The Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation Announces Photography Grant Call for Entries

The Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation for International Photography announced today that it is again seeking entries for outstanding work in social documentary photo reportage. Photographers around the world are encouraged to submit entries focusing on lives and populations ravaged by war, famine, poverty, religious persecution, political oppression, forced migration and other social injustices. The winning submission will be awarded a grant of US$5000 to be utilized for the production or completion of a social documentary project.

"This year's call follows an incredible first season. We received nearly 200 entries representing some 45 countries including, surprisingly Iran and Myanmar, as well as Sub-Saharan Africa and Saudi Arabia," said Manuel Rivera-Ortiz, himself a recognized documentary photographer and the Founder and President of the foundation. "Our ultimate goal is to support both emerging photographers and the causes they cover. This annual grant will be awarded to the photographer whose body of work and vision and heart best exemplifies humanity on the move."

Last year's judging took place at the Swiss Reinsurance Company offices in London at the Gherkin. The 2012 submissions will be evaluated in two rounds with finalists being judged in Paris by a renowned international panel of photographers and foundation trustees. The grant winner will be announced in July 2012. Submission details and entry rules can be found at www.mrofoundation.org under "Grant 2012." Entries must be submitted no later than May 31, 2012.

About the Foundation The Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation for International Photography is a 501(c)(3) Not-for-Profit Organization committed to positive social discourse in underrepresented communities throughout the world by encouraging emerging and established photographers working in developing nations to keep their lenses fixed on the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. Headquartered in New York, with a presence in Paris and Zurich, the foundation is a charitable trust serving the international photographic community through exhibitions, publishing, grants, education and other curatorial projects.

Established in 2010, the foundation aims to encourage a new generation of photographers, armed with only a camera and a vision of a better world, to take to the streets every day and document humanity on the move. For additional information, please visit www.mrofoundation.org.

Press Contact: Michael Palmieri, 917.720.5769

-30-

UCR professor Juan Felipe Herrera sworn in as California Poet Laureate

Written by Eric Gamboa for the University of California Riverside Highlander

Click photo to enlarge. Click header to go to original article.

University of California Riverside Professor Juan Felipe Herrera will be California’s first Chicano Poet Laureate, upon senate confirmation. On March 21, California Governor Jerry Brown appointed Herrera, whose work focuses on the Chicano experience—a subject that holds special significance to Herrera since he was the son of migrant farm workers. “No one is more worthy than Juan Felipe Herrera, both for this distinctive honor and for the task at hand as the California Poet Laureate,” proclaimed UC Riverside Chancellor Tim White in his weekly email. Within a week of the appointment, Herrera traveled to Sacramento where the governor swore him in.

Herrera currently serves as the Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair at UC Riverside’s Creative Writing Department. “I want to thank UC Riverside for such a great community of support. All the students here inspire me greatly. This award is for all the young writers who want to put kindness inside every word throughout the state, because kindness is the heart of creativity,” stated Herrera in an article by UCR Today.

According to Herrera’s personal website, the renowned poet has published 24 volumes of work including theater, children’s books and young adult novels. Herrera, a graduate of UC Los Angeles and Stanford University, has received dozens of highly prestigious awards and has seen much of his work been turned into plays and musicals. “Many poets since the 1960s have dreamed of a new hybrid art, part oral, part written, part English, part something else: an art grounded in ethnic identity, fueled by collective pride, yet irreducibly individual too. Many poets have tried to create such an art: Herrera is one of the first to succeed,” noted a New York Times review of Herrera’s work, as quoted in the governor’s press release.

The position of California Poet Laureate was created in 2001 and is primarily shaped by the California Arts Council. The council, which consists of 11 experts in fields such as the arts, education, and community development, are tasked with selecting candidates who would best promote and serve as an advocate of poetry in the state of California. Following his senate confirmation, Herrera will begin his two-year term and his tasks will include providing six public readings and completing a cultural project with the goal of exposing poetry to individuals of all backgrounds.

According to the California Arts Council website, the criteria for selecting the Poet Laureate depend on the achievement of scholarly excellence, the size of published work, the reputation of the poet and the willingness to partake in the cultural project. The Poet Laureate position has been vacant since September 2011 and was last held by University of Southern California Professor Carol Muske-Dukes.

