Asco: A Hollywood Love Affair

By Jesús Manuel Mena Garza

[Click photo to enlarge. Click header to go to LACMA website.]

Asco, four Chicana/o artists from Los Angeles have been described as radical performance artists. Today, they are touted as revolutionary conceptual artists and their popularity is at a fever pitch.

An exhibition titled "Asco: Elite of the Obscure, a Retrospective, 1972-1987" opens to the public on Sept. 4 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Southern California Chicana/o glitterati are sure to be in attendance at the "super grande" opening on August 31.

Like all things local, Los Angelinos adore "Los Four." Along with the upcoming exhibition they are being feted as heroes by regional academia. From outsiders tagging museum walls in 1972 to being placed on a pedestal inside the museum in 2011, it has been a forty year journey for artists Harry Gamboa Jr., Willie Herrón, Patssi Valdez and Gronk.

The question I ask today is why a group like Asco flourished in Los Angeles and not in Northern California? Artists in the Bay Area painted incredible murals, posters and works on canvas but only in Southern California did Chicanos and Chicanas combine theater and art into performance art in the early seventies.

I remember there being a distinct separation in the Bay Area of those who were on stage and those who painted, printed or photographed. To combine the two genres required a force of personality or in the case of Los Four, the effect of Hollywood.

I have noticed that Hollywood holds a certain power over Southern Californians. Many here achingly desire to be part of the performance culture. Asco was “cast” by this phenomenon. It was an insular trend, not replicated outside of Tinsel Town, and not valued as much too.

The South is proud of their homegrown products. When I travel to other parts of the country, Chicanos and Chicanas also venerate their artists. Be it San Antonio, Albuquerque or Denver, they all have a parochial attitude toward their creative class.

Growing up in the Bay Area I too developed an intense sense of place. As a point of pride, I can proclaim that no artist from the South presented works on paper as politically intuitive and compelling as Northerner, Malaquias Montoya. No SoCal Chicano muralist created finer works than those on San Francisco walls. José Antonio Burciaga exalted the jalapeño to new heights in his poetry and made us proud of our spicy culture. Yes, there is culture up north... too.

Theater groups were manifest in the Bay Area. In fact, Northern California is the home of Chicano Theater and Teatro Campesino. Some of those weaned by Bay Area theater moved and infused Southern California teatro, making it more professional and relevant to the Chicano cause.

Lowriding may have been popular on Whittier Boulevard but it took three San José State Students; Sonny Madrid, Antonio Perales and Larry Gonzalez to quantify it. They explored the nuances of our car culture and delivered it to the world in Lowrider Magazine. That distinct manifestation has even found a home in Japan.

In the end, each community has their heroes. Today, LA has Asco. These four artists had the guts to get in front of the camera and perform. They are unique to the City of Angels and part of the early 70s Chicano avant-garde.

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Tucson MEChA comes under scrutiny

Back in the early seventies while a student at San Jose State University, I was a member of MEChA. Today, this proud organization has come under attack. I found the article below written by Loretta Hunnicut of the Tuscon Citizen as yet another example of xenophobia coming out of Arizona.

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TUSD’s schools have MEChA chapters and not even the district’s Superintendent knows if they are sanctioned by the district. If you don’t know what MEChA is, you are among hundreds of thousands of Tucsonans, including this author, who didn’t know and didn’t care.

The group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán came under scrutiny as a result of the Tucson Unified School District’s appeal of the finding by Superintendent of Public Instruction (SOPI) that TUSD’s Mexican American Studies classes violate state law. In violation of state law, the classes are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment towards a race or class of people, and advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

Not until the district’s superintendent testified at the hearing as to an email he received from Assistant Superintendent Dr. Lupita Cavazos-Garcia was much attention paid to the TUSD group in and out of the district. In the email, Dr. Garcia expressed her concerns regarding MEChA’s efforts to recruit students for an “occupied peoples” conference at which Palestinian and TUSD students would be sharing their experiences living in “occupied” territories.

Dr. Garcia wrote that at the time of Pedicone’s hiring she had expressed to him, “my deep concern” about MEChA at TUSD. She pointed out the organization’s “anti-Semitic tone and tenor on our campuses.” She went on to state that the some of the district’s students have little emotional support and “our Raza students are ripe for this kind of influence.” MEChA was originally founded for college students and is found on many college campuses, however it is only found in four high schools in the country; two in Arizona, one in New Mexico, and one in California.

Concerns arose about the conference in the district when word went out that Homeland Security would be in attendance. Some of the more responsible adults in the district questioned the wisdom of allowing TUSD students to be put in a situation in which they might innocently come under scrutiny, suspicion, or harm.

