Syrian Refugees Photography Exhibition?

As I write, an ambitious photographer or two is probably organizing an exhibit. A series of photographs of the ravaged faces of Syrian refugees. Images of destroyed Syrian buildings will give context. The collected images offer a stark contrast to our reality.

Wandering the streets, the photographer will pick and choose who to immortalize. Feeling almost guilty, the photographer snaps the shutter. The more desperate and suffering the refugee, the better. They can see the picture framed in a sterile gallery as the photo is captured.

What do you think?

Renowned Texas Chicano Artist Jesús Moroles Dies in Vehicle Crash

By Steve Bennett for MySA

Renowned Texas sculptor Jesús Moroles died in a vehicle crash late Monday night. He was 64.

Jesús Moroles

 Jesús Moroles and Professor Ann Marie Leimer

 Jesús Moroles and Professor Ann Marie Leimer

 Jesús Moroles

Click photos to enlarge

Photos taken March 26, 2015 in Houston, TX (studio visit)

by Jesús Manuel Mena Garza. All rights reserved.

Moroles, who was born in Corpus Christi in 1950 and lived and worked in Rockport, was driving on Interstate 35 when he was involved in a crash north of Georgetown, according to the Rockport Pilot, which spoke to the artist’s sister Susanna Moroles. Other details were unavailable.

A representative of Moroles’ gallery, Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans, confirmed the report. “He was going to be our featured artist in August,” said gallery director Bradley Sabin. “Now it’s totally up in the air.”

Moroles created both monumental and smaller scale works in granite. He received the 2008 National Medal of Arts and was the 2011 Texas State Artist for three-dimensional work.

“I knew Jesús for many years,” said San Antonio sculptor Bill Fitzgibbons. “I always found him very generous of spirit and supportive of other sculptors. He was one of a kind, and I will greatly miss his friendship.

“In terms of granite, I don’t know anybody who could sculpt and create pieces out of that material the way that Jesús could,” Fitzgibbons added. “I would say that he was not only one of the best sculptors in Texas, but in the United States.”

Moroles has a public piece at the Southwest School of Art, as well as “River Stelae,” a sculpture consisting of three monumental slabs of granite near the San Antonio Museum of Art.

“Working with Jesus on the sculptural fountain of Texas pink granite that graces our historic campus was a remarkable experience for me because of his personal warmth, wit and passion,” said Paula Owen, president of the Southwest School of Art. “And it was incredible to visit his studio and workshop in Rockport where he created major pieces for locations around the world. Texas has lost a significant artist, and I mourn his passing.”

Moroles once said of his sculpture: “My work is a discussion of how man exists in nature and touches nature and uses nature. Each of my pieces has about 50 percent of its surfaces untouched and raw — those are parts of the stone that were torn. The rest of the work is smoothed and polished. The effect, which I want people to not only look at but touch, is a harmonious coexistence of the two.”

According to the Rockport Pilot, the artist was at home last week finalizing transport of a sculpture to Dallas. He and his crew made the delivery Thursday and assembled the sculpture for the downtown Dallas area.

Susanna Moroles told the paper that her brother returned to Rockport from Dallas on Sunday because he had a jury duty notice for Monday. Then he then left town Monday evening, heading north to Oklahoma, to begin work on his next commissioned piece.

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Roberto Rodriguez, PhD – Write in Candidacy for the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) Chair-elect 2015

It’s not that I am declaring my write-in candidacy, but rather, this is at least the second time I’ve been nominated, but have been deemed to be ineligible by the NACCS board and its leadership. As a result, I have chosen to contest those rulings via the only recourse available: a write-in candidacy for Chair-elect for 2015. The following reasons are why I accepted the nomination from Josie Mendez-Negrete, past NACCS chair and professor at UTSA.