“This honor reflects what we have had the privilege of seeing up close ever since he joined our distinguished faculty: namely, this remarkably gifted poet’s unique ability to connect—through his art and teaching—with everyone, regardless of their cultural or educational background,” stated Andrew Winer, chair of the Department of Creative Writing, in the UCR Today article.

Herrera’s recent accomplishments include being elected to the Academy of American Poets’ Board of Chancellors and receiving the 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry.

-30-

MEChA organizes march in Chico, California for César Chávez Day

Article courtesy of ChicoER.com

 Photo of César Estrada Chávez by Jesús Manuel Mena Garza

The memory of farm labor activist César Estrada Chávez was honored Saturday with a march through downtown and neighborhoods near the Chico State University campus.

About 40 members of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán gathered at City Plaza during a break in the rain. Some used whistles to raise awareness as the group traveled down Main Street, chanting, "What do we want? Justice."

Student Stacy Rios said the march for César Chávez Day was to honor the hard work of the man who formed the National Farm Workers Association with Dolores Huerta. The group later became the United Farm Workers union.

Rios said it's unfortunate that some students in the community misunderstand the holiday, or even believe it is a Mexican holiday. Some students have used the day off from classes to dress up in Mexican costumes and attend theme parties.

Juan Guzman, director of MEChA, said he believe it's more ignorance than disrespect for the work of Chávez, who worked for farm laborers of all countries of origin.

"It's more for people as a whole," he said.

Letters were sent to bars and student groups to help educate people about the meaning of the holiday.

Saturday afternoon in the student neighborhood, there were a few groups of young people walking and wearing sombreros. At one point during the march, the MEChA students were chanting "Long Live César Chávez," alternating between English and Spanish. One man yelled, "English, please," as the group marched by.

-30-

UTEP community remembers civil rights leader Cesar Chavez

Being one of the largest Hispanic-majority universities in the United States in one of the largest border cities in the country, celebrating Cesar Chavez is a major event for the University of Texas El Paso’s Chicano Studies program, as shown by their three-month series of events dedicated to the occasion.

“The goals of the event are to raise consciousness about the status and condition of the agricultural workers that put food on our table,” said Dennis Bixler-Marquez, professor and director of the Chicano Studies program. “Also to instill in our university, community and the greater El Paso area, an appreciation of the legacy of Cesar Chavez as a civil rights leader and an advocate for human rights.”

Chavez, a Mexican-American farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, now known as the United Farm Workers (UFW) in 1966. Chavez and his unionist non-violent methods were popular with American labor activists. After his death in 1993, he became an icon for union laborers. Chavez’s birthday, March 31, has been made a state holiday in Texas and California, and is an optional holiday in Arizona and Colorado.

“I do think Cesar Chavez Day is an important event for our culture so we know who we are and where we came from,” said Sergio Seley, sophomore history major. “It’s not just a day off. I think it’s important for younger generations to know who he was, what he did and how we should help him with his dream of giving rights to immigrant workers and help with their families who went through all that.”

To celebrate Chavez, the Chicano Studies program has helped in organizing a series of events that will run until May.Bixler-Marquez organizes the UTEP portion of the calendar. Various student organizations such as MEChA and multiple community organizations such as the Centro de Trabajadores Agrícolas Fronterizos, Mercado Mayapan, St. Pius X Parish and a variety of local public and private schools are hosting events and fundraisers.

Events that have already occurred include a car show at Riverside High School, a lecture from Carlos M. Montes of the Southern California Immigration Coalition, a screening of the documentary “Precious Knowledge,” which addresses current civil rights tensions in Arizona, and a farm workers mass at St. Pius, among others.

“The Librotraficante stop in El Paso was most successful and it placed El Paso in the national spotlight,” said Bixler-Marquez. “It featured a caravan of authors and students delivering banned books to Tucson, and it featured local authors, like UTEP’s Ben Saenz, and it involved several UTEP students and alumni at the evening reading at CaféMayapán.”

On March 26, Amnesty International screened the Frontline special “Lost in Detention,” which explores the Obama administration’s controversial choices when it comes to immigration policy. After the film screening, a panel consisting of members from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Border Network of Human Rights, MEChA and former city council member and congressional candidate Beto O’Rourke, answered questions and discussed immigration myths, facts and potential solutions.

