Muralist guest speaker at UT-Pan American highlights cultural understanding
As a teenager California in the 1960s and 1970s, Yreina D. Cervantez found her voice as an artist as the streets of Los Angeles were filled with the voices of activists and protesters from around the world.
"My work is really about the reclamation of identity and transformation," she said. "… reclaiming one's history and understanding one's history and therefore understanding your identity, transforming and transcending."
Now a professor of Chicana and Chicano art at California State University, Northridge, Cervantez's collection of painting, drawings, prints and mural work reflect 30 years of community art and activism. Raised in California, she entered young adulthood during the Chicano Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Movement and the resistance to the Vietnam War.
"I was very young and I [came] into my political conscience at that historical movement, and so it really formed a lot of my experiences," she said. "Through my education I was able to go to the university and be exposed to a lot of different ideas."
While still an undergrad at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Cervantez traveled to Nicaragua to show her support for refugees affected by the country's civil war in the 1980s painted a mural to there with other students and supporters. After graduating, she became active in community art as a teacher and noted mural painter with the grassroots non-profits Self Help Graphics and the Social and Public Art Resources Center, which provide free art classes in East LA and promote mural preservation.
"Most of my life has been dedicated to issues that are related to community and to creating positive change in communities," Cervantez said, mentioning a program in which she taught art to young women and mothers involved in gangs. "That was rewarding because there were women who didn't necessarily have access to opportunities but who were very intelligent, very creative. Sometimes it's just the access to education or opportunity that really creates circumstances."
While Cervantez said that her style and artistic approach have changed over three decades, her work is connected by the common thread of Chicana and Native American spirituality, feminism and the blending of the personal and political. She cites the incorporation of alto historia as an important part of her self-portraiture, a concept coined by Valley writer Gloria Zanzaldua as the practice of Chicana artists including elements that represent their communities into their self-portraits.
"The Chicana and Chicano Movement didn't happen in a vacuum, and neither does Chicana and Chicano art," she said. "It was all a process of being inspired by the Chicano Movement, my education and my experiences that formed my consciousness, and also working in the community with the Latino community and Central America community as well."
Her work "Mujer de Mucha Enagua, Pa' Ti Xicana" showcases Cervantez's use of symbolism, feminism, and indigenous influences. The title translates to "woman with a lot of petty coat," a saying in Mexico that inspired to create the screen-print depicting a Mexican revolutionary woman Zapatista, Mexican poet Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz and cotemporary poet Rosario Castellano.
"I thought that was really beautiful because … we don't really have anything that comparable to, excuse me for being blunt, but you have things like, ‘He's got a lot of balls,'" she explained. "Una mujer de mucha enagua, a woman with a lot of petty coat is comparable to the idea of a person with a lot of strength, a person that is empowered, and I thought that that was a beautiful metaphor, and that piece is dealing with history…"
Cervantez will be on campus to discuss her work as part of FESTIBA in a March 28 lecture in the library. Her "Selected Works in Paper" exhibition will be on display through April 30.
"[It's] an opportunity to have discourse on Chicana and Chicano art and aesthetic because we don't really have that opportunity many times…," she said. "Until things really change significantly for communities of color, particularly Latino and especially immigrant communities, there are always issues to address in the work."
[Click header to go to website. Click photo to enlarge.]
Music, recipes, poetry, art, cinema, theater and history make up the rich cornucopia of Latino culture showcased on www.Latinopia.com a new website set for launch March 19, 2011.
The brainchild of veteran Los Angeles television director and documentary filmmaker Jesús Salvador Treviño, the video-driven website is designed as a one-stop web destination for all things Latino.
“As U.S. Latinos enter the digital age, we need a website that can offer videos about all aspects of our history culture and life,” explains Jesús Treviño, whose television credits include programs like Law and Order-Criminal Intent, The Unit, Criminal Minds and Resurrection Blvd and who shot and edited much of the video footage on Latinopia.com.
“We’re starting with five-minute videos in seven subject areas--interviews, music performances, short films, theater plays and authors reading from their works,” Trevino explains. “We are excited that top Latino writers, artists and musicians from around the U.S. have seen the value of Latinopia.com and are enthusiastically sharing their time, stories and creativity.
