UCSB Division of Social Sciences

Celebrate the summer solstice this June with a new article from Prof. Gerardo Aldana of Chicano/a/x Studies!

Learn about Mayan ruler K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil's ambitions to forge alliances and build power for Copan- and how sun tracking architecture and a special summer solstice fit into his plans.

You can find the article here: https://theconversation.com/solstices-brought-mayan-communities-together-using-monuments-shaped-by-science-and-religion-and-kingly-ambitions-too-231672

Happy Pride Month to all. ¡Vive con orgullo!

The Leonard and Gretchan Broom Center for Demography is excited to present a mini conference this week about Immigration and Mental Health!

RSVP by visiting this link: https://forms.gle/WPuRnM2KJq9wvCqt8
Or by using the QR code on the poster.
Registration is free!

On Thursday, May 30th, from 3-5pm at Mosher Alumni House there will be a welcoming and interactive workshop: "Mentoring and Sponsorship throughout one's Academic Journey".

On Friday, May 31st there will be three panels to hear from between 8am and 4:20pm.
We hope to see you there!

-FREE EVENT TOMORROW NIGHT, May 23-
Join the Las Maestras Center for a performance by Martha Gonzalez of Quetzal and playwright and director Virginia Grise!
"Riding the Currents of the Wilding Wind" will play on Tuesday May 23rd at the Center Stage Theatre at 7pm. Tickets can be reserved on the Las Maestras Center website: https://www.lasmaestrascenter.ucsb.edu/ridingthecurrents

The Departments of Education, Linguistics and Chicana/o Studies are excited to invite you to SKILLS Day!

SKILLS Day will be on Tuesday, May 21st from 9:00 am - 10:45 am in the Room 1100 of the Loma Pelona Conference Center, at UCSB (CHANGED from 5/24!).

You can view the event's program and outline of events here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v0uKNYvDL7_D9pveibzcuKXpMEzoXOr9/view

Youth researchers from San Marcos High School will be sharing their original research. If you are able, you are invited to come out and support all of their hard work!

REMINDER- ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE WORKSHOPS
Hosted by the Las Maestras Center!

Tuesday, May 21st Virginia Grise will hold the "These Are My Papers-Writing for Performance" workshop at the Las Maestras center, South Hall 1415 from 7-9pm.

Wednesday, May 22nd, Martha Gonzalez will be leading a collective song writing workshop at the Las Maestras Center, South Hall 1415 from 4-6pm.

Don't forget to grab your ticket for the FREE concert-performance "Riding the Currents of the Wilding Wind", Tuesday May 23rd at the Center Stage Theatre, 7pm!
https://www.lasmaestrascenter.ucsb.edu/ridingthecurrents

UPDATE: Event Canceled
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Join the Chicano/a/x Studies
Department for the FINAL installment of the
Cumpleañera Speaker Series on MONDAY, May 20th (5/20) from
12:30- 1:45pm in Isla Vista Theater 1!

This week, Prof. Amber Rose Gonzalez from Fullerton College is here to speak about the new book "Mujeres de Maiz en Movimiento" which she co-edited. The book chronicles the story of the Mujeres de Maiz (MdM): an Indigenous Xicana–led spiritual artivist organization and movement by and for women and feminists of color.

Join the Chicano/a/x Studies Department for the next installment of the Cumpleañera Speaker Series on May 13th (5/13) from 12:30- 1:45pm in Isla Vista Theater 1.

This week, we are excited to welcome Prof. Sara Veronica Hinojos, Assistant Professor of Media Studies at Queens College- City University of New York!

SPRING 2024- ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE
Las Maestras Center is pleased to announce the residency of artists, Martha Gonzalez and Virgina Grise, as they bring “Riding the Currents of the Wilding Wind” to Santa Barbara and our UCSB communities. The work, in collaboration with musical director Gonzalez of the Grammy-Award winning ensemble, “Quetzal” and playwright Grise has become an album and a multimedia concert inspired by Helena María Viramontes’ signature novel Their Dogs Came with Them.

