MALCS Archive

(MALCS) Women Active in Letters and Social Change

Belated obituary: Shifra Goldman, 1926-2011

“I was never in the mainstream, never in all my life. I was born on the margins, lived on the margins, and have always sympathized with the margins. They make a lot more sense to me than the mainstream.” – Shifra M. Goldman, September 1992

Shifra Goldman (1926-2011), a pioneer in the study of Latin American and Chicana/o Art, and a social art historian, died in Los Angeles on September 11, 2011, from Alzheimer’s disease. She was 85. Professor Goldman taught art history in the Los Angeles area for over 20 years. She was a prolific writer and an activist for Chicana/o and Latino Art. In Dimensions of the Americas: Art and Social Change in Latin America and the United States, one of her award winning publications, she stated that part of her life’s work was to “deflect and correct the stereotypes, distortions, and Eurocentric misunderstandings that have plagued all serious approaches to Latino Art history since the 50s.” [Read more…] about Belated obituary: Shifra Goldman, 1926-2011

2012 NACCS Award for Fiction (Tejas Foco only)

ANNOUNCING 2012 NACCS TEJAS AWARD FOR FICTION
National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies—Tejas Foco

Description of Award
NACCS-Tejas invites nominations and submissions for its 2012 NACCS-Tejas Fiction Award. The 2012 NACCS Tejas Award for Fiction Committee will consider any novel or collection of short stories published in 2011 in Texas or elsewhere. We will recognize an outstanding work of fiction that best represents a significant topic related to the Mexican American experience in Texas. The award will be presented at the NACCS-Tejas annual conference to be held at Teas State University in San Marcos, Texas in March 2012. There are no restrictions on the number of nominations per press. Authors may also self-nominate. Poetry, personal narrative, autobiography, reprints, re-editions of previously published works, translations, or books previously nominated for this award, are not eligible.
Nominations will be reviewed by a committee of NACCS-Tejas members.

Procedure for Nominations
Publishers or authors wishing to submit books for consideration should send three copies of the book, one to each of the three committee members at the addresses below by the deadline of November 20, 2011. Nominations should include a submission letter, including the name of the author, the title of the book, and the date of publication.

All nominations must be received (not postmarked) by November 20, 2011.
For additional information, you may contact the committee chair Marci R. McMahon at ude.aptuobfsctd-4f0f42@rmnohamcm

CFP: Empire & the Revolutionary Matrix

Call for Papers:  Empire and the Revolutionary Matrix
Deadline: March 1, 2012
Norma Alarcón and Ellie D. Hernández, Editors

Recent decades have given rise to an extremist white nativism [Huntington] that in fact is not new to the Angloeuropean nation-state. The making of the nation has been punctuated by such violent “nativist” display for more than two centuries. Can we imagine a society that is multiracial, multicultural, and multilingual bringing together a diversity of peoples into a new “imagined community” *Anderson+ that heals the rifts and renegotiates the boundaries of exclusion that have only served to scar and produce interminable differences between and among the population? [Read more…] about CFP: Empire & the Revolutionary Matrix

New leadership

Congrats to MALCS 2011-12 Officers


Chair Monica Torres in middle, surrounded by (clockwise from left) at-large representatives Brenda Sendejo and Ella Diaz, Treasurer Ester Hernandez, chair-elect Theresa Delgadillo, ex-oficio Keta Miranda, admin coordinator Lupe Gallegos,  Secretary Judith Flores Carmona, Membership coordinator Marivel Danielson, and at-large representative Susan Mendez.

Not pictured:  LBTQ Caucus Co-chairs Isabel Millan and Adilia Torres
WINC Caucus Chair:  ?

MALCS: A Brief History of the Organization’s Fiscal Status

Fourth in the series from the Executive Committee

We know that many of you are interested in MALCS’s status as an organization. Of particular interest is this question: Are we a 501c3 organization? The short answer to that question is no. Currently, we are an organization registered in California operating under the fiscal agency of The Chicana/Latina Foundation (CLF), a 501c3 organization. If you’d like more information about this organization, you can meet Olga Talamante, the Executive Director, at the Summer Institute. She will be presenting a workshop on Friday, August 5, 9-10:15 a.m. If you aren’t going to the Institute this summer, please feel free to check out the CLF website. You can find it at https://www.chicanalatina.org/   What I present here is an explanation of our organization’s fiscal status.

A Short History
At its inception, MALCS thought of becoming an independent organization but because it was housed at UC Davis, it was under the auspices of the Chicana/Latina Research Center for many years. This partnership with the Center and the University was financially advantageous. While there were some donations that supported the journal, the journal was largely funded by the university. In addition, all financial business was conducted via the university.

In the early 1980s, Dr. Ada Sosa Riddell, our founder, registered MALCS as a state organization in California. She also established a bank account for our membership funds. Although Dr. Sosa Riddell and others looked into getting federal status as a 501c3, they did not complete the process.

As MALCS separated itself from the Chicana/Latina Research Center and the University of California, Davis, we began to conduct all our MALCS business via the institutions with which we had working relationships: the universities that organized our summer institute and the universities that hosted the journal. We were able to process all necessary financial transactions through these institutions. In addition, we were generating less than $10,000 a year. At the time, there seemed to be no need to pursue 501c3 status. [Read more…] about MALCS: A Brief History of the Organization’s Fiscal Status