A click on Latinopia’s Art section will take the visitor to video profiles of Chicano, Puerto Rican and Cuban American artists, painters and muralists such as Gilbert “Magu” Lujan, Ester Hernández, Frank Romero, Yolanda López, César Martínez, Rupert García, José Montoya, Gronk, Judy Baca, Carmen Lomas Garza, Zarco Guerrero as well as print interviews and special features.
The Literature section features a timeline on the emergence of Chicano, Puerto Rican and Cuban-American literature in the United States in addition to listings of Latino books. Video interviews include such important Latino writers such as Rudolfo Anaya, Pat Mora, Dagoberto Gilb, Judith Ortíz Cofer, Alberto Rios, Denise Chavez and Luis J. Rodríguez. Dramatic re-enactments and additional footage bring their works to life.
The website’s Theater section includes video interviews with Chicano, Puerto Rican and Cuban American playwrights, actors and stage directors and groups like Culture Clash as well as excerpts from plays written performed and directed by Latinos in New York, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco; among them Crystal City 1969, Gaytino, Regeneración, and The Silver Dollar.
Interviews with leading Chicano, Puerto Rican and Cuban musicians are an attraction in the Music section: Los Lobos, Little Joe and La Familia, Flaco Jimenez all discuss their art. There are also performances by such groups as Mitote, Los Pochos, La Santa Cecilia, Olmeca.
In Cinema and Television many of the nation’s leading Latino actresses and actors discuss their work and making their way in Hollywood: Hector Elizondo, Lupe Ontiveros, Jimmy Smits, Edward James Olmos, America Ferrera, Evelina Fernandez and are among those to be featured. Behind the camera talent will also be featured such as writer/producer Dennis Leoni (Resurrection Blvd), Director of Photography Rey Villalobos (Nine to Five, Urban Cowboy) and Director Leon Ichaso (El Cantante).
A visit to the History page will reveal videos of important historical events in Chicano and Latino life along with event timelines, biographies and documents. It includes profiles of important Chicano, Puerto Rican and Cuban American leaders and historical figures such as Jose Marti, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.
Latinopia Food offers Latinopia’s recommendations on the best places in major cities in the United States to eat Mexican and Latino food along with “how-to” videos on making great Mexican food--enchiladas, guacamole, Spanish rice, salsa-- as well as Puerto Rican and Cuban American cuisine.
“We are launching modestly with a few dozen videos,“ Jesús Treviño explains, “but we add new videos each week and will grow the site into more than hundred videos by the end of the first year. Seeing is believing. Check us out at www.Latinopia.com ”
“Once we establish an audience of regular visitors, we plan to expand beyond short videos into original webisodes and longer form dramas geared to the Latino public. The potential is as rich and limitless as is the life and culture of America’s 47 million Latinos.”
[Click this link to get more information about the Chicano Photographer series. Click on image to view a much larger version. Photo and text copyright 2011 Jesús Manuel Mena Garza. All rights reserved.]
Jesús Garza Photography has created a PowerPoint (PPT) presentation based on his Chicano Photographer exhibition. He has made it available at NO COST to schools, universities and nonprofit organizations.
The show includes more than 30 photographs from his exhibition series. The presentation explores the Chicano Movement (El Movimiento Chicano) from 1970 to 1975 and also the migration of Garza’s family from Tejas to Mexico and back to Texas.
To make the presentation more practical, there is accompanying text file in MS Word. Garza is making this presentation available to academics and institutions to help them inform new generations of the important struggles of Chicanas and Chicanos.
Presentation Topics
- Tejano Diaspora - Familia Migration - San José, California - El Barrio - UFW - Marches and Demonstrations - Teatro - Chicana/o Radio - El Centro Cultural
The Chicano Photographer PPT includes brief and useful descriptions in the Presenter Tools view. The "cue cards" in this mode simplify making the presentation. The PPT is customizable. You can easily add comments or delete slides to make it accessible to all levels. The show has been already adapted by academics for use in several schools and colleges.
Garza used the PPT during recent lectures at San José State University, University of Redlands, San Bernardino County Museum and the University of California at Berkeley. The thirty one images that comprise the Chicano Photographer show are also available for exhibition by contacting the artist.
Call (909) 557-7151 or email to request a free PPT today.
El Mac's graffiti art — spray-painted on walls across the globe — sometimes stretches multiple stories high and half a city block long. His larger-than-life portraits are inspired by Mexican and Chicano art, religious iconography, local personalities in the neighborhoods where he paints, and the classical artists he has studied since childhood, such as Vermeer and Caravaggio.