In the past MEChA has been linked to the anti-Semitic website/publication, La Voz de Aztlan which the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group. According to Dr. Rudolpho Acuna, who is the subject of interviews with principles of La Voz de Aztlan and author of Occupied America, he has disavowed any connections to that group. There is some evidence that MEChA has also disavowed that organization, however others very familiar with the organization claim that La Voz de Aztlan is a conduit for information for MEChA members.

Local Raza propagandist the Three Sonorans, otherwise known as David Abie Morales, writes that some of Tucson most prominent leaders were formerly members of MEChA. He list among them controversial Congressman Raul Grijalva, who was instrumental in the Mexican American/Raza Studies class development when he was on the TUSD Governing Board. His daughter is Adelita Grijalva, who currently sits on the TUSD Governing Board. City Council member Regina Romero, who finds herself in a very close primary this year against local Tucson businessman and anti-Grijalva establishment democrat Jose Flores, and her highly controversial husband Ruben Reyes, who is a staff member of the elder Grijalva’s congressional staff, among others. It is unknown whether vocal supporter, County Supervisor Richard Elias was ever a member of MEChA, due to the fact that the private schools he attended as a young student did not offer MEChA on their campuses.

So, who is MEChA? In their own words, from their website…..

“Essentially, we are a Chicana and Chicano student movement directly linked to Aztlán. As Chicanas and Chicanos of Aztlán, we are a nationalist movement of Indigenous Gente that lay claim to the land that is ours by birthright. As a nationalist movement we seek to free our people from the exploitation of an oppressive society that occupies our land. Thus, the principle of nationalism serves to preserve the cultural traditions of La Familia de La Raza and promotes our identity as a Chicana/Chicano Gente.”

“In March of 1969, at Denver, Colorado the Crusade for Justice organized the first National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference that drafted the basic premises for the Chicana/Chicano Movement in El Plan de Aztlán.”

“The following month, in April of 1969, over 100 Chicanas/Chicanos came together at University of California, Santa Barbara to formulate a plan for higher education: El Plan de Santa Barbara. With this document they were successful in the development of two very important contributions to the Chicano Movement: Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) and Chicano Studies.”

“The adoption of the name Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan signaled a new level of political consciousness among student activists. It was the final stage in the transformation of what had been loosely organized, local student groups, into a single structure and a unified student movement.”

“Adamant rejection of the label “Mexican-American” meant rejection of the assimilation and accommodationist melting pot ideology that had guided earlier generations of activists. Chicanismo involves a crucial distinction in a political consciousness between a Mexican-American (Hispanic) and a Chicana/o mentality. El Plan de Santa Barbara speaks to such issues of identity politics by asserting:

“The Mexican-American (Hispanic) is a person who lacks respect for his/her cultural and ethnic heritage. Unsure of her/himself, she/he seeks assimilation as a way out of her/his “degraded” social status. Consequently, she/he remains politically ineffective. In contrast, Chicanismo reflects self-respect and pride on one’s ethnic and cultural background. Thus, the Chicana/o acts with confidence and with a range of alternatives in the political world. She/he is capable of developing an effective ideology through action” (El Plan de Santa Barbara).

“MEChA played an important role in the creation and implementation of Chicana/o Studies and support services programs on campus. Chicana/o Studies programs would be a relevant alternative to established curricula. Most important, the Chicana/o Studies program would be the foundation of MEChA’s political power base. Today many Chicana/os Studies Programs would have difficulty operating if it were not for the enthusiasm and dedication of Mechistas to Chicana/o Studies.”

“We, as Mechistas, see the process of Chicanismo as evolutionary. We recognize that no one is born politically Chicana or Chicano. Chicanismo results from a decision based on a political consciousness for our Raza, to dedicate oneself to building a Chicana/Chicano Nation. Chicanismo is a concept that integrates self-awareness with cultural identity, a necessary step in developing political consciousness. Therefore the term Chicano is grounded in a philosophy, not a nationality. Chicanismo does not exclude anyone, rather it includes those who acknowledge and work toward the betterment of La Raza.”

“Chicanismo involves a personal decision to reject assimilation and work towards the preservation of our cultural heritage. Recognizing that all people are potential Chicanas and Chicanos, we encourage those interested in developing a total commitment to our movement for self-determination for the people of Aztlán to join Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán.”

“Finally, as Mechistas, we vow to work for the liberation of Aztlán, leading to socioeconomic and political justice for our Gente. MEChA then, is more than a name; it is a spirit of unity by comadrismo/carnalismo, and a resolution to undertake a struggle for liberation! Tierra y Libertad!”