“It was a panel where we had an opportunity, and I think the operative word is opportunity, to meet Beto O’Rourke and ask questions in an open environment in a university setting,” said Patrick Rabb, senior double major in Chicano studies and political science. “There were also student organizations represented like MEChA, Los Americas, theLGBT organizations as well, and so it seemed like something you’d want to be a part of because you had more opportunities than you would in a class where you’re just listening to a lecture.”

Rabb, who came to El Paso a year ago from South Carolina, said he walked away from the event with a clearer picture of both O’Rourke and border issues. Rabb came to study in El Paso because he believes that all the issues the country has to confront in the near future can be found here in El Paso.

Upcoming events to continue the celebration include the screening of the program “Celebrating Cesar Chavez: Its Message and Impact” March 30 on the monitors of the Liberal Arts and Union East buildings, a march for Chavez March 31 at the Centro de Trabajadores Agrícolas Fronterizos as well as a rally for the International Peasant’s Day of Struggle April 17.

-30-

Can You Afford To Go To College?

By Jesús Manuel Mena Garza

Today, after listening to several conservative politicians complain about colleges, I learned that they want to change the way they are run. They blast that colleges need to be more cost effective (not necessarily affordable) and of course less liberal.

Here are the facts. It costs more today to go to college than just a decade ago. Students are now incurring tremendous debt to attend school. Full-time professors are being replaced by adjuncts. Colleges want to attract more foreign students because they pay higher tuitions and fees.

During the heated conservative discussion, they complained that colleges force students to take classes that are not going to them land a job (aka: Ethnic Studies, Philosophy, Art, Art History, Poetry, etc.) These politicians desperately want to micromanage colleges, eliminating courses that don’t meet their conservative agenda.

The panel felt colleges were liberal bastions that spread propaganda promoting Marx, Castro and Obama. They wanted to give the boot to liberal professors and ethnic studies. Yes, they have a very-long list of classes they would like to excise. Maybe your favorite college subject is on their list?

These right-wing politicians also advocate long-distance learning as a way to save money. They proclaim that Internet courses are the wave of the future and that this new student body would be international. Again, it would be more profitable.

Some Historical Context

Those of you under forty probably don't know this, but California back in the 1960s and 70s had what was once considered the finest public university system in the world. It was also affordable. Back in the good old' days, when I went to college, I paid less than $100 a semester to attend San Jose State University. Now, a quality education is exponentially more expensive. What used to be the best university system is now just average. Despite all the fiscal attacks several of the UC's still compete at a high level despite their shrinking budgets.

With less money, colleges have had to make drastic cuts. Today, universities are scrambling to find new sources of funding (like the aforementioned foreign students). Many Californians who want to go to college can’t because they can’t afford it. In the end, maybe only the rich from America and abroad will be able to go to school. Once these select few are accepted, they may find themselves in over-crowded classrooms or staring at a lonely computer screen from home. At least that is the plan if many conservative politicians had their way. What do you think?

Bonus article: Harvard Cheaper than Cal State!

-30-

MOMA: Diego Rivera Murals

Inspect Diego Rivera murals up close. Click here!

In December 1931, The Museum of Modern Art mounted a major exhibition of work by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera. It was only the second retrospective at the Museum, and it was wildly popular, breaking attendance records in its five-week run.

Diego Rivera at work

Rivera was already an international celebrity. He was the most visible figure in Mexican muralism, a large-scale public-art initiative that emerged in the 1920s in the wake of the Mexican Revolution. But his murals—by definition fixed on a single site—were impossible to transport for exhibition. 

To solve this problem, the Museum brought Rivera to New York six weeks before the show opened and provided him with a makeshift studio in an empty gallery. There, Rivera produced five "portable murals"—freestanding frescoes commemorating events in Mexican history—which were prominently featured in the show. 

After the opening, to great publicity, Rivera made three more murals, taking on contemporary New York subjects through monumental images of the city during the Great Depression. The story of this extraordinary commission elucidates Rivera's pivotal role in shaping debates about the social and political value of public art during a period of economic crisis.

-30-

Chicano studies prof wins National Humanities Medal

Ramon Saldivar and President Obama

By Elaine Ayala for My San Antonio [Click header to go to original article and additional information.]



Stanford professor and Brownsville native Ramón Saldívar was among the nine winners of the National Humanities Medal last week. It’s an award given to “individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to important resources in the humanities.”


The selection of a Chicano studies scholar is timely, as Chicano and Mexican American studies are under attack in Arizona and as anti-immigrant, anti-Latino tones continue to be struck across the country. Saldívar’s scholarship is around globalization, transnationalism and Chicano studies.