Jesus Garza says, "I have included two excellent artist video interviews on my blog, all courtesy of USA Today. There are more interviews on the USA Today website. Click the article header to go there."
But on Facebook, his massive murals look more like postage stamps. Though the Web allows for slightly larger images, seeing his work online can't compare with the real thing. And without the context of a location, his cultural or political message is sometimes diminished or lost.
For the Los Angeles-born artist, now based in Phoenix, figuring out how to best use social media and other virtual platforms has been a conundrum.
"I think I'm still trying to figure it all out," says El Mac, 30, whose real name is Miles MacGregor. "It's got to be a sign of the future, but it's a devilish sort."
El Mac is like a lot of visual artists wondering how much weight a Web presence carries. Artists — like scores of others in less visual fields — are struggling with how to use the potential of the new media for marketing,networking, selling their wares and, for some, making their solitary workday a little less lonely.
Many artists say they value the beauty of Web surfing and discovering a gem of a painting, the pleasure of meeting other creative souls they might otherwise never have known, and debating critics and bloggers. But they also see the limitations of the virtual world and grapple with how much time to spend online away from their studios.
For many visual artists online, one of the biggest hurdles is that the aesthetic experience is lost on the viewer. A picture online doesn't translate size, as El Mac discovered. The thickness of paint, the way sunlight plays on a surface and changes throughout the day, the texture of a sculpture or woven fabric against your hand — diminished or nil.
Some fields, though, such as photography, are less affected. Photographer Marco Di Lauro says he got on Facebook "about two or three years ago without having a specific aim in mind."
"As I was adding people, I realized that most of the photo editors at magazines and newspapers are on Facebook. I have about 3,900 'friends' now — most involved in the photo industry," says Di Lauro, who's based in Rome and shoots for Getty Images around the world.
While jobs come through his agency, Di Lauro uses Facebook to show his photos and network. For instance, last month he posted a link to a photo that earned him an international award. He says colleagues and friends also use Facebook to send him messages now. "Facebook is becoming like an e-mail service, plus a lot of other things," he says.
And while he uses it mostly professionally, Di Lauro admits to a little non-work surftime. "It's fun to look at the women," he says with a laugh.
Soho painter and photographer Laura Levine says she jumped on Facebook a few years ago to reconnect with musicians she hung out with 20-some years ago. Levine, 52, one of New York's prolific rock 'n' roll photographers in the 1980s, shot for Rolling Stone, among others.
'On and off Facebook all day'
"I think there's something about this age, our midlife, when people start to appreciate the friends they had back then," Levine says. "I'm on and off Facebook all day — it's terrible." She also curates a professional page, where she promotes shows and sells her now-vintage rock photo prints, but she keeps a tight leash on who sees her personal page.
Others are more open to the masses. Collage artist Michael Anderson, whose studio is in Harlem, N.Y., has more than 2,800 Facebook friends. He says social media have been great for networking with other artists, but he's concerned that the whole concept of "artist" is getting watered down.
"The arts community is definitely very expanded because of sites like Facebook. There are so many more artists today than there ever were. There is so much more crap out there, too."
He doesn't believe it's the place to sell. "I don't feel that the people who are my real collectors are really looking for my work on Facebook."
Museums are catching on, though, says Tyler Greene, a Washington art blogger. While some contemporary museums such as The Getty, in Malibu, Calif., and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art "get" the importance of social media, many others aren't there yet. "The days of putting out a press release in the local paper to share what they're doing in the community are long gone," he says.
Much of the Phillips Collection in Washington is online, and the museum is on Twitter. "We want people to visit. But when they can't, our goal is to meet people where they live," says Ann Greer, director of communications and marketing.
A recent National Endowment for the Arts study showed that more than half of Americans participate in the arts via electronic media, says Sunil Iyengar, NEA director of research and analysis. Last fall, NEA published a report based on a 2008 survey of more than 18,000 adults. Last month, it released additional research showing that people aren't just pleasure-viewing art online. They're also using it for educational enrichment and creating art, Iyengar says.
Sheila Pepe, 51, an installation artist and a professor in the School of Art and Design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y., says she finds the cult of personality in the Facebook art world fascinating, and notes that some artists and art critics have so many "friends" that they have to reject new requests because they've hit the 5,000-friend limit.