MEChA chapters are at Tucson High School and Pueblo High School. The following is a list of chapters:

Alta Califas Norte

California State University, Chico
California State University, Sacramento
California State University, Sonoma
Chabot College
San Jose State University
Santa Rosa Junior College
Stanford University
University of California, Berkeley

Alta Califas Sur

California Polytechnic University, Pomona
California State University, Fullerton
California State Univeristy, Los Angeles
California State University, Northridge
California State University, San Marcos
Central de Los Angeles County
Central de San Diego
Cerritos College
Chapman University
Cypress College
La Jolla High School
Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC)
Pasadena City College
Rio Hondo College
San Diego State University
Santa Ana College
University of California, Irvine
University of Southern California
Sur Calpulli Montañas de Norte

Colorado College
University of Colorado, Boulder
University of Colorado, Denver
Centro Aztlan

Arizona State University
Central Arizona College
Northern Arizona University
Pueblo High School
Rio Grande High School
Tucson High School
University of Arizona
University of New Mexico
University of Texas, El Paso
Centro Califas

Bakersfield College
California State University, Hayward
California State University, Monterey Bay
Modesto Junior College
Sequoia College
University of California, Santa Barbara
West Hills College, Kings County
Este

Brown University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Georgetown University
Pennsylvania State University
University of Pennsylvania
Vassar College
Yale University
Massachusetts Institue of Technology (LUChA)
Mitlampa Cihuatlampa

Eastern Washington University
Seattle University
University of Washington
MidWest

St. Cloud State University
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
University of Illinois, Chicago (MeSA)
Pacific NorthWest

Oregon State University
Pasco High School
Portland University
University of Oregon
Western Oregon University
SouthEast Tejaztlan

University of Texas, Austin
University of Houston
University of Texas, Pan American

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Artist collective, host art show in Imperial Valley

[Image: "Love is War" by Richard Jasso is one of the 52 pieces that will be on display at the Borderline Disorder art show. Click to enlarge.]

Article courtesy of Chelcey Adami of the Imperial Valley Press

Three artists from California's Imperial Valley have joined in an effort to bring more art to the Southern California area through the Imperial Valley Artist Collective.

The group was organized this summer and will have the grand opening of the group show, titled Borderline Disorder, tonight.

It will be from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Imperial Valley College Art Gallery and will remain on display until Sept. 9.

The exhibit features 52 art pieces by 52 artists from all over the world and includes video, photo, paintings and drawings.

Artists showing include Imperial Valley College art professors Tom Gilbertson and Carol Hagerty as well as Chicano artist Daniel Marquez.

Elizabeth M. Lopez of El Centro, along with Minerva Torres-Guzman and Alfredo Guzman, both of Holtville, went to Imperial Valley College together and then graduated from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles in 2007.

When they returned to the Valley after graduation, they felt that most art activities were occurring in Mexicali. The three decided to start the collective to encourage artist collaboration and make art more accessible to the community, Torres-Guzman said.

E-mail: imperialvalleyartistcollective@gmail.com or visit the group’s Facebook page for more information.

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Stuart Ashman appointed head of Museum of Latin American Art

The Museum of Latin American Art of Long Beach, CA said that it has appointed Stuart Ashman as its new president and chief executive officer. His tenure is set to begin on Sept. 6.

Ashman assumes the museum's top post following the abrupt departure of Richard P. Townsend in January. Townsend had served as president of the museum for a little less than two years before announcing his resignation. Prior to Townsend, the position had been vacant for more than a year.

The museum received an endowment of $25 million in 2009 from the estate of its late founder, Dr. Robert Gumbiner.

Ashman has served as director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of New Mexico. He was also founding director of the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art in Santa Fe. Ashman served as cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs for more than seven years.

In the past year, Ashman served as an advisor for the U.S. Peace Corps, working on arts-related programs in a number of Latin American countries.

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Asco Returns Triumphant to LACMA

Max Benavidez, Huffington Post [Click header to go to original story]

When "Asco: Elite of the Obscure" opens Sept. 4 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), we will witness the closing of a 40-year-old cultural loop. During the exhibition, a famous Asco (pronounced "oss-ko") image will be seen all around L.A., as Bank of America, one of the show's sponsors, will utilize one of the art group's most compelling works, the 1974 "Instant Mural," on its ATM screens. This is an interesting juxtaposition and demonstrates how the mainstream has caught up with the Asco sensibility of simulated appropriation and hip transgression and also how commerce, art and the burgeoning Latino market are intersecting in new and innovative ways.

The LACMA show, which is part of the huge Getty-sponsored Pacific Standard Time (PST) series of exhibitions, is a great opportunity to formally applaud the genius of Harry Gamboa, Jr., Gronk, Pattsi Valdez and Willie Herrón, III, the founding members of Asco, for their groundbreaking body of work. "Asco" means "disgust" or "revulsion" in Spanish, and they called themselves that because their work evoked nausea in so many people. (The show's title, "Elite of the Obscure," came from Gamboa, who also coined other memorable terms, such as "urban exiles," "phantom culture" and "orphans of modernism" to refer to Asco and metropolitan Chicanos in general.)

