Colloquium: Indigenous Futures: Oaxaqueñx Youth Encuentro and New Voices in the California Central Valley by Nancy Morales

Colloquium: Indigenous Futures: Oaxaqueñx Youth Encuentro and New Voices in the California Central Valley by Nancy Morales

by Keith Miyake Events

Join the Ethnic Studies Department for our colloquium speaker series:

“Indigenous Futures: Oaxaqueñx Youth Encuentro and New Voices in the California Central Valley”

By Nancy Morales

Monday, December 2, 1:00–2:00 pm in INTN 3023

Based on a five-year Native ethnography with participant observation of fifteen Oaxaqueñx Youth Encuentro events, and twenty-four interviews with 1.5 (U.S.-raised) and second generations (U.S.-born) of Mixtec and Zapotec women and queer youth, Morales argues for more expansive definitions of Indigenous governance, such as tequio (community labor) to account for the political participation of Indigenous women and Indigiqueer youth that challenge static nationalist notions of Indigeneity.

Nancy Morales is an Indigenous (Zapotec) feminist scholar-activist and Native ethnographer. She earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Feminist Studies at UC Santa Barbara in June 2023 and is a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz. She is currently working on a short documentary and book manuscript, Oaxacan Pride: Women and Indigiqueer Youth’s Struggles for Sovereignty.

You can download a PDF flyer here.

Colloquium: Unbroken Spirit: The Rise of the Pelican Bay Short Corridor and California SHU Prison Hunger Strikes by Angélica Camacho

Colloquium: Unbroken Spirit: The Rise of the Pelican Bay Short Corridor and California SHU Prison Hunger Strikes by Angélica Camacho

by Keith Miyake Events

Join the Ethnic Studies Department for our colloquium speaker series:

“Unbroken Spirit: The Rise of the Pelican Bay Short Corridor and California SHU Prison Hunger Strikes”

By Angélica Camacho

Monday, November 4, 1:00–2:00 pm in INTS 3023

The 2011 and 2013 Pelican Bay and California SHU prison hunger strikes marked the beginning of a contemporary prisoner-led movement that would expose the brutality and corruption of the California Department of Corrections. I argue that the theorizing emanating from this historical prisoner and family-led movement provides us valuable insights for anti-prison organizing that can help us transform our way out of over 50 years of tough-on-crime legislation. Additionally, these hunger strikes remind us of the strength and power wielded by a common insurrectionary and unbroken spirit. Whereas even after years of being submitted to one of the most repressive sites in the world, incarcerated people adamantly refused to collaborate with their captors. Instead, they chose camaraderie across racial and geographical lines, reclaiming their bodies, and weaponizing their words to craft new possibilities for the future.

Angélica Camacho (Ph.D., Ethnic Studies, UC Riverside, 2017) is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Studies at San Francisco State University. Her current research documents the 2011-2013 Pelican Bay California prisoner hunger strikes and the subsequent uprising of their families in opposition to the conditions of confinement in Secure Housing Units (SHU).

Picturing Black History: Photographs and Stories That Changed the World, featuring Prof. Jasmin Young

Picturing Black History: Photographs and Stories That Changed the World, featuring Prof. Jasmin Young

by Keith Miyake Faculty News

Professor Jasmin Young contributed an entry in the recently published book: Picturing Black History: Photographs and Stories That Changed the World. Prof. Young’s contribution explores the work of “radical revolutionary” Gloria Richardson, a “highly controversial leader for refusing to publicly denounce armed resistance.”

From the publisher’s website:

Picturing Black History uncovers untold stories and rarely seen images of the Black experience, providing new context around culturally significant moments, as part of an ongoing collaborative effort between Getty Images, Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, and the History Departments at The Ohio State and Miami Universities.

Picturing Black History informs, educates, and inspires our current moment by exploring the past, blending the breadth and depth of Getty Images’s archives with the renowned expertise of Origins contributors and The Ohio State’s and Miami’s History Departments, including Daniela Edmeier, Damarius Johnson, Nicholas Breyfogle, and Steve Conn.

You can learn more and purchase the book at https://picturingblackhistory.org/pbh-book/.

Archives of Dissent: First Friday the Unauthorized News and the Legacy of Haunani-Kay Trask

Archives of Dissent: First Friday the Unauthorized News and the Legacy of Haunani-Kay Trask

by Keith Miyake Faculty News

Associate Professor Kēhaulani Vaughn recently published an article, “Archives of Dissent: First Friday the Unauthorized News and the Legacy of Haunani-Kay Trask” in a special issue of American Quarterly. In the article Vaughn traces Trask’s discussions regarding Hawaiian sovereignty and the archive of refusal of Americanness that Trask presented via public access television.