Seattle art blogger and painter Joey Veltkamp believes virtual-world popularity comes down to how successful a self-promoter you are. "Social media lets you say, 'Hey look at me,' " he says. If you're good at that, you become a Facebook celeb, which he says annoys those who don't have that skill set. Still, he doesn't think anybody's ever going to reach stardom in the art world by being popular on Facebook.
Connecting with a job
But being a good self-promoter helped Elyce Abrams, a painter from Philadelphia with 1,932 Facebook "friends," land a show in New York last year. "One of my friends on Facebook was showing at their gallery, and he had commented on my work and his gallery saw his comment. That's how we connected," she says.
But even while savvy social media use can help an artist's career, those who seem to sit on Facebook and post all day long may not be taken seriously, says painter Amanda Church of New York."I sometimes think 'Get to work' when I see people posting and commenting a lot."
Artists and critics agree that social media sites have expanded opportunities for artists in smaller fields and unified them.
Typeface designer Chris Lozos of Falls Church, Va., says the font design world consists of about 500 professionals, many based in Europe. He uses Facebook and Twitter daily to keep up with colleagues and clients.
"Most of us are one-person shops and can't afford blitz media. This is the poor man's marketing," he says.
Animators like it for the same reasons. "We are like moles sitting in separate holes," says New York animator Signe Baumane, who shares works in progress on Facebook. "I get to see a lot of very fresh movies."
Artists who move far from home, such as Victor Ekpuk, a Nigerian-born painter who has lived in Washington, D.C., for the past 12 years, says his website and Facebook page help keep his Nigerian family, friends and fellow artists up to date on his blossoming career, including a recent sale to the Smithsonian. It also has helped him reach out to young people.
"There's a group of artists I connected with on Facebook called Take Me to the River. We're collaborating with artists from around the world — professional poets and visual artists — to help at-risk youth who are poets and artists," Ekpuk says.
Social media sites also are spurring vibrant conversations about the arts. The recent Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery controversy over the museum's decision to pull a video excerpt of an ant-covered Jesus on a Crucifix generated a heated debate on Facebook and Twitter, Greene says.
Ironically, those same social media sites sometimes censor art. Earlier this year, Facebook pulled down a drawing of a nude female torso — mistaken for a photo — posted on a page by the New York Academy of Arts.
"It happens on YouTube all the time, too. Classic works of video art have been posted that contain nudity and they've been taken down — these are works by well-known artists who are in museum collections, and they end up getting booted," says Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight.
"Social networking sites create the illusion of being public spaces, but they are corporate and they're owned. Any freedom is an illusion," he says.
Though the free-for-all sharing of art on the Web can draw positive attention and unite artists worldwide, it can work against an artist, too, says Paddy Johnson, a popular New York-based art critic and blogger.
An 'interesting' downside
"It raises a lot of interesting questions," she says. "Sometimes an artist will discover a YouTube video of their work — something someone else shot and posted — and it wouldn't have been something they'd wanted up there. ... All of a sudden you have people evaluating work that you didn't want out there."
How artists define themselves online and how they interact with others can be important in terms of future success, says John Sisson, assistant director of Career Services and Alumni Relations at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which offered its first social media course this semester.
"You have to be concerned about how you're presenting yourself — although that's open for debate. But things stick around," he says.
El Mac says he wonders whether he should be spending more time honing his professional image and being available online, but "if I spend a couple days just doing computer stuff, I start to feel bad, depressed.
"I have to be painting," he says. "I'm not going to be a happy person when I'm not creating and making art."
Professor Harry Gamboa Jr.’s said he is often inspired by everyday people in ordinary scenarios for his artwork. Photo Credit: Herber Lovato / Assistant Photo Editor
Professor Harry Gamboa Jr.’s first masterpiece involved a couple cans of spray paint and a wall at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art which served as his canvas.
In 1972, Gamboa and two other members of his art entourage,Asco (Spanish for nauseated), had asked a museum curator at LACMA why Chicano art was nonexistent in the museum and he told them Latinos did not partake in art but rather in gangs.
The art group responded by tagging their names on the right corner of the museum around 4 a.m., making the building itself a work of art produced by Chicanos.
The black and red graffiti had brief physical existence of about seven hours.
“It was a way to play the term he had used,” he said.