What makes "Instant Mural" so potent is that it verges on being a photorealistic painting, but it's not. It was a spontaneously staged street event with a timeless cinematic quality that commented on the proliferation and content of Chicano murals, as well as the closed-off art world. Gronk, in a flowing, burgundy coat, is taping a dramatically posed Valdez in red bolero jacket, blue-jean shorts and black velvet high heels to a creamy, orange wall and doing it as quickly as possible, as if their lives depended on the speed of the act. It gives the image an ephemeral quality that illustrates how Asco mixed street art with performance art to create a new, expressive hybrid form of high and low: postmodern punk art. As Gronk said said about the piece, "I think one of the important things about our activities was the idea that we didn't ask for permission to do any of the work."

Aesthetic spontaneity and a cool desperado posture: that's the essence of Asco's work and its legacy. And, now, in a remarkable twist of fate, its work will be viewed on the ATM screens of one of the world's largest financial institutions.

It all began 40 years ago, deep in an East L.A. barrio, where four teenagers sitting around in a garage formed Asco. While it sounds like something out of Silicon Valley lore, it actually parallels other art movements, such as surrealism and Dada, that started in times of desperation and disillusionment. It was a time of war (Vietnam), and much of East L.A. was nearly in a state of police occupation.

The members of Asco were bored by the same old same old art they saw all around them, so they set out to execute their own unique artistic vision. They made "No Movies," which really aren't movies at all, and took the idea of the protest mural to its logical conclusion with the "Instant Mural" and the "Walking Mural." They also created daring street performances that recoded and satirized mainstream and Chicano cultures, as in "First Supper (After a Major Riot)." In the process they made history.

For the first time in American art history, a Chicano art group was working at the edge of art's boundaries, creating new paradigms, and turning both modern art and Chicano art inside out. Interestingly, and this is what makes the return trip to LACMA a historical event, Asco was working in a critical void and was virtually ignored by the mainstream art world that heralded so many other national and international artists who were working in similar veins. This was a classic case of Freud's "distortion of a text." The text, in this case, is the record of American art, and Asco and the meaning of its work was suppressed and annulled, partly through denial and partly through simple neglect and ignorance. In many ways, this circling back to LACMA is a triumph for the collective.

Beyond the kudos and acknowledgment, we also have to keep in mind that history's nightmare not only repeats itself but, as Voltaire said, "history consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions," and this show is a 21st-century imaginative invention. The truth is that the art world, like Asco, is tired of the same old same old.

The Asco circle of disruption closes quite neatly since their most famous intervention occurred in 1972 at LACMA, almost 40 years ago.

Here's what happened. They went to the big, public-funded museum, LACMA, to see if they could show a curator their art. The curator said something like this: "No, you people aren't fine artists, you're gang bangers and folk artists."

That enraged Asco so much that they sought an appropriate response, and very early one morning, they spray-painted their names on the museum and took a picture. If they were thought of as taggers, then there was no reason not to brand the whole museum as their work of art. They called it "Spray Paint LACMA." It was the most audacious piece of conceptual art ever affiliated with LACMA. It also established Asco as a truly avant-garde, conceptual art group, along the lines of other legendary collectives like Fluxus, Archigram, Guerrilla Girls and others.

During its heyday, which ran from about 1971 to 1987, Asco was a truly underground phenomenon, and the group displayed a rare sensibility. They were constantly innovating in a media vacuum on the streets of East L.A. At the same time, they also reworked contemporary urban identities for young Latinos, and, above all, they documented everything.

One of Asco's most subversive interventions was the "No Movie." These were images that the group circulated by mail in a series of satirical press kits and production stills. Hollywood barely acknowledged Chicanos and other Latinos during the height of Asco's creativity. To Asco's credit, it did something about it. It commented on this big-screen invisibility through the "No Movie" concept.

The "No Movies" imagery was enigmatic and alluring. Asco also created evocative titles, such as "A La Mode" and "No Tip," that referred to nonexistent films while constructing themselves as film stars in the process. The "No Movie" photos simultaneously denied and affirmed the viability of an alternative cinema, and in their surrealistic, often campy theatricality, they reclaimed a violent and alienating urban environment as the stage for subversive glamour. By producing "No Movies," Asco essentially countered the Hollywood film industry's negation of Latinos by emotionally compressing rage, distress and scathing commentary (that still rings true) into their imagery.

So, take a trip to LACMA and catch the work of these now-classic provocateurs, because, as the Walrus in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" said, "the time has come, my friends..." for Asco.

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Friends Gather in Pomona to Celebrate Chicano Artist Gilbert "Magu" Lujan

[Click here to see more photos of Magu at 462 Dave's Blog. Click image to enlarge.]

David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Gilbert Lujan was his name, but he went by his nickname, Magu, acquired in childhood because he always squinted to look at anything, just like the nearsighted cartoon character Mr. Magoo.

