UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies

CCAS Faculty Statement of Solidarity

We, the undersigned faculty of the Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA, express our full support and solidarity with our students who have been peacefully protesting and demanding that the university divest from ongoing war and genocide. Many of us have visited the encampment throughout its time on our campus and have personally witnessed the vibrant, respectful, highly-disciplined organization and learning happening there. Indeed, we felt the beautiful collective spirit of international solidarity they were building and were proud to see them take academic lessons on decolonial theory and put it into praxis.

We stand unequivocally against the physical and sensory attacks on our students on the night of 4/30/24 by a violent mob that was permitted to brutalize them for hours without protection from our university leadership, the city, or the state. On 5/1/24, we witnessed yet another attack against our students, this time at the hands of the LA Police Department, LA Sheriff’s Department, and the California Highway Patrol. The university administration has gotten it wrong every time and shamefully put our students’ lives in danger. As a department that exists in large part thanks to acts of civil disobedience, we feel especially strongly that the university must protect our students’ rights to free speech and peaceful protest. We demand dropping all legal and disciplinary charges against students who were peacefully protesting. And given that his decisions imperiled students’ lives, we also call for the resignation of Chancellor Gene Block.

In solidarity,

Leisy Abrego
Karina Alma
Matt Barreto
Charlene Villaseñor Black
Maylei Blackwell
Floridalma Boj Lopez
Hector Calderon
Genevieve Carpio
Laura Chavez-Moreno
Jason De Leon
Alicia Gaspar de Alba
Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda
Gaye Theresa Johnson
Robert Chao Romero
Chris Zepeda-Millan

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To see the list of demands by students, click the following link: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=857360043100152&set=pcb.857360119766811

Research Spotlight: Muchísimas felicidades to Dr. Karina Alma, Assistant Professor in Chicana/o and Central American Studies, on her new book "Central American Counterpoetics: Diaspora and Rememory."

To learn more about the book and where to purchase it, click the following link:
https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/central-american-counterpoetics

Congrats Dr. Alma!! 👏👏👏👏

Tell your friends in Illinois! 🤗 Dr. Floridalma Boj Lopez will be speaking at the Department of Latina/Latino Studies at UIUC tomorrow 4/24.

Next week! Join us on April 24, 2024 at 3:30 in Levis Faculty Center Room 422 for a talk by Professor Floridalma Boj Lopez!

More info: https://calendars.illinois.edu/detail/2856/33486794

Check out Erika Hirugami, Doctoral Candidate, who was featured in UCLA Magazine. To read the feature, click the link below.

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/magazine/erika-hirugami-art-curator-undocumented-creatives

Congratulations Erika!

Building a Portfolio of Hope Mining her own life for inspiration, Erika Hirugami is turning a spotlight on the beautiful art of undocumented creatives. She’s also changing their lives.

Join us next Monday for an intriguing conversation on Dolorous Gender, delivered by Professor Francisco Galarte of University of New Mexico! It will be taking place in Haines Hall from 2-3:30 PM. Don’t miss it, RSVP and tell your friends!

Looking for a course to enroll over the summer? Consider enrolling in our CCAS M102 course. This in-person course will take place in Session 6A on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9AM to 11AM. In this course, we will examine how historical, social, political, and economic forces have impacted Chicana/o educational experience(s). If you have any questions about enrollment, please email [email protected].

Happy Tuesday! We invite you to take a moment to read and share the LA Times opinion piece co-authored by Leo Vilchis-Zarate, Doctoral Candidate in Chicana/o and Central American Studies.

Opinion: How tenant unions are finding power in numbers to fight L.A.'s housing crisis Tenant unions should be part of the L.A.'s conversation on housing. They negotiate directly with landlords and carry out protests, rent strikes and other community events.

Please join us and RSVP for the talk "Art in the Face of Empire: Visualizing Central American Histories, Realities, and Futures" presented by Dr. Kency Cornejo from the University of New Mexico. Light refreshments will be served.



