with graduate students from the Department of Information Studies, providing them with service learning opportunities. This spring four students will be helping on a variety of projects: Scott Dewey, Javier Garibay, Antonia Garcia, and Liz Goralka will be sorting through new monograph and serial donations as well as processing small additions to existing archival collections at the CSRC Library.
 
To learn more about CSRC collections and projects please email your queries to the CSRC librarian, Lizette Guerra, at lguerra@chicano.ucla.edu.
 

CSRC Press

New Oral History
An interview with artist and educator Judy Baca will be added to the CSRC Oral History Series this month. Baca, creator of The Great Wall of Los Angeles, talks about her childhood and education, her career, and her art. Her interview, which was conducted by Karen Mary Davalos as part of the L.A. Xicano project, is the fourteenth in the series. CSRC Oral Histories are available in PDF from the CSRC website.
 

Opportunities

Dissertation competition
The American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) and Educational Testing Service (ETS) announce the 2015 Outstanding Dissertations Competition. AAHHE and ETS recognize the significant need to increase the number of Hispanics receiving doctoral degrees, entering higher education on the tenure track, and eventually serving in faculty leadership and administrative roles. The first place winner will receive an award of $5,000, the second place winner an award of $2,000, and the third place winner an award of $1,000. All winners will be invited and sponsored to present their dissertations at the 2015 AAHHE National Conference in Dallas, Texas. In addition, one of the winners will be invited to present his or her dissertation at ETS corporate headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey. Deadline for submission is August 15, 2014. For more information, visit the AAHHE website.
 
Image: Ozomatli speaking to students about music and message. April 14, 2014. Copyright UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.