The piece, now know as Spray Paint LACMA, is one of many that have contributed to Gamboa’s reputation as an artist and voice for the underdog.
He’s been described as a “pioneer for art in action” by performance artists like Maris Bustamante, while his colleagues describe him as a humble man with an immense influence.
His avant-garde skills have allowed him to touch multiple realms in the world of art. His work, with its political activist notion, has not ceased to deliver messages to the masses.
However, on the CSUN campus, Harry Gamboa Jr., a world-renowned Chicano artist, is known for a different role as teacher.
Although he currently teaches a remedial writing class, Gamboa has taught art, theater, cinema, photography and Chicana/o studies at various UC campuses, as well as the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia and Otis.
He has also lectured at Harvard University, UC Berkley, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Centro Cultural de España, Mexico City and several others.
But long before stepping into his role as a teacher and lecturer, Gamboa pursued his passion for art, activism and people.
The East LA native began his career as an artist in the early 1970s, when he was an editor for several magazines.
The experience from those publications developed his unique eye for design, something that he is known for.
The artist has explored a plethora of artistic platforms, from photography to murals, film and canvas.
Gamboa also tried his hand at writing, producing several poems, books and essays, which have been used as academic course readers, as well. Most of his pieces are politically inclined, translating an idea onto a medium of art.
Human rights and activism have played a major role in Gamboa’s life since the 1960s, when he stood as one of the students who fought for education reform when the Chicano movement was being developed and the “East LA Walkout” occurred.
As part of the movement, Gamboa delivered speeches, spoke with the media regarding the subject, involved other youth and mentored protestors. He was fully involved, hoping to alter an education system that did not favor minorities at the time.
Gamboa said in comparison to the 60s and the education protests today, back then “it was a life or death situation” because it was either being drafted or accepted into school.
“It was imminently to stop the war,” he said.
He also battled the military drafts with protests against the Vietnam War.
“I was very interested and always pointing out the inconsistencies of what was being told to us versus what was real,” Gamboa said.
He added that during the early 1970s, today’s communication technology was absent, therefore many people created “things that were not real.”
Gamboa’s solution was to tell stories through photographs, which became his craft and expression of choice.
“My focus early on (in art) was always about establishing rumors and myths,” he said. “In the end that is kind of what I still do.”
Gamboa went on to say that through his art he enjoys generating interest, creating excitement, presenting new ideas or images that have not been expressed before.
He said he draws inspiration from everyday people in everyday circumstances and transforms the ordinary scenario into an extraordinary work of art. For example, Gamboa said when he steps onto a bus, he documents his journey with writings or photographic scenes from the common people who crowd the seats.
“It’s the idea that I can photograph an individual who had previously been under the affects of negative stereotyping, then bring that image and transform the concept of whom this person represents,” Gamboa said. “Not only does it become art, but it also becomes something included in the (mainstream) dialogue, cancelling out the negative stereotypes.”
His passion for activism and human rights has not wavered over the years. Most recently, the artist has rallied for immigrant rights and education and has drawn artistic inspiration from the causes.
Gamboa’s most recent projects, Aztlangst, a photonovela (graphic novel), is aimed to interpret the story of oppressed groups such as those who are being affected by Arizona’s controversial immigration law.
“(The graphic novel is based on) people who are in hiding, who are operating on a different level of awareness because they are being hunted down,” Gamboa said.
He said that he is also in the process of completing Pix, a collection of his favorite photography work from the 1970s to recent years.
“I found it my calling in life to to minor events and to transform and give them a historic nature even though they might not be worthy of history,” Gamboa said. “(I want) to have fun trying to create change.”
Junior Natalia Baires, 21, psychology, a former student of Gamboa’s, described his impact on her life as both a “privilege and bizarre.”
“(I feel) privileged because he was a good professor and bizarre because he did so much to fight for Chicanos,” Baires said. “It is weird to know that this humble and ordinary looking man did all that plus more.”
Over the span of his 30 year career, his work has attained world-wide attention and has been exhibited in acclaimed museums like the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museo de Arte de Zapopan, Guadalajara, Mexico, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Smithsonian Institution and the list goes on.
Dr. Denisse Sandoval, CSUN Chicana/o studies instructor, has known Gamboa for about 16 years and has been included in his art troupe since 2004. She also participated in photo shoots for Aztlagnst and other projects.
Sandoval said Gamboa’s gift is his unique view of the world.