President Obama called his exploration of identity along the border “bold.”


“In his studies of Chicano literature and the development of the novel in Europe and America, Dr. Saldívar highlights the cultural and literary markings that divide and unite us,” the president said.


The director of Stanford University’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Saldívar is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He earned his master and doctorate degrees in comparative literature from Yale University. For Brownsville natives it’s probably just as important that he’s a graduate of Brownsville High School.


He’s the author of “The Borderlands of Culture: Américo Paredes and the Transnational Imaginary,” “Chicano Narrative: The Dialectics of Difference” and “Figural Language in the Novel: The Flowers of Speech from Cervantes to Joyce. He’s at work on a fourth book about the perspectives of ethnic writers born after the civil rights era.


In a piece on the National Endowment for the Humanities web site, he said:


“From downtown Brownsville, you can literally look across the river and, a hundred yards away or so, there’s Mexico. To me, growing up, that was always normal life, that was the way the world worked: bilingual, bi-national, transcultural in all sorts of ways.”


Saldívar comes of a large family that birthed two other scholars. One is San Antonio resident Sonia Saldívar Hull, a professor of English and American literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She’s director of the Women’s Studies Department at UTSA. Another sibling, José Saldívar, is professor of comparative literature at Stanford.


One other Latino scholar received the medal this year. Professor Teofilo Ruiz teaches at UCLA.


-30-

'500 Years of Chicano History' Available Free to Local (Former) Mexican American Studies Students

Publishers of the book 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, one of the books banned from the Tucson Unified School District's now dismantled Mexican American Studies classes, is offering 1,000 books to TUSD Mexican American Studies students:

SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP) Offering Free Books for AZ Students Affected by Ethnic Studies Ban

"500 Years of Chicano History" available to students who express why ethnic studies is important in schools

"500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures", edited by Elizabeth Martinez and published by the SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP), is included in a set of primarily Chicano and Native American books that have been banned by the Tucson Independent School District. The school district says it’s not a ban, but the books were removed from classrooms after the Mexican-American Studies program was eliminated, and teachers in that program have been instructed to not teach these books through the lens of ethnic studies. To us, this is a ban.

The SouthWest Organizing Project, in response to the current ban and the overall climate of fear and scapegoating of people of color in Arizona, is offering the book at a 50% discount to Arizona residents, and will give it for FREE to any Arizona Student who requests the book by sending a letter describing why they think the teaching of Chicano and Native American history accurately to young people is essential. Many Arizona students have already shown their disapproval of the ban, as hundreds walked out of class and marched on the Tuscon Unified School District's headquarters earlier this week.

"500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures" was produced by the Chicano Communications Center in the mid-1970s with the intent of educating young Chicanos about their true history, an education they weren’t receiving in the schools. One of the staff people at the Chicano Communications Center who worked on the book, Joaquín Luján, says the book was an important step towards preserving a culture that was under attack. He had experienced, like many in his generation, the erasing of identity—expressed through language and culture—the minute he walked into the schoolhouse.

“I walked in as Joaquín, and walked out as Jackie,” he says, “which was a very sad day for mi abuelito.”

“There was a need being expressed throughout our communities for a book that accurately represented our history as people of color in the southwest, so that our children had the tools they needed to understand themselves and the world they lived in,” Luján says.

"500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures" and the other books on Tuscon's banned list collectively demonstrate, through their content and their inclusion together, the interrelated nature of the Mexican, Chicano, and Native American communities. The ban is oppressive to all students of color, because it negates their histories, their shared experiences today, and their contributions to their communities. A ban on history and ethnic studies is, in effect, a ban on culture.

More information about "500 Years of Chicano History" is available at chicanohistory.org.

Arizona students who would like a free copy of the book should send their letters to:
SouthWest Organizing Project
211 10th Street SW
Albuquerque, NM 87102

OR

Send an Email to 500yearsofchicanohistory@gmail.com
*The offer of a free book extends to the first 1000 requests from Arizona students. SWOP may print your letter on the Chicanohistory.org website. If you do not wish to have the letter printed, please indicate that in your letter. For more information about receiving the book, call SWOP at: 505-247-8832

-30-

Los Angeles Latino Theater Company Ordered Out of Downtown Home

Article by Ryan Vaillancourt, Staff Writer for LA Downtown News.com. Photo by Gary Leonard

Photo of Jose Luis Valenzuela the executive director of the Latino Theater Company. 