Check out our programming below to register for the workshops and to receive more information about ticket reservations for Riding the Currents of the Wilding Wind Concert Performance.
Space is is limited. Register today: https://www.lasmaestrascenter.ucsb.edu/ridingthecurrents

Historian Jeffrey Stewart elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences for his work in the visual arts UCSB Black Studies professor's curatorial work earns recognition from and election to the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences

https://www.elmuseo.org/exhibition/amalia-mesa-bains-archaeology-of-memory/ Beautiful exhibition--don't miss it! Amalia Mesa-bains

Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory - El Museo del Barrio El Museo del Barrio presents Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory, the first retrospective exhibition by the pioneering artist, curator, and theorist.

Join the Chicano/a/x Studies Department for the next installment of the Cumpleañera Speaker Series (4/24) from 12:30- 1:45pm in IV Theater 1!

This week, we welcome Dr. Juan Sebastián Ferrada, Professor of Ethnic Studies at Cuesta College!

Save the date!

The Taste of Africa event is a free family-friendly event at UCSB which aims to provide the community with a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in the diverse and rich cultural traditions that are found across the African continent and diaspora.

Attendees will have the chance to savor authentic African cuisines, feel the rhythmic and therapeutic beats of traditional drumming, witness captivating dance performances, appreciate the intricacies of diverse African arts, indulge in the beauty of African fashions, and experience African History through short presentations.

Day one of the event (5/17), will occur at the Storke Plaza from 12-3 pm and will feature a traditional African cultural fair and short African History presentations.

Day two of the event (5/18), will occur at the IV Theater from 7-9:30 pm and will feature contemporary African performances and community building.

Join us as we come together to learn, connect, and trace our steps back to our roots.

Sponsors: Center for Black Studies Research (CSBR), African diasporic Cultural Resource Center (AdCRC), Commission on Culture, Arts, and Joy Justice (CCAJJ), Black Women's Health Collaborative (BWHC), Professor Waverly Duck, UCSB Graduate Division

Celebrate with the Chican@ Latinx Alumni Network at All Gaucho Reunion!
Saturday, April 20th
11:00 AM- 1:00Pm
Mosher Alumni House

We are excited to announce our guest speaker at this year’s Volver, Volver, Volver event at the All Gaucho Reunion, Ariana Rodriguez (UCSB A‘15), artistically known as Diosa Femme! The event is this Sat, 4/20 so get your tickets for Gaucho Reunion today at

https://www.alumni.ucsb.edu/events/all-gaucho-reunion/schedule?utm_source=alumni&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=agr&utm_content=chicana-latinx
⠀
More about Diosa: she is an audio storyteller, podcast producer and writer. She is the Co-Founder of Locatora Productions, an award-winning production studio and home to the critically acclaimed podcast, Locatora Radio, which has amassed more than one million lifetime listens.

The Chicano/a/x Studies Alumni Speaker Series is back tomorrow (04/17) from 12:30pm - 1:45pm in IV Theater 1, featuring Dr. Nicholas Centino, Associate Professor of Chicana/o Studies at CSU Channel Islands!

Congratulations to Dr. Mayra Puente for receiving the AERA Division J Outstanding Publication Award! 🎉

Read more about the honor in The Current:
https://news.ucsb.edu/in-focus/mayra-puente-receives-aera-award-platicando-y-mapeando-educational-research-methodology?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Read%20more%20about%20the%20honor&utm_campaign=April%202%2C%202024

Join the UCSB Chicana/o Studies Department this Thursday, February 1, for a wonderful Book Presentation by UCSB CH ST Alum, Dr. William Calvo-Quirós!

Humanizing the Archive: An Indigenous Feminist Reading of The Belles of San Luis Rey with Dr. Olivia M. Chilcote

Thursday February 1, 4:00-5:30 PM
UCSB Mosher Alumni House, Room 2104

The Belles of San Luis Rey (1893), one of the most famous and widely circulated images of “Mission Indians” in the nineteenth century, depicts three Luiseño women elders sitting near the ruins of Mission San Luis Rey in northern San Diego County. The Belles of San Luis Rey photograph promotes a version of history devoid of settler colonial and gendered violence and represents these elders as relics of the past. Instead, an Indigenous feminist and Luiseño-centered reading of the image illuminates a complex story of land dispossession, labor, and survival that alters accepted understandings of California history.

