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

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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.

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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.

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