To RSVP, click the following link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSegrKDn70qDjtm536PT3I9khf3HPVS6tF4JCMFCJgBqnunORQ/viewform

Come learn about sexuality and gender throughout Latinx culture and communities this summer! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🌈🩷💛💚💙💜❤️

Research Spotlight: Congratulations to CCAS Professor Jason De León for his new book, “Soldiers and Kings Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling.”

For more information on where to purchase the book starting on March 19th, click the link below. ✨🎉

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/672038/soldiers-and-kings-by-jason-de-leon/

Join us for our next Cafecito with Profes and Ellie on Monday 2/26 from 10am-12pm in 7386 Bunche Hall.

☕️✨️🥐

We hope everyone has a great weekend!

Looking to transform your mind this Spring? Consider our CCAS course 188-1: Revolution & Pleasure: a q***r survey of transformative justice! 🌟🏳️‍🌈🌱

***r

Have you heard the great news? Our Chair, Dr. Charlene Villaseñor Black, will give the annual Patricia McCarron McGinn Lecture this year. The first time this lecture in Art History has ever focused on Chicanx art!

Professor Villaseñor Black will present her talk entitled “Art against Necropolitics” on Monday, March 4 at 5 PM in the Optimist Room of the Luskin Conference Center.

Kindly RSVP by Wednesday, February 21 to attend. Click the link below:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQ_JYOI_H9dFXCLw38IL9V1O8Y8_C9XbkyjTLS7mRqYvCssw/viewform

💛🧸💙

UCLA doubles down on ethnic studies expansion amid fraught national politics Two alums who fought for ethnic studies as student protesters in the 1960s have donated $10 million to the UCLA Institute of American Culture, the largest such gift, to endow posts in Asian American, Black, Chicano and Native American programs.

Interested in taking CCAS courses this summer? Well now our list of classes is now up! Scan the QR code for more info or email our student advisor for any questions. We hope to see you this summer! ☀️📚⛱

Are you interested in Latinx and Religious Studies? We invite you to attend two upcoming events organized by UCLA's Center for the Study of Religion.

For more information, including how to RSVP, click the links below:

https://religion.ucla.edu/event/colonial-encounters-sor-juana-guaman-poma-and-the-birth-of-the-brown-church/

https://religion.ucla.edu/event/making-a-refuge-of-resistance/

Interested in learning about Latinx education? Join panelists Laura Chávez-Moreno, María Cioè-Peña, and Jonathan Peraza Campos at the First Annual Chicanx and Latinx Education Symposium at UC Davis on Thursday, January 18th.

Our staff is working remotely this week, but we are still able to assist via email and zoom before our break. Please visit our website for staff information. We wish you all a happy winter break! ☃️❄️

Join us for an upcoming talk with Dr. Cynthia Vázquez!

Abstract: The U.S./Mexico border serves as a buffer zone where various state-level legalities are enforced, and it is constantly under surveillance by the U.S. and Mexico governments. Today, state-sponsored surveillance and border settler-colonialities operate in tandem to dispossess tribal nations whose traditional lands overlap multiple settler borders. For the Kumeyaay nation, whose traditional homelands straddle the San Diego-Tijuana region, and whose migratory cycles have been intertwined with generations of knowledge exchange, the border has ruptured their sense of nationhood. Presently, Kumeyaay in Mexico are seeking to reconnect with their counterparts in the U.S. through the reclamation and revitalization of the ancestral game of Peon. Playing Peon is connected to larger questions surrounding language reclamation efforts and Indigenous sovereignties in California and Baja California. How do border tribes assert their sovereignty amid increasing restrictive border policies? How do the Kumeyaay reclaim a game that has been dormant for more than 60 years? This talk will highlight grassroots efforts to reclaim Peon on both sides of the border, transborder reconnections, and the processes in reclaiming Peon. The larger scope of this talk will focus on how Indigenous sovereignties are implemented and practiced on the border historically and presently based off of my ten year community and tribally approved based research.