The Los Angeles City Council today voted to evict the Latino Theater Company and the Latino Museum of History, Art and Culture from the city-owned Los Angeles Theater Center.

The move terminates the city's lease with two tenants that have been battling since the Latino Museum sued the Latino Theater Company in 2009. The LTC responded with a countersuit last year.

Much of the discussion that led to the Tuesday decision came in closed session. The approved motion stated that both tenants failed to meet "the reasonable expectations of the City, and therefore the Council has a basis to terminate the lease."

The Latino Museum and the Latino Theater Company won a 20-year lease to operate the former bank headquarters at 514 S. Spring St. during a contentious 2006 bidding competition. The LTC has programmed the building's four theaters, while the museum has staged exhibits in the lobby and basement.

Both tenants were ordered to leave within 45 days. The city attorney's office will launch a new public bidding process to find an operator for the 1917 edifice. The city will most likely look to maintain the site's use as a theater venue, Ninth District Councilwoman Jan Perry said.

"It's most appropriate as a theater and over the past several years having the Latino Theater Company in there saved us an amount of money because we didn't have to do renovation or maintenance," Perry said. "The city did achieve its objective of extricating itself from operational aspects of running a theater."

Jose Luis Valenzuela, artistic director of the LATC, said the company is still weighing its options in terms of how to respond to the eviction.

"When they send us the [eviction] letter, they'll tell us how to comply," he said.

In June 2009, the Latino Museum sued the city and the Latino Theater Company, alleging that it has been denied its rights under the lease. It also charged that it has been erroneously billed, and suffered damages as a result.

The LTC fired back in a countersuit the following March, saying that the museum had pledged to help cover a $4 million renovation of the center, but never paid up. The parties remain in litigation.

The decision comes a week before the LTC planned to announce its 2012 season, which was slated to kick off March 19 with a production by in-house theater company The Vault.

Contact Ryan Vaillancourt at ryan@downtownnews.com.

-30-

Remembering the Chicano arts collectives of Los Angeles' Highland Park

By Esmeralda Bermudez, Los Angeles Times

They were bold enough to call it a revolution.

Back in the 1970s, when Chicano art was synonymous with East Los Angeles, its storied murals and its art center, Self-Help Graphics, a group of Mexican American artists decided to break away.

They headed north, seven miles, to start their own Chicano arts collective in Highland Park, an area that was still mostly white with little presence of Latino art.

"Our mission was to transform Highland Park into a super-revolutionary Chicano town," said artist Richard Duardo. "I drank the Kool-Aid. We all drank the Kool-Aid."

For about four years, the group set up an arts colony on the second floor of an old music building on North Figueroa Street. They printed an art magazine, created murals, paintings and silk-screen posters that became a part of the Chicano art movement — iconic political, social and cultural images.

Their legacy lives on in Highland Park's Avenue 50 Studio, a Chicano art gallery co-founded by Roberto Delgado, an artist involved with the movement.

Ten years ago he had the idea to showcase the story of the Chicano artists in Highland Park, and on Saturday it will finally be told.

Their work will be on display through Feb. 5 in an exhibit called "Resurrected Histories: Voices from the Chicano Arts Collectives of Highland Park." The gallery will also preview a one-hour documentary on the group, put together with grants and in partnership with KCET-TV.

"We felt this was an exciting story to uncover," said Kathy Gallegos, gallery director. "It was like an archaeological dig that let us understand who all was involved and how much they did while they were here."

The exhibit offers a look at all the Chicano art groups that sprouted in California four decades ago and how they were connected. They formed clusters in Fresno, San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles that supported one another at a time when Chicano art had no place in mainstream museums or galleries.

In Highland Park, two collectives came about in the mid-1970s. Both migrated from East L.A. in search of cheaper rent.

Mechicano Art Center, a nonprofit supported by grants to nurture art in the community, set up shop on North Figueroa, in a corner building that's now a produce market. It held exhibits, painted murals around the city and worked with local high school students.

"We were passionate about our work," said artist Sonya Fe. "The kids would come up with ideas, we'd have parties and we'd have fundraisers."

Down the street, in the old music building, Duardo and a handful of Chicano artists rented a 5,000-square-foot space for $300 a month. They called it Centro de Arte Publico, or the Center for Public Art.