Here is the article abstract:

On March 11, 2022, ‘Ōlelo TV aired its last episode of First Friday: The Unauthorized News, which honored the life and accomplishments of Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask. Running intermittently for over thirty-five years, First Friday covered news and perspectives not discussed by local and mainstream media sources in Hawai’i. The show was initially formed in equal collaboration between John Witeck, Jo Scheder, Haunani-Kay Trask, and David Stannard and cohosted by Stannard, Trask, and later her sister Mililani Trask. First Friday included discussions of Hawaiian sovereignty that unapologetically centered Hawaiian viewpoints. The show aimed to educate and empower its viewers to get involved in local, state, and international politics, and was a significant example of independent news media. Although First Friday covered a range of topics both local and global, this essay begins to trace the legacy of Haunani-Kay Trask through her conversations on sovereignty on First Friday and her refusal of Americanness.

Colloquium: X es mi Amor: On Latino Queer Spaces and Preserving the Mundane

Colloquium: X es mi Amor: On Latino Queer Spaces and Preserving the Mundane

by Keith Miyake Events

Join the Ethnic Studies Department for our colloquium speaker series:

“X es mi Amor: On Latino Queer Spaces and Preserving the Mundane”

By Reynaldo Rivera

Monday, October 14, 1:00–2:00 pm in INTS 3023 (Please note the room change)

Reynaldo Rivera is a photographer whose work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York City, and Berlin. His photos are in the permanent collections of MOCA, LACMA, and The Getty Museum (L.A.), and of MoMA and The Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC). He is the author of Provisional Notes for a Disappeared City (2020), which the Los Angeles Times called “an alluring yet candid record of interconnected communities.”

Recent and Upcoming Art Shows featuring Prof. Gerald Clarke

Recent and Upcoming Art Shows featuring Prof. Gerald Clarke

by Keith Miyake Events Faculty News

2024 has been a busy year for Professor Gerald Clarke! Here are some of Professor Clarke’s recent and upcoming shows:

Gerald Clarke: The Door is Open (May 24 – September 1, 2024, Breck Create, Breckenridge, CO)

Desert Forest: Life with Joshua Trees (September 7 – December 29, 2024, Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA)

Fire Kinship: Southern California Native Ecology and Art (January 12 – July 13, 2025, PST ART, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA)

 

Professor Clarke will also be giving a lecture in October:

Portland Monuments Project Symposium (October 11 – 12, 2024, Converge 45, Portland, OR)

 

Prof. Clarke’s Artist Statement (via Breck Create)

I aspire not to romanticize the subjects or content of my work. I strive to “keep it real” and have found that my best works are inspired by my personal experiences. Beer cans, branding irons, and gourd rattles represent aspects of my reality. These materials reflect who I am and not how the mainstream might understand the contemporary Native American experience. They represent my community as well: a community that struggles with various issues but that also laughs, loves, and continues to evolve.

While my work may not appear “traditional,” it is part of a continuation of creative responses to the world that the Cahuilla have exercised since ancient times. I believe the strict adherence to traditional materials and authentic forms has been forced onto Indigenous expression by Euro-American belief systems that view art and culture through a monetary lens. The result is a narrow conception of Native American art that imposes an eighteenth-century aesthetic and transforms it into a commodity.

As you view my work, I ask that you do not simply compare or contrast it to “traditional Native American art,” but that you understand my work exists within a spectrum of Indigenous expression that is simultaneously ancient and contemporary. I’m proud and humbled to contribute to the Indigenous Intellectual Tradition. I am not simply a contemporary artist that happens to be Indian. I am a Native American artist. I am a Cahuilla artist.

Dr. Anthony Macías’s New Book Receives Honorable Mention, 2024 International Latino Book Award

Dr. Anthony Macías’s New Book Receives Honorable Mention, 2024 International Latino Book Award

by Keith Miyake Faculty News

Dr. Anthony Macías’s new book, Chicano-Chicana Americana: Pop Culture Pluralism Starring Anthony Quinn, Katy Jurado, Robert Beltran, and Lupe Ontiveros (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2023), has earned Honorable Mention, 2024 International Latino Book Award, Best Academic Themed Book, College Level.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Macias!

Chicano-Chicana Americana is a cultural history of Mexican Americans in film, television, and theater. Through biographical sketches of performers such as Anthony Quinn, Katy Jurado, Robert Beltran, and Lupe Ontiveros, this work asserts Mexican Americans’ proper place in the national narratives of our collective imaginary. Conveying a multicentered, polycultural America, this book shows us intriguing performers in bit parts who steal the scene and redefine what it means to be American.