Biography: Dr. Vazquez is a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the American Indian Studies Center at UCLA. She received her doctorate from UC San Diego in Ethnic Studies with a graduate specialization in Critical Gender Studies. Trained as an interdisciplinary scholar in humanities and social sciences, her research is situated at the nexus of critical theories of Indigenous transborder migrations, Indigeneity, settler-colonialism, binational schooling, Indigenous & border epistemologies, and Latinidad. Her pronouns are she/her/hers. Born in LA, brought up in Las Vegas, she’s called San Diego her home for ten years. Cynthia identifies as Xicana and is deeply involved in relationship making with artists and local tribal community based on land pedagogies, liberatory practices, and resistance.

We cordially invite you to Artist Talk: Joey Terrill! Artist and retired Director or Global Advicacy & Partnerships for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Joey Terrill, speaks about his life's work as an artist and activist focusing on issues facing q***r Chicano communities in Los Angeles and beyond.

For more information, click the link below. Admission is free 🤗

https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2023/artist-talk-joey-terrill

Hammer Museum

Help us spread the word! We are searching for our next faculty member at the Associate or Full Professor level.

For further information please click the link below. Initial review of applications will begin December 15, 2023. After the initial review date, new applications will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled. The anticipated appointment start date is July 1, 2024.

https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF08948

Join us on November 15th for an exciting Oceanic Studies book forum with Christen Sasaki and Alfred Flores, moderated by CCAS Professor Gena Carpio. Come learn about their important new books, "Pacific Confluence" and "Tip of the Spear." 🙌

Click the link below to RSVP:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oceanic-studies-book-forum-tickets-731489232987

Earlier in the quarter, UCLA College did a Q&A with Jason De León, Professor of Chicana/o and Central American Studies. De León became the first Chicano/ Latino head of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology where he previously worked as an undergraduate.

Check out the story below. ⬇

Q&A: Jason De León sees full picture – and price – of unauthorized immigration The UCLA professor hopes to open minds, change the conversation and help save lives.

Students, join us next Wednesday 11/15 for some cafecito with profes and Ellie!

In 1993, Cindy Montañez held an instrumental role in the hunger strike that resulted in UCLA’s Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies. Cindy has been an extraordinary example of resilience throughout her lifetime. Let us stand united and appreciative as we commemorate Cindy Montañez and her legacy.

Cindy Montañez, advocate for Chicana/o Studies at UCLA, dies at 49 - Daily Bruin This post was updated Nov. 2 at 9:42 a.m. Cindy Montañez, a prominent advocate for Chicana and Chicano studies, California legislator and UCLA alumnus, died Oct.

Join us for the Inaugural Afro-Isthmus Symposium on November 2, 2023 from 9am-5pm.

Lunch and light refreshments will be provided for symposium and mixer attendees. The closest parking for guests is UCLA Structure 8.

To RSVP, please click the link below. Capacity is set at 60 attendees, don't miss on your chance to attend this great symposium!

https://forms.gle/gK8McnvMp726kpvSA

A warm welcome from everyone at the Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies. Bienvenides Bruins! 💙 🐻 💛

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkqUXnL1AHM

CCAS Welcome Video | Fall 2023 A warm welcome to the 2023-2024 academic year from all of us at the Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies. Bienvenides Bruins! ...

Join us on November 5th, from 4-8:30 pm, for Dia De Los Mu***os.
🧡🏵🖤🏵💜

CCAS Chair and Professor, Dr. Charlene Villaseñor Black, recently spoke with the UCLA Newsroom about her vision for the Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies, as well as UCLA's Hispanic-Serving Institution designation and why language is important when observing Latinx Heritage Month.

To read the full story, click the link below:
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/charlene-villasenor-black-chair-latino-studies

Q&A: Charlene Villaseñor Black on Latino studies in the world — for the world UCLA’s new chair of Chicana/o and Central American studies sees universal lessons in highlighting the omissions and silences surrounding the history of the Americas.

Join us for "Autonomous Guatemalan Futures: Building Bridges Through Economic Sustainability," on Tuesday, October 3rd, 3-4:30 PM in Kaplan Hall A48. 🙌

Guatemalan social entrepreneur and business administrator Rosita Rabanales will be on campus to speak about the work DESGUA has done for fifteen years and present on the Sacbé Project.

The event will be in Spanish. We hope to see you there!