Dr. Olivia M. Chilcote is a tribal citizen of the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians and an Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at San Diego State University. Her research and teaching focus on the areas of interdisciplinary American Indian Studies, California Indian Studies, American Indian identity, federal Indian law and policy, and Indigenous feminisms. Her first book, Unrecognized in California: Federal Acknowledgment and the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians, analyzes California’s distinct crisis of tribal federal recognition through the experience of her own tribal community. She serves on the UC President’s Native American Advisory Council, the California Indian Scholars and Educators Advisory Committee for the state of California’s Native American Studies Model Curriculum, and is a founding member of the California Indian Studies and Scholars Association.

Hosted by the UCSB Division of Social Sciences

For more information, contact Professor Diane Fujino at [email protected].

The Horacio Roque Ramirez Memorial Symposium
Wed. January 31, 2024, 11:00 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
MCC Theatre, UCSB
The Memorial Symposium will feature speakers who will honor the life and legacy of Professor Horacio Roque Ramirez (1969-2015). Dr. Roque Ramirez was a faculty member in the Department of Chicana/o Studies who passed December 2015. His ethnographic and archival research focused on Central Americans in the US, q***r Latinx community life in San Francisco, and Latino sexuality and hope in an era of AIDS and deportation. At UCSB, he developed the courses “Central Americans in the U.S.” and “Salvadoran Diasporas”, among the first within the UC system. Guest speakers include:

Nubia Roque Ramirez (Horacio’s sister)
Dr. Leisy Abrego (Professor of Chicana/o and Central American Studies, UCLA)
Dr. William Calvo-Quirós (Associate Professor, American Culture, University of Michigan)
Dr. Eddy Francisco Alvarez Jr. (Associate Professor, Chicana and Chicano Studies, California State University, Fullerton).

In his honor, the “Horacio Roque Ramirez Central American Studies Scholarship” was created and is being administered by the Division of Social Sciences. The purpose of this scholarship is to celebrate Central American history, culture, community, and studies at UC Santa Barbara.

The inaugural recipients of the “Horacio Roque Ramirez Central American Studies Scholarship” will also be recognized at the Memorial Symposium. The two inaugural recipients include Esther Mejia (Political Science and History of Public Policy and Law) and Mayerly Ortega (History of Public Policy and Law, and Spanish). The five Honorable Mentions of the award are Andrea Amaya (Chicana/o Studies & Sociology); Jasmine Altamirano (Chicana/o Studies); Destiny Cisneros (Chicana/o Studies & Sociology); Violeta Valdez (Pre-Sociology) and Michelle Novak (Chicana/o Studies).

Donations in any amount to the “Horacio Roque Ramirez Central American Studies Scholarship” to support students can be made here: https://giving.ucsb.edu/Funds/Give?id=477.

The event is being organized by the Central American Studies Working Group, and co-sponsored by the Dean’s Office of Social Sciences, the Chicano Studies Institute, the Department of Chicana/o Studies, Latin American and Iberian Studies, Orfalea Center, Las Maestras Center, Global Latinidades Center and the Robert and Lisa Erickson Presidential Chair in English, and Eileen Boris, Hull Professor and Distinguished Professor of Feminist Studies.

For more information on the Memorial Symposium and/or the scholarship, email: Dr. Giovanni Batz [email protected]

Please join us for a public talk

Andrew Jolivétte
"Thrivance Circuitry: Q***r Afro-Indigenous Futurity and Kinship Practice"
Thursday, January 25 at 4-5:30 pm
Annenberg Conference Room, SSMS 4315, at UCSB

This talk critically interrogates the geo-political and geo-spatial currents of imperialistic constructions of “citizenship” within the context of Indigenous peoplehood, tribal sovereignty, and self-determination. As a navigation into indigeneity, q***rness and blackness this project asserts that the structural relationship between settler violence and anti-q***r, anti-Black, and anti-Native belonging exists across multiple colonial states and is intentionally embedded and weaved into a complex matrix of cultural denial of Native, Black, and Q***r bodies. This work offers theoretical and epistemological models of kinship and thrivance as crucial co-constitutive forces in the development of decolonial, q***r futures within and across q***r, Afro-Indigenous communities globally.