Magu was a pioneering Chicano muralist, sculptor and painter who spent a decade in the Pomona Arts Colony. He died of cancer July 24 at age 70.

If he'd been in downtown Pomona on Saturday, he wouldn't have had to peer too intently to see how many people cared about him.

A retrospective show at the dA Center for the Arts had a steady stream of visitors from its mid-afternoon opening into the evening.

Parked outside the 252 S. Main St. storefront was a 1950 Chevy customized by Magu that drew admirers. Inside were dozens of paintings, prints and sculptures, not to mention an art-covered refrigerator.

Friends greeted each other. People lined up for watermelon, chips, salsa and pan dulce prepared by Magu's ex-wife, Mardi. Some sat for video interviews to share memories of Magu.

"It's a big reunion. Family and friends," said Oto o Lujan, one of Magu's sons, who took me out to the sidewalk to talk to escape the heat of the crowded gallery.

He called the gathering "a huge extended family" of people his father had known.

In that extended family, I might have qualified as a third cousin twice-removed. Naiche Lujan, another son, remembered me, and vice versa.

In 2004, I had visited Magu and Naiche in the loft they shared in downtown Pomona.

The space, on West Second Street at Parcels Street, was a former machine shop with a rollup door. Not exactly deluxe accommodations, but well-suited for an artist.

It was crowded with beatup furniture and an upright piano. A 1954 Chevy pickup was parked inside too. Finished and in-process paintings were everywhere.

Magu had moved east circa 1999, lured by Pomona art collector Frank Garcia, who touted the nascent community of artists (and no doubt the cheap rent).

"People ask why I live in Pomona. I say: `Parking,"' Magu told me jokingly that day.

Magu was not an artist of means, despite his reputation. He had co-founded the art collective Los Four, which had curated a groundbreaking exhibit of Chicano art at the starchy L.A. County Museum of Art in 1974.

In 1990, Magu was chosen to design the Hollywood and Vine subway station.

"The moment he was asked to do it, because Hollywood and Vine is such a crossroads, he knew he had to do something special," Naiche told me Saturday.

Magu worked with the architect to incorporate such touches as movie reels in the ceiling, support pillars styled as palm trees, a theater-style marquee on the exterior and hand-painted wall tiles.

Benches resemble lowrider cars, a Magu passion, and the floor sports a path of yellow tiles to street level. "The Wizard of Oz" was one of Magu's favorite movies.

The exhibit at the dA includes photos of the subway station under construction and some of Magu's designs for it.

"It was the biggest project he ever did," Naiche said.

Despite all that, by 2004, when I met him, Magu had given up half of his 3,000-square-foot space to economize.

Still, his arrival, and presence, helped the Arts Colony gain traction.

"He was the first big-name artist who lived down here, someone who was known nationally," said George Cuttress, who had an influential gallery next to the dA and hosted weekly potlucks for artists.

Magu liked a free flow of conversation with fellow artists on art and politics, calling the sessions "Mental Menudo."

He had a master's in fine arts degree and was a real intellectual, Cuttress said. But his art wasn't highbrow.

He employed cartoons, TV icons, altars, cars, cacti, burritos, peppers, Aztecs, feathered headdresses, pyramids and coyotes as motifs in a folk-art style with bright colors.

He called the world of his imagination "Magulandia," its landscapes, towns and characters representing his take on the mythical Mexican homeland of Aztlan.

"It was a place he could express all his art ideas," Naiche said.

In our interview, Magu said humor was his secret ingredient.

"I think humor softens people's view of my culture," Magu said.

In our conversation he frequently joked and smiled. In my piece about him, though, I felt compelled to mention in passing that he complained a lot - a polite way of saying that for perhaps a quarter of our time together, he was griping about his rent, the lack of appreciation for artists and other matters.

Next time I saw him, he said he had liked my piece except for that one phrase, complaining that he didn't complain a lot.

The next and final time I ran into him, in a Thai restaurant in Pomona around 2008, he said he had further reflected and had changed his mind.

He had been griping too much, probably out of frustration, he admitted. Saying he had adjusted his attitude, he thanked me.

(Memo to the world: It might take years, but you'll eventually conclude I was right about everything. I promise not to gloat.)

By then Magu had relocated to Ontario. He wasn't there long, soon moving back to La Puente, not far from where he'd grown up, and where he died.

"It was like coming home and being in familiar surroundings again," Naiche said.

The show at the dA was arranged in late spring as a way to sell some of Magu's art and raise money for his medical bills, according to Chris Toovey, the arts center's president.

"Sadly, it's become more of a memorial exhibit and retrospective," Toovey told me.

No art could be sold that weekend because of legal issues involving the estate, Toovey said. Potential buyers' names were placed on an interest list.