“When you see that little tinkle in his eye, that’s little trouble maker in his life,” she said. “And that is what makes him a fabulous artist.”
Theater arts program reaches 10-year anniversary; comes full circle to where the program first began.
By Gloria Angelina Castillo, EGP Staff Writer
Eighteen year-old Diana Ortega wasn’t even born when high school students spilled out into the streets of East Los Angeles to demand quality education at the height of the Chicano Movement and the history-making 1968 “Walk Outs.”
But last week she was one of several local high school students who took to the stage for the reading of three short plays focused on the lives of three of the movements’ activists.
Professional actors interpreted the majority of the play’s roles, but students also performed and told the audience about their experiences in the program. EGP photo by Valerie Mia Juarez
Students at Monterey High School, a continuation school in East Los Angeles, wrote the plays during a semester-long playwriting class. Seven students, handpicked by their principal, wrote “2011 Meets 1968,” a series of one-act plays based on interviews with participants in the 1968 Walk Outs. For many of them, the experience was eye-opening if not cathartic.
“I didn’t think I was going to get anything out of this. I though it would be like talking to old people about things I didn’t care about, but the truth is I don’t want this to end,” Ortega told the audience at Plaza de la Raza’s Margo Albert Theater on March 3.
The young playwrights were assigned to interview journalist Luis Torres, artist Ofelia Esparza and educator Paula Crisostomo —three individuals whose lives were transformed as they fought discrimination and for parity in education for East Los Angeles students.
The “Through the Ages” class is a dialogue between different generations but it is also a literacy program. “The goal is to make them better readers, writers, communicators and collaborators, while engaging them in their own history,” Theresa Chavez, artistic director of “About Productions” told EGP. The “Through The Ages” class is part of About Productions’ Young Theaterworks program.
Chavez notes that the program has only been executed at continuation high schools where the students are struggling in some fashion. The schools’ schedule lends itself perfectly to the program while helping students who need it the most, and have little access to art.
“It engages them, keeps them in school, it increases their reenrollment, the days they are in school. And because it’s their storytelling… They feel connected to it, they feel engaged, and committed to it,” she said. “It’s a transformation in terms of their own academic work but also in terms of their voicing, both literally and figuratively.”
Eneida Ortega, 16, agrees that the class takes commitment. She said students had to meet writing deadlines “so that our mentors could check it and revise it.”
Nineteen-year-old Oscar Lechuga said students did not want to miss the class because “we only get to see each other twice a week for four hours,” and missing meant they were letting down their team.
“2011 Meets 1968” was inspired by their previous play, “By the Hand of the Father,” which explored the writers’ personal histories, according Chavez.
“We asked the students to go back to their own families or whoever they might be who could tell them where they came from, what their history might be, how they came to the states or how they specifically got to L.A.,” Chavez told EGP.
The theater company’s next project “Evangeline, The Queen of Make-Believe,” also relates to “2011 Meets 1968.”
“Each [high school] session is slightly different, it just depends partially on what we are working on professionally because we like to make a bridge between what we are doing content wise and what they are going to explore. So that when they come to the theater to see our work that we are doing, there’s even a deeper connection and we can engage them in that work as well,” Chavez said.
Students said that writing about the activists really affected them.
“Ofelia [Esparza] has inspired me to never give up and be proud of who I am because that’s what is important in life,” sixteen-year-old Melissa Sanchez told the audience.
The short play “About…Ofelia Esparza” recounts the artist’s experience with discrimination in the years leading up to the walk outs, which she participated in with her children.
“I’m 77 and I have had a good life. At times it has been hard being a Chicana. Some times you have to speak out and you have to stand your ground to be who you are,” the students wrote.
Click on this photo to view the videos.
Sanchez, Lechuga and Ortega wrote “About..Paula Crisostomo,” an honor student who helped organize the 1968 Walk Outs.
“What are you worried about Paula? The only pi you should be worried about is the pie you’re going to cook…You’re not going to graduate, you’ll be pregnant by summer,” the students wrote that Crisostomo’s geometry teacher told her.
“I expected to have a boring conversation I didn’t expect her story to be so interesting, she had many challenges that shows how much of a strong person she is,” Sanchez said.
“The truth is she is one of my role models because she really helped la Raza and just looking into her eyes I could tell that she has experienced what I have in my life,” added Lechuga.