Each biographical chapter analyzes an underappreciated actor, revealing their artistic contributions to U.S. common culture. Their long-shot careers tell a tale of players taking action with agency and fighting for screen time and equal opportunity despite disadvantages and differential treatment in Hollywood. These dynamic and complex individuals altered cinematic representations—and audience expectations—by surpassing stereotypes.

The book explores American national character by showing how ethnic Mexicans attained social and cultural status through fair, open competition without a radical realignment of political or economic structures. Their creative achievements demanded dignity and earned respect. Anthony Macías argues that these performances demonstrated a pop culture pluralism that subtly changed mainstream America, transforming it from the mythological past of the Wild West to the speculative future of science fiction.

View book on publisher website

Congratulations to 2024 Ethnic Studies Award Recipients

Congratulations to 2024 Ethnic Studies Award Recipients

by Keith Miyake Announcements Student News

On June 3, 2024, the Ethnic Studies Department held its annual awards and graduation ceremony. In addition to honoring our graduating undergraduate and graduate students, we had the pleasure of celebrating the 2023–24 award recipients.

Wilmer and Velma Johnson Ethnic Studies Undergraduate Award (Competitive scholarship granted to a rising Sophomore, Junior, or Senior Ethnic Studies Major)

  • Kayla Daniel
  • Blanca Salgado

Dosan Ahn Chang-Ho Award (Junior Ethnic Studies major with the highest overall GPA)

  • Blanca Salgado

Maurice Jackson Award (Graduating Ethnic Studies major with the highest overall GPA)

  • Martie Pablo

Ernesto Galarza Award (Junior Ethnic Studies major in recognition of service to the community)

  • Iris Villalpando

Katherine Saubel Award (Graduating senior who best promotes the preservation of cultural awareness)

  • Sanaa Johnson

Barnett Grier Award (Graduating senior who best promotes ethnic awareness)

  • Adrian Rosas Villagomez

Sister Rosa Marta Zarate Award (Graduating senior major in recognition of service to the community)

  • Cuauhtli Ramos

Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award

  • Jenni Martinez

Edna Bonacich Ethnic Studies Graduate Award (Competitive fellowship for new or continuing Ethnic Studies graduate students who have demonstrated a commitment to the promotion of equity in the workplace)

  • Eliana Buenrostro
  • Pedro Freire

Graduating MA Students

  • Carolina Apodaca-Morales
  • Michelle Rawlings
  • Kelvin Villalta

Graduating PhD Students

  • Guadalupe Arellanes Castro
  • Takahito Tanaka

In Recognition of Service to the Department and Celebrating Retirement

  • Cynthia (Cindy) Redfield

In Search of the ‘Tomato King’: Finding a Mexican Migrant Politician, Rooted in California Soil, by Prof. Adrían Félix

In Search of the ‘Tomato King’: Finding a Mexican Migrant Politician, Rooted in California Soil, by Prof. Adrían Félix

by Keith Miyake Faculty News

Ethnic Studies professor Adrían Félix recently published an essay, titled “In Search of the ‘Tomato King’: Finding a Mexican Migrant Politician, Rooted in California Soil” in Zócalo Public Square. Here is an excerpt:

I am writing a biography of Bermúdez, and I am drawn equally to this complex and contradictory figure by his larger-than-life character—in his signature all-black cowboy ensemble—and by the unprecedented transnational movement he ignited. Bermúdez gave migrants a voice in the politics of their homeland. He also reproduced the strongman tendencies and political bossism he fought against, not to mention machismo.

He is both rule and exception: so much like millions of fellow Mexican migrants who anonymously toil in this country, but also remarkable for transcending strictures of citizenship and borders. Tracing his California path through rural swaths of the state is a reminder of how Bermúdez, and others, have made it their home while maintaining lifelong ties to their ancestral motherlands.

You can read the full article on Zócalo Public Square. Image above: Tomato King Andrés Bermúdez by Be Boggs.

Reminder about Title IX Reporting

Reminder about Title IX Reporting

by Keith Miyake Announcements

The University encourages reporting of sexual violence and sexual harassment. The Title IX Office encourages people to file reports online via their secure portal i-Sight | UC Incident Reporting Form for Harassment and Discrimination.  Reports may be anonymous. When Title IX receives a report, professional staff assess it to decide whether they initiate an investigation or another form of complaint resolution. This assessment process is confidential.  More information about the policy and resources for students who have experienced sexual violence or harassment are available on the Title IX website Title IX, Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action | (ucr.edu)