The show, titled "Cruisin' Magulandia," continues through Aug. 27. That day will be a bookend of sorts for the show, with live music by Oto o's band, Conjunto Los Pochos, and by Eloy Torrez, a musician and painter who is known for the Anthony Quinn mural in downtown L.A.

Saturday, though, was the opening reception. Renewing acquaintances and admiring Magu's art - while avoiding jostling fellow art lovers - were the order of the day.

"My father had such a wide reach - across social, financial and cultural strata," Naiche said as people milled around us. "This is almost his final piece of art, this vortex of people."

David Allen Email david.allen@inlandnewspapers.com, call 909-483-9339.

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Chicano Photographer Exhibition Continues at San Bernardino County Museum

[Photo copyright 2011 Jesus Manuel Mena Garza. All rights reserved. Click header for more information about the exhibition.]

Chicano Photographer, an exhibition by Riverside, California documentary photographer Jesús Manuel Mena Garza is available for public viewing at the San Bernardino County Museum (SBCM) Schuilling Gallery. The show continues to November 6, 2011.

Please call (909) 307-2669 x227 or email kplimley@sbcm.sbcounty.gov for more information.

Laura Romo is new director of UCSB Chicano Studies Institute

Courtesy of Edhat SB

Laura Romo, associate professor of education at UC Santa Barbara, is the new director of the campus's Chicano Studies Institute. She replaces Carl Gutiérrez-Jones, professor of English at UCSB, who held the position for the past six years.

Romo received her Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA, and joined the UCSB faculty in 2003. A leading researcher in the areas of adolescent development, parent-adolescent communication, and informal health education, she has been working with community agencies in Santa Barbara, including Girls, Inc. and La Casa de la Raza, to develop and implement family-based sex education programs for low-income, mostly immigrant, Mexican-origin mothers and daughters.

"The mother-daughter relationship is a protective factor against sexual risk behavior for adolescents," Romo said. "In the workshops, we address cultural barriers to open communication about topics such as puberty and anatomy." To date, her work has focused on younger adolescents, ages 11 to 13, but she is now conducting a study with older adolescents, ages 13 to 16, and their mothers. "The new workshops also focus on the prevention of dating violence, in addition to sexual health, contraception, and HIV transmission," she explained.

"The Chicano Studies Institute is delighted that Professor Romo accepted the position of director," said Maria Herrera-Sobek, associate vice chancellor for diversity, equity, and academic policy. "Her grant writing skills are exceptional, and she has demonstrated an ability to translate these skills into mentoring and guiding our faculty members and graduate students. Professor Romo is the recipient of several major grants, and already has been working with graduate students at the Chicano Studies Institute."

Romo, who has served as associate director of the Chicano Studies Institute and as director of the UC Linguistics Minority Research Institute, has identified three main goals for the Chicano Studies Institute that are consistent with its overall mission. First, she hopes to form interdisciplinary groups of faculty members who will collaborate on developing extramural grants related to research on Latino populations. "Bringing together experts from different disciplines within the humanities and social sciences is important because today's most pressing research and societal questions are often best addressed by scholars with different backgrounds and training," she noted.

Romo also plans to develop a training program that will directly assist graduate students in writing grant proposals for funding to support their research. "We'll also develop an undergraduate program that will provide students with training in Latino research under the mentorship of faculty members," she said.

Consistent with her own research interests, Romo plans to create opportunities to involve undergraduate students in community health efforts. Latinos are among several populations in low-income communities who suffer from a variety of health problems, according to Romo, and she is currently developing an undergraduate course that will allow students to see firsthand the health issues that exist in Latino communities. As part of the course requirements, students will complete a set number of service hours with a community-based health agency. "This type of experience may serve to increase the number of Latino students who pursue careers in the health sciences," she said.

Established in 1969 at the Center for Chicano Studies, the Chicano Studies Institute is an organized research unit that facilitates interdisciplinary research regarding the Chicano/Latino experience in California and the United States.

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MACLA: The Black Eyed Peas Peapod Foundation and Adobe Foundation Unveil New Academy for San Jose Youth

[Click image to enlarge]

Music and Multimedia Academy Fosters Community Involvement and Digital Literacy Among Young People

The Black Eyed Peas Peapod Foundation and the Adobe Foundation today announced a new Peapod Adobe Youth Voices music and multimedia academy for youth in San Jose, Calif. The new academy expands on the network of existing academies in New York, Los Angeles, Oakland and Redwood City, Calif. Through their Peapod Adobe Youth Voices Academies, the two foundations provide professional-grade and curriculum technologies for art, dance, music and video production to underserved youth, helping to cultivate confidence, creativity and self-expression.