It was a new experience for the students to have their work displayed publicly.
“We do our assignment and no one ever notices us except the teacher,” Ortega told EGP. “It’s a great experience to go through something I would never have courage to do on our own.”
Virginia Garcia, 16, described the entire experience as simply “inspiring.”
Learning about the past is empowering because “that’s the only way to know where to go from there,” Esparza said, noting that it was a little strange to see her character portrayed.
“Where we are today is great, but there’s more to do” she said, noting that many of the original walk out participants went on to become doctors and lawyers, and “they’re the main part of change.”
The “desprecio” (disdain) and discrimination of Mexican-American and Latinos continues to happen but “…you need to be strong to know what your history and respect your own background, not be ashamed,” Esparza said.
Journalist Luis Torres, a writer for his school newspaper at the time of the walk outs said the 1960s was an exciting but turbulent time for his generation.
“It was very moving for me to see these students translate those experiences into a different context for a contemporary audience. I enjoyed talking to them; enjoyed meeting them… appreciated the spark in their eyes,” Torres told EGP.
The students confessed that they didn’t know anything about the walk outs before they began the class—they hadn’t even watched the 2006 film Walkout, directed by Edward James Olmos. Their own parents are immigrants, so they did not have first-hand experience with the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles. However, some of them did have experience protesting in pro-immigration reform marches in recent years and say the “Through the Ages” program has helped them feel more confident and capable.
While the program had its first run at Monterey in 2001, the program travels to different schools, said Rose Portillo, program director of “Through the Ages” Young Theaterworks.
“2011 Meets 1968” was written by Eneida Ortega, Benjamin Villareal, Virginia Garcia, Jorge Leal, Oscar Lechuga, Diana Ortega, and Michelle Sanchez; under the guidance of mentors Marco Rodriguez, Tomás Benítez and Daniel Chacón; the scripts were performed by Marissa Herrera, Xavi Moreno, Roberto Alcaraz, Laurel Ollestein, Daniel Chacón, Tomás Benítez and Rose Portillo.
Through the Ages” is a non-profit program that is currently funded by the California Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. ‘About…Productions’ is supported in part by the California Community Foundation, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles County Commission, The Pasadena Cultural Affairs Department, and private donations.
Still undecided if you want to attend? Let's help convience you. We have one of our most packed conferences ever! Here is just a very, very small sampling of panels scheduled/events happening at the conference.
Wednesday Night
Welcome Reception
Thursday
NACCS Plenary: Sites of Education for Social Justice
Daniel Solorzano, UCLA. "Critical Race Theory and the Role of Education in the Struggle for Social Justice." Jorge Huerta, NACCS Scholar 1997. "Teatro Chicana/o: Performing Social Justice Beyond the Classroom." Rhonda Rios Kravitz, Sacramento City College. "Removing the Veil: Maintaining 'Open Access' for the Privileged."
Panel: The State of Exception and the Right of Resistance
Tezozomoc. South Central Farmers Feeding Families. “States of Exception and the Limits of Identity Politics.”
Peña, Devon. University of Washington. “The Strategy of Refusal and the State of Exception.”
Gonzalez, Rosalee. Arizona State University. “Militant Women and Resistance to the State of Exception.”
Discussant: Diaz, David R. California State University, Los Angeles
Panel: Chicana Art as Site of Critical Education
López, Tiffany Ana. University of California, Riverside. “Chicana Art as Public Pedagogy: Motherhood and the Curriculum of Defiance in the Work of Barbara Carrasco.”
Leimer, Ann Marie. University of Redlands. “Quilting Knowledge, Weaving Justice: Sites of Struggle and Survival in the Work of Consuelo Jiménez Underwood.”
Davalos, Karen Mary. Loyola Marymount University. “Art as Education for Social Justice: The Indigenous Spirituality of Linda Vallejo.”
NACCS Scholar: Norma Alarcon, University of California, Berkeley.
Cervantes Recipients:
Israel Pastrana. University of California, San Diego. Graduate.
Arnold Farias. California State University, Northridge. Undergraduate.
Book Award: Richard T. Rodriguez. Next of Kin: the family in Chicano/a cultural politics. Duke University Press, 2009.
Panel: Performing the Latin@ Borderlands: Towards a Decolonial Performatics.