I have been committed to Raza Studies virtually since its beginnings. I was a member of MEChA since high school (1969-1972) and a member of MEChA and La Gente Newspaper at UCLA from 1972-1976. I attended my first NACCS conference as a 3^rdyear UCLA student at UT Austin in 1975. As a student, writer and scholar, I have been involved with the movement and discipline virtually since its inception. In the movement to defend and spread Ethnic Studies nationwide, I have been active in supporting our community’s right to our Culture, History, Identity, Language and Education (CHILE), including getting arrested, receiving death threats, testifying at the local school board, plus speaking before a  UN Forum. Additionally, I have been an active member of Raza Studies Now and Ethnic Studies Now: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/29026-indigenous-knowledge-on-trial-defending-and-defining-mexican-american-studies

• I believe the focus of next year’s NACCS conference should examine the relationship between the organization, our communities and Indigeneity. We should do this not simply within ourselves but in relationship to other Indigenous peoples of the continent. The organization has examined everything else, and it has become the better for it. It is time to do this on an issue that is close to many of us within the organization and our communities. In part, that is why I took part in co-founding the Indigenous foco within NACCS several years ago. 2016 is critical. I believe NACCS, along with MEChA, MALCS and all the Calpolis (Kalpulis) and Peace and Dignity should meet together to examine the Census Bureau’s attempt to once again force an Hispanic [racial] identity upon us. If as a community we do not deal with this now, it will be too late for the 2020 Census.
• I believe that NACCS should be a full-fledged human rights organization, at the service of our communities. With our communities being slaughtered virtually daily throughout the country and on the border, we as a body should be at the forefront, as human rights scholar activists in producing the research that will be helpful in assisting with creating solutions via studies and going to court, whether at the local, state, federal or international levels: (http://truth-out.org/news/item/28921-not-counting-mexicans-or-indians-the-many-tentacles-of-state-violence-against-black-brown-indigenous-communities)
• I believe that NACCS should be at the forefront of expanding Raza Studies at colleges and universities nationwide and also at community colleges and K-12 schools also, and widening its scope, akin to what Tucson’s UNIDOS youth organization proposed in 2013; that we should teach Mexican American Indigenous Studies, and within it, all the other Ethnic Studies disciplines, including Gender and Women’s Studies, LGBT Studies and Middle Eastern Studies…. so that we can learn about each other as we struggle together: (http://drcintli.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-call-for-mexican-american-indigenous.html)
• I believe that NACCS should always be a democratic organization and should always have open and competitive elections, always with choices as opposed to elections with unopposed candidates. I believe the organization should be moved in this direction, beginning this year.

This is the BIO, with minor corrections, that was submitted by Josie Mendez-Negrete to the NACCS Board when she submitted my nomination.

Roberto Rodriguez (Dr. Cintli) is an assistant professor at the Mexican American & Raza Studies Department at the University of Arizona. He is a longtime-award-winning journalist/columnist who received his Ph.D. in Mass Communications in 2008 from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is the author of "Justice: A Question of Race," a book that chronicles his two police brutality trials, and, with Dr. Patricia Gonzales, he co-produced "Amoxtli San Ce Tojuan: a documentary on origins and migrations." He returned to the university as a result of a research interest that developed pursuant to his column writing concerning origins and migration stories of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. His current field of study is the examination of maiz culture, migration, and the role of stories and oral traditions among Indigenous peoples, including Mexican and Central American peoples. His book, "Our Sacred Maíz is Our Mother," was recently published (Fall, 2014) by the University of Arizona Press. 

He teaches classes on the history of maiz, Mexican/Chicano Culture and politics, and the history of red-brown journalism. Based on a class he co-created in 2003, a major digitized collection was inaugurated by the University Arizona Libraries: The History of Red-Brown Journalism. He currently writes for Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project and is working on a project, titled: "Smiling Brown: Gente de Bronce – People the Color of the Earth." It is a collaborative project on the topic of color and color consciousness. He is also writing a memoir on the topic of police abuse, torture and political violence: "Yolqui: A warrior summonsed from the spirit world." This book examines the history of official violence against Black-Brown-Indigenous peoples, tracing it back to 1492. His last major award was in 2013, receiving the national Baker-Clarke Human Rights Award from the American Educational Research Association, for his work in defense of Ethnic Studies.

NACCS has a procedure for write-in candidates. As in any election, a write in candidate starts at a decided disadvantage, but minimally this year, there will be a second candidate for chair-elect – a first in recent memory. To vote, you must have paid membership dues by March 22, 2015. Voting beginsMarch 31, 2015.

Thanks & Sincerely

Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

UA-MAS

Truthout: Public Intellectual Project:

http://truth-out.org/news/item/6613-the-public-intellectual-roberto-cintli-rodriguez

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