Located at 510 South First Street, the academy will be housed in a facility operated by Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA), an organization promoting visual, literary and performance art as a vehicle for civic dialogue and social equity. The collaboration between The Black Eyed Peas Peapod Foundation, Adobe Youth Voices (the signature program of the Adobe Foundation) and MACLA will focus on empowering youth to find their voice and become agents of social change in addition to learning important digital literacy skills. Beginning Sept. 2011, programs and services will be offered for youth ages 13-18. An estimated 300 youth are expected to participate in the academy annually.

Six-time Grammy Award-winning recording artists The Black Eyed Peas -- will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo and Fergie -- will join Adobe Foundation officials in unveiling the new San Jose academy at a private ceremony on Aug. 6. The Peapod Foundation was established in 2007 to help provide music and arts education as a means to serve underserved youth throughout the world.

"We are very excited to be part of the growing network of Peapod Adobe Youth Voices Academies," said Anjee Helstrup-Alvarez, executive director, MACLA. "The collaboration with the Peapod Foundation and Adobe Foundation will provide invaluable support to our mission of engaging youth through visual, literary and performance arts programs to initiate civic dialogue on important topical issues and encourage transformation in our communities."

"Every day we are inspired by the immense talent we see in young people," said will.i.am. "The Peapod Adobe Youth Voices Academies provide these youth with opportunities to advance their artistic and academic skills and channel their creative energy in ways we can only imagine. We are proud to help them make their voices heard."

"These youth are at a crucial point in their lives -- at the intersection of self discovery and recognizing their potential," said Miguel Salinas, senior manager, Adobe Youth Voices. "Our partnership with the Peapod Foundation has enabled us to help these youth realize what's important to them while arming them with the essential means to become positive and productive members of society."

Adobe Youth Voices Summit 2011

The announcement of the San Jose academy coincides with the second international Adobe Youth Voices Summit, a four-day digital immersion experience bringing together approximately 90 Adobe Youth Voices youth and educators from 16 countries to explore, create and develop new skills in technology, storytelling, collaboration and making media for social change. While at Santa Clara University on Aug. 2--6, attendees will engage with Adobe employee volunteers, industry professionals and media artists through a variety of hands-on workshops to build digital technology skills and get an inside look at careers in digital technology and media.

Summit highlights include: an opening keynote by Laura Ling, a journalist for Current TV, the politics and youth-oriented channel founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore; and a special appearance by The Black Eyed Peas to kick off Adobe Youth Voices Live!, a closing ceremony and private event celebrating youth work produced at the Summit.

About MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana

MACLA is an inclusive contemporary arts space grounded in the Chicano/Latino experience that incubates new visual, literary and performance art in order to engage people in civic dialogue and community transformation. Founded in 1989 as the result of a broad community mobilization in the City of San Jose and nationwide on behalf of multicultural arts, MACLA has evolved into a well respected arts organization known for our commitment to artistic excellence and civic dialogue. Located in downtown San Jose, more than 30,000 people participate in the 50 programs MACLA produces annually. Our four core program tracts include: visual arts; performance and literary arts; youth arts education; and community development through the arts. In 2010, MACLA was honored to be the only San Jose organization to be named by Philanthropedia as one of the 21 most effective arts and culture organizations in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

About The Black Eyed Peas Peapod Foundation

The Black Eyed Peas Peapod Foundation encourages social change by uniting people, especially children, through the universal language of music. In 2008, the foundation opened the first Peapod Music & Arts Academy, a state-of-the-art music and educational center and recording facility serving foster care youth and other at-risk teens, at the Watts/Willowbrook Boys and Girls Club. The Peapod Foundation has since launched similar programs in Oakland, Redwood City, New York City and most recently San Jose. The Peapod Foundation was established as a Charitable Service Fund administered by the Entertainment Industry Foundation. For more information, visit www.thepeapodfoundation.com .

About Adobe Youth Voices

Adobe Youth Voices is the Adobe Foundation's global philanthropic initiative that empowers youth from underserved communities with digital media skills so they can comment on their world, share their ideas and take action on issues that are important to them. By harnessing the energy and insight of youth 13-19 years old, Adobe Youth Voices aims to inspire a dialogue for change in their communities. The program engages youth to express themselves through documentary videos, photography, print media, radio diaries, animation, Web communications and other media. Since 2006, the Adobe Youth Voices global network has grown to more than 700 sites, and grantees and organizations in 45 countries, while engaging more than 76,000 youth and 4,000 educators in schools and out-of-school programs. For more information, visit www.youthvoices.adobe.com .

About the Adobe Foundation

The Adobe Foundation is a 501(c)(3) private foundation created and funded by Adobe Systems Incorporated to leverage human, technological and financial resources to drive social change and community improvements.

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Obama's Bad Bargain

[Click image to enlarge. Click header to go to original article.]