Pérez, Daniel Enrique. University of Nevada, Reno-Spanish/Latina Studies. “(Re)Examining the Latin Lover: Screening Chicano/Latino Sexualities.”
Sandoval, Chela. University of California, Santa Barbara. “Towards a Decolonial Performatics.”
Garcia, Peter J. California State University, Northridge. “Te Amo, Te Amo, Te Amo”: Lorenzo Antonio and Sparx Performing Nuevo Mexico music.”
Aldama, Arturo J. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder. “No Somos Criminales: Border Musics talk back to Nativist Racism and Sexism.”
Panel: The Classroom and Community as Sites for Social Justice
Calderon, Jose. Pitzer College. "Building the Future as It Emerges in the Classroom and in the Community.”
Sanbrano, Angela. Pomona Habla and Latina/o Roundtable of the San Ga. "Pushing Back Immigration Enforcement on a Local Level.”
Cadena, Gilbert. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. "University Service Learning for Social Justice.”
Roundtable: Tejan@ Rocks!: Examining Cultural Sites of Social and Political Praxis
Miranda, Marie “Keta”. University of Texas, San Antonio.
Habell-Pallan, Michelle. University of Washington, Seattle.
Cervantes, Marco. University of Texas, San Antonio.
Urquijo-Ruiz, Rita. Trinity University.
Cardenas, Jaime. Seattle Central Community College.
Panel: The Arts as Sites of Education for Social Justice
Carlos Manuel, Bellarmine University. "Theatre for Social Change and Awareness: Funny About Serious Matters."
Alma Lopez, Independent Artist. "Controversial Art."
Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano, Poet. "Tragedies, Codices & Joterías: Poetic Artifacts at the Junctures of Desire, Survival and Envisagement."
Film: Danza Folklorica Escénica: El Sello Artístico de Rafael Zamarripa(Mexican Folkloric Dance: Rafael Zamarripa's Artistic Trademark). 50 min.
Presenter: Olga Najera-Ramirez, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Saturday
Panel: Marching Students: Chicana/o Activism in Education, 1968 to the Present
Revilla, Anita. University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “Las Vegas Activist Crew and the Im/migrant Rights Movement: How We Collaboratively Transformed 'Sin City'."
Berta Avila, Margarita. Sacramento State University. “Educational Justice and Access: Conversations from Chicana/o Teachers Teaching in La Academia del Barrio Telpochcalli.”
Solorzano, Daniel. UCLA. “Racism, White Supremacy, and Racial Hierarchies: A Case Study of African American and Latina/o High School Student Activism.”
Covarrubias, Alejandro. UCLA. “Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) and Agencies of Transformational Resistance.”
Lopez Figueroa, Julie. Sacramento State University. “Marching Students: Chicana/o Activism in Education, 1968 to the Present.”
Panel/Discussion: U.S. Birthright Citizenship & Arizona's SB1070 and other Anit-Immigrant 'Copy Cat' State Laws
Thomas A. Saenz, President and General Counsel of MALDEF
Eva Longoria, activist and MALDEF Board Member
Panel: Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell: scholar, intellectual, mentor, activist and friend
Gradilla, Alexandro Jose. California State University, Fullerton. “Towards a critical cultural competency and bioethics:
Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell' social justice perspective on health politics.”
Facio, Elisa. CU Boulder. “Honoring Dr. Adaljiza Sosa Riddell: “Naci para ser Rebelde
Davalos, Karen Mary. Loyola Marymount University. “Publishing as Transformative Education: the legacy of Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell.”
Casillas, Dolores Ines. UC Santa Barbara.
Roundtable:Battle of the Virgins: A Presentation of the Book, OUR LADY OF CONTROVERSY: ALMA LOPEZ'S “IRREVERENT APPARITION” (featuring Knockout Performers Monica Palacios as la Virgen de Guadalupe and Adelina Anthony as Our Lady of Controversy)
Gaspar de Alba, Alicia. UCLA. “Announcing Our Knockout Performance...”
Gonzalez, Deena. ACE Fellow/University of California at Irvine. “Making Privates Public: It's not about the Virgen of the Conquest, it's about the Conquest of the Virgen.”
Perez, Emma. University of Colorado, Boulder. “The De-Colonial Virgin in a Colonial Site.”
Roman-Odio, Clara. Kenyon College. “Queering the Sacred: Love as Oppositional Consciousness in Alma Lopez's Visual Art.”