Dr. Andrew Jolivétte is Professor and Department Chair of Ethnic Studies and the inaugural founding Director of Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) at the University of California, San Diego. His acclaimed scholarship, writings, and presentations examine Native American, Indigenous, Creole, Black, Latinx, Q***r, Mixed-Race, and Comparative Critical Ethnic Studies. He is the author or editor of nine books including the Lammy Award-nominated Indian Blood: HIV and Colonial Trauma in San Francisco's Two-Spirit Community. An enrolled member of the Atakapa-Ishak Nation of Louisiana, he is his tribe's former tribal historian and is born of the Hiyekiti Ishak [Sunrise People] of the Tsikip/Heron Clan.

Hosted by the Division of Social Sciences

The UCSB Chicano Studies Department is hosting their second Virtual Open House on Monday, November 20th, from 12 pm to 1 pm. This is another excellent opportunity for you to learn more about our program, admission requirements, and any other information you may need. We encourage you to mark this date on your calendar and join us online.

Aida Hurtado

A daughter of immigrants, Vanessa Valdivia never dreamed she'd work in the U.S. Senate, let alone at the White House. But just 12 years after graduating from UC Santa Barbara, that's exactly where she found herself. Learn about this Gaucho's honor of a lifetime: bit.ly/3FezKw3

The 2024 Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature will be awarded to Gustavo Arellano of the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 7 at 4 PM in the McCune Room of the IHC.

UCSB Chicano Studies Department UCSB EOP UCSB Latin American and Iberian Studies Program UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center Communication Department - University of California, Santa Barbara Aida Hurtado

Mr. Arellano is an award-winning columnist/writer whose columns in the Times deal with key issues facing Latinos in Southern California and in the country. He has published several books including "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America:" and his most recent "A People's Guide to Orange County" (UC Press). For his work, Mr. Arellano has won various awards including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Society of Professional Journalists.

Congratulations to Professor Lomeli, Emeritus, Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies

Congratulations to Francisco A. Lomelí and Osiris Aníbal Gómez, and Frederick Luis Aldama, winners of 2023 International Latino Book Awards. 📚 🏆👏
Read all about it here: https://uapress.arizona.edu/2023/11/aldama-lomeli-gomez-winners-for-2023-international-latino-book-award

FIRE SONGS: AN EVENING OF POETRY, STORIES, AND MUSIC WITH MELINDA PALACIO, SANTA BARBARA POET LAUREATE

THU, NOV 16, 6:00 PM
UCSB MultiCultural Center THEATER

Join Las Maestras Center for Xicana-x Indigenous Thought, Art and Social Praxis:The Latinx Public Voice | October 30th @ 5pm

Rosa-Linda Fregoso in Conversation with Cherrie Moraga featuring her latest book, The Force of Witness/Contra Feminicide (2023). Fregoso is an Oakland-based writer and Professor Emerita in Latin American and Latino Studies at the University
of California, Santa Cruz.

Register here: https://www.lasmaestrascenter.ucsb.edu/latinxvoice23

'Gallery with a View of Post-Mayan Time and Place': Atkinson Gallery at SBCC Opens Its Season with the History-Spanning ‘Xicana/o/x Time and Space’

https://www.independent.com/2023/09/16/gallery-with-a-view-of-post-mayan-time-and-place/

https://sbcc-dad.smugmug.com/DAD-Archive/Atkinson-Gallery/Atkinson-Xicanaox-Time-and-Space-Fall-2023/

Gallery with a View of Post-Mayan Time and Place SBCC’s Atkinson Gallery opens its season with the history-spanning “Xicana/o/x Time and Space.”

TODAY: October 12 | McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB

IMAGINING CALIFORNIA INAUGURAL TALK: IMAGINE THIS: THE (RE)GENERATION OF PLACE

Imagining California Inaugural Talk: Imagine This: The (Re)generation of Place - Interdisciplinary Humanities Center UCSB Seeded by sorrow, the evolving work that Cherríe Moraga will present journeys through her home-country of California, marking her footsteps alongside Native ecologies and Chicanx genealogies. In part, it is reflective of a q***r embodied half-century inquiry—writing of place and out of place, per...