Many were in their 20s and 30s, liberal college graduates with art degrees, and motivated by social injustices to express themselves through art.

They played lots of reggae, talked politics and took on a whole series of projects in the city, such as murals, picket signs for students organizing walk-outs, and posters supporting the then-revolutionary Sandinista socialist political party in Nicaragua.

To pay the bills, they did commercial work: signs for grocery stores, theaters and Realtors.

"The idea was to not depend on anyone — not grants or the government," said artist John Valadez. "We wanted to support ourselves with our own art."

Neighbors in the area never knew much about the Center for Public Art. They'd only see paintings and posters displayed on the windows of the building. Once, Carlos Almaraz, the most political of the bunch, hung a bright red flag of communist China and caused a stir on the block.

By 1980, the artists began to go their separate ways and the collective dissolved. Some married, moved away or relocated to downtown L.A., where an art scene was picking up momentum.

Many are now in the 50s and 60s, their work featured in galleries and museums across Los Angeles.

"It's good for people to know what we've done to influence art across L.A. and in the world," Delgado said. "I hope it connects us more."

esmeralda.bermudez@latimes.com

-30-

Daniel del Solar: Latino Media Activist Passes

Daniel at Congressman Honda's Washington D.C. office
June 13, 1940 - January 13, 2012

Daniel del Solar, Latino media activist, documentarian, videographer, photographer, and poet died today in Oakland, California, at the age of 71, after a long, valiant battle with metastatic prostate cancer. 

Daniel was born in Chile and grew up in Mexico, New York, Mill Valley and Santa Monica. After graduating from Santa Monica High he attended Harvard University. Daniel went on to a varied career in public media, from the KPFA-FM Comunicación Aztlán programming collective in the early 1970s to National Director of Training and Development at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in Washington D.C. in the mid-1970s. 

As a leader in innovative multicultural public broadcast programming, he also worked with KQED-TV’s “Open Studio,” served as General Manager of KALW-FM, San Francisco, from 1985–1992, and as General Manager of WYBE-TV, Philadelphia from 1992–1995, with TV programs he produced broadcast by PBS stations in many cities, including Boston, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, and San Francisco. He was on the national board of Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting (CIPB). He also served as Development Director of the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. His lifelong involvement with and contributions to Latino/a equality and culture include his work as co-producer of a weekly KPFA radio magazine, “Reflecciónes de la Raza,” contributions to the current KPFA weekly program “La Raza Chronicles,” and many other radio and video productions. 

With leading Bay Area poets, he was a founding co-editor of Tin Tan (a now legendary San Francisco Chicano/Latino cultural magazine). Many of his photographs have appeared in books, exhibits, and online, and will be featured in an upcoming book about the stepwells of India. He was a co-producer of “Chile: Promise of Freedom,” an audio CD distributed on worldwide radio by the Freedom Archives. He often reported on events in Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, and Venezuela and was active in many Latin American social justice and solidarity movements. 

Daniel comes from a prominent Chilean family that can trace their roots to the original conquistadores of Venezuela and Chile. His father was the editor of a major Santiago, Chile newspaper. His mother Luchita Hurtado currently resides in Santa Monica, California and Taos, New Mexico. Daniel's mother later married noted Austrian and Mexican surrealist painter Wolfgang Paalen and UCLA professor and artist Lee Mullican.

At high school he met his long time friend musician Ry Cooder. Danny explained to me that he introduced Cooder to traditional Cuban Music. Apparently there is a scene in the Buena Vista Social Club movie where he receives a cassette. Danny gave it to him. On one of the later CDs Daniel is mentioned and thanked.

 Jesús Manuel Mena Garza notes: 

I remember Daniel for being a world traveler. He was always off to places I could never afford to visit. Daniel was a fervent supporter of Fidel Castro and Hugo Morales. Though I didn't care much for leaders for life, Daniel was unashamedly a supporter. I met Daniel in the early 1970s at KPFA radio. He was a vocal advocate for public broadcasting and was saddened by the increased commercialization of public media. I am hopeful that his media collection finds a home at a university archive. 

Daniel while on his many journeys always found a place to stay at my home in Southern California. We would talk about politics and technology, edit photos and videos. By the way, many years ago, Daniel and his late wife Susan Miriam Castelan married Annie and I on a cold-wintery morning in San Francisco. We wouldn't have had it any other way. 

-30-