William Greider, The Nation

The most distressing outcome of the deficit hysteria gripping Washington may be what Barack Obama has revealed about himself. It was disconcerting to watch the president slip-slide so easily into voicing the fallacious economic arguments of the right. It was shocking when he betrayed core principles of the Democratic Party, portraying himself as high-minded and brave because he defied his loyal constituents. Supporters may hope this rightward shift was only a matter of political tactics, but I think Obama has at last revealed his sincere convictions. If he wins a second term, he will be free to strike a truly rotten “grand bargain” with Republicans—“pragmatic” compromises that will destroy the crown jewels of democratic reform.

The president has done grievous damage to the most vulnerable by trying to fight the GOP on its ground—accepting the premise that deficits and debt should be a national priority. He made the choice more than a year ago to push aside the real problem—the vast loss and suffering generated by a failing economy.

As a conservative reformer, Obama embraced a bizarre notion of “balance.” The budget cuts he first proposed would have punished the middle class and vulnerable three times with a big stick, shrinking Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits while hitting the wealthy only once with a modest tax increase. When Democrats complained that this wasn’t fair, Obama adjusted the “shared sacrifice” to a dollar-for-dollar ratio. Take a dollar from working stiffs who need these programs, take a dollar from the superrich who don’t need a tax break. How fair is that?

Obama’s facile arithmetic essentially scrapped the Democratic Party’s longstanding commitment to progressive taxation and universal social protections. The claim that cutting Social Security benefits will “strengthen” the system is erroneous. In fact, Obama has already undermined the soundness of Social Security by partially suspending the FICA payroll tax for workers—depriving the system of revenue it needs for long-term solvency.

The mendacity has a more fundamental dimension. Obama helped conservatives concoct the debt crisis on false premises, promoting a claim that Social Security and other entitlement programs were somehow to blame while gliding over the real causes and culprits. Social Security has never contributed a dime to the federal deficits (actually, the government borrows the trust fund’s huge surpluses to offset its red ink).

This mean-spirited political twist amounts to blaming the victims. There should be no mystery about what caused the $14 trillion debt: large deficits began in 1981, with Ronald Reagan’s fanciful “supply side” tax-cutting. Federal debt was then around $1 trillion. By 2007 it had reached $9 trillion, thanks to George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy and his two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the massive subsidy for Big Pharma in Medicare drug benefits. The 2008 financial collapse and deep recession generated most of the remainder, as tax revenues fell drastically. Obama’s pump-priming stimulus added to the debt too, but a relatively small portion.

Whatever supposed solutions Congress eventually enacts, the misleading quality of the debt crisis should become widely understood once the action is completed. The debt and deficits will probably keep expanding, because the economy will remain stagnant or worse, with near 10 percent unemployment and falling incomes, and that is fundamentally what drives deficits higher. It should become obvious that deficit reduction did nothing to revive economic growth or to create jobs. In fact, cutting federal spending may make things worse, because it withdraws demand from the economy at the very moment when demand for goods and services is woefully inadequate.

At some point, then, the president will have to change his tune. Instead of mimicking the penny pinchers, Obama will have to say something about the nation’s real problem—the sick economy and the terrible consequences facing millions of families. But it’s not clear he will have much to say beyond small-bore suggestions and the usual pep talks. If he does a sudden about-face and proposes big ideas for job creation, will anyone believe him?

The White House evidently thinks it’s good politics for 2012 to dismiss the left and court wobbly independents. Obama no doubt assumes faithful Democrats have nowhere else to go. It’s true that very few will wish to oppose him next year, given the fearful possibility of right-wing crazies running the country. On the other hand, people who adhere to the core Democratic values Obama has abandoned need a strategy for stronger resistance. That would not mean running away from Obama but running at him—challenging his leadership of the party, mobilizing dissident voices and voters, pushing Congressional Democrats to embrace a progressive agenda in competition with Obama’s.

To be blunt, progressives have to pick a fight with their own party. They have to launch the hard work of reconnecting with ordinary citizens, listening and learning, defining new politics from the ground up. People in a rebellious mood should also prepare for the possibility that it may already be too late, that the Democratic Party’s gradual move uptown is too advanced to reverse. In that event, people will have to locate a new home—a new force in politics that speaks for them.

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MALCS Summer Institute

Opening today, August 3, 2011 - the 2011 Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social Summer Institute, Against Fear and Terror: Una Nueva Conciencia Sin Fronteras. The institute is being held August 3-6, 2011 on campus at Cal State Los Angeles.

Featured speakers include, Angela Sanbrano, Angelica Salas, Azalea Ryckman Vasquez, Dora Olivia Magana, Rossana Perez, Carolina Rivera, Anita Tijerina Revilla, J. Frank Galarte and others. There will also be arts presentations.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: MALCS Conference, c/o Department of Chicano Studies
King Hall C 4069
5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90032

Email: malcscsula2011@gmail.com
Phone: (323) 343- 2190
National website: www.malcs.org

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