MALCS Archive

(MALCS) Women Active in Letters and Social Change

Member Accomplishments – October 2016

aragon2016wyo

L to R: Ann Redman, Sarah Ortegon, CC Aragón

MALCS Chair-Elect Cecilia “CC”Aragón was appointed as the Executive Director of the Wyoming Latina Youth Conference, a non-profit focused on empowering at risk young Latinas through mentorship and awareness. They hold a 2 day conference annually in Cheyenne, Wyoming for 5th-12th grade girls of Hispanic descent. Congratulations to CC on this opportunity to have an impact on the lives of young Latinas.

 

ssq_nasdme2016Congratulations to MALCSista Seline Szkupinski Quiroga who is taking on a new role as Director of the ASU CAMP Scholars Project. The U.S. Department of Education awarded a $2.1M grant to Arizona State University to support a university recruitment and retention program for the children of migrant farmworkers (PI: Dr. Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez, co-PI: Dr. Szkupinski Quiroga). The ASU CAMP Scholars Project will provide academic, social and financial support services to first-year migrant students and their families. Through research seminars, symposia and conference travel grants, the Project also strives to produce a cohort of students with a strong academic identity who see themselves as knowledge producers and community change makers.

jeanaguilarvaldez2016

Portland State University recently profiled MALCS Recording Secretary Jean Aguilar-Valdez about her work on decolonizing science education. In the profile, Jean speaks about the challenges of being a scholar-activist and working towards social justice in science education. Kudos to Jean for bringing attention to these issues to a larger community. Read the full article here: https://www.pdx.edu/profile/solidarity

Member Accomplishments – August 2016

GloriaPeral2016MALCSista Gloria Rosario Peral, University of California Merced – B.A Sociology 2014, has been admitted to California State University Northridge, Chicano Studies Master’s program! She will begin her studies this Fall 2016.

Gloria attended her first MALCS at U of Wyoming at Laramie this summer 2016. She was active in Chicano/Latino events, and was co-chair of MEChA at UC Merced, leading the organization during its most successful and significant time. Gloria has also presented at NACCS for several years as an undergrad.

MonicaDeLaTorre2016DrMonicadelaTorre2016MALCSista Monica de la Torre received her doctorate in Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies from the University of Washington this spring and has started as an Assistant Professor of Media and Expressive Culture in the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University!

VanessaFonseca2016ASUAfter 2 years at the University of Wyoming, MALCSista (and current Membership Coordinator) Vanessa Fonseca has returned to Arizona State University where she received her doctorate in Spanish, but now she is Assistant Professor of English with a focus on multi-ethnic U.S. literature! Her work on New Mexican migration “Following the Manito Trail” was also recently highlighted on Wyoming’s PBS station.

Please send notice of MALCSista accomplishments with accompanying photo to gro.sclamobfsctd-227368@pihsrebmem/archive-2017  for inclusion on our blog and/or Anuncios online forum.

2016 Tortuga Awardee

The recipient of the 2016 Tortuga Award is Rosalía Solórzano Torres, who will be honored at the Awards Banquet on Saturday, August 6th, during the MALCS Summer Institute at the University of Wyoming-Laramie.

Rosalía Solórzano Torres


Rosalía Solórzano Torres

Rosalía is a pioneer of Chicana/o Studies, establishing many Chicana/o Studies courses and degree programs at various institutions. Rosalía began researching Mexican migrant women in 1976 and teaching in the field in 1979. She is co-editor of Chicana/o Studies: Survey and Analysis (KendallHunt 2007) and is finalizing her second chapbook of poetry, Borderoleando al Amor. Rosalía has a Masters in Sociology and Spanish from the University of Texas at El Paso and advanced to doctoral candidacy in sociology at Michigan State University, East Lansing. She was Associate Director at the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso and has received research and teaching appointments at the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies at the University of California at San Diego, the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at University of Texas at El Paso, the Chicana and Chicano Studies Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, El Paso Community College, and Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona. Rosalía received a Masters in Counseling and Guidance from Webster University in 1992, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and received Diplomate status by the American Psychotherapy Association. At present, she and Dr. James Hernández are working with other faculty to create a degree in Mexican American and Women’s Studies at Pima Community College where both currently teach.

 

Pioneering Chicana Historian Honored by Obama, NEH

Dr. Vicki Ruiz,Distinguished Professor of History and Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California, Irvine

Chicana historian Vicki Ruiz has been named a recipient of the 2014 National Humanities Medal, awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the President of the United States. Dr. Ruiz is being honored for pioneering the history of twentieth-century Latinas in a distinguished career that began with collecting oral testimony from Mexican immigrants who worked in U.S. canning factories. She was the fourth Mexican-American woman to ever receive a doctorate in history in the United States.

Dr. Ruiz is among 10 honorees from elite universities nationwide who will accept the award from President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday, Sept. 10. The ceremony will be live-streamed at 3 p.m. at www.whitehouse.gov/live.

MALCS congratulates Dr. Ruiz on this prestigious award which recognizes the importance of Chicana/Latina history!

Martha Gonzalez & Quetzal “Imaginaries” nominated for a Grammy award!

Chicana scholar-artist Martha Gonzalez and Quetzal have been nominated for a Grammy Award in “Best Latin Pop, Rock or Urban Alternative Album” for the 2012 album “Imaginaries,”  released on the Smithsonian Institution Folkways Label.

Martha is a PhD candidate in the program in Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington.  She is currently a Ford Foundation 2012-13 Dissertation Fellow

Advisor Michelle Habell-Pallan describes Martha  as “cultural producer, singer, song-writer and percussionist.”  She writes “We knew Martha was a woman who rocked the Chicana studies (and the academy) and she does so in so many way–through her scholarship and music! The cd nominated “Imaginaries” was inspired in part by Emma Perez’s Decolonial Imaginaries–one of the foundational texts of Chicana Feminist theory.  Of course, Martha and Quetzal interpreted that in a such powerful musical way and had such a great dialogue with the musicians they created with.”

Martha’s academic scholarship focuses on the transnational music movement Fandangos Sin Fronteras. She recently presented her scholarly work in a plenary at last summer’s MALCS Summer Institute as well as other venues in Paris and Germany. She co-organizes the Seattle Fandango Project as well as the series “Alma en la Tarima/Soul Dancing” featuring Rubi Oseguera Rueda (Son De Madera), and Carolina Sarmiento (Son Del Centro, Santa Ana CA).

Martha recently published, “Zapateado Afro-Chicana Fandango Style: A Self-Reflective Moment,” in Dancing Across Borders: Danzas Y Bailes Mexicanos, eds. Olga Najera-Ramirez, Norma E. Cantu, Brenda M. Romero. University of Illinois Press.

Smithsonian describes Imaginaries as a creative combination of “East L.A.’s soundscape, traditional son jarocho of Veracruz, salsa, R&B, and more to express the political and social struggle for self-determination and self-representation 12 tracks, 55 minutes, 40-page booklet with bilingual notes.”  The album was produced by Quetzal Flores and Daniel E. Sheehy, recorded by Pete Reiniger, mixed by Pete Reiniger, mastered by Charlie Pilzer, liner notes by Russell Rodríguez and Martha González, cover artwork by José Ramírez, photography by Brian Cross, and design by Sonya Cohen Cramer.

The Grammy Awards will be held on February 10, 2013.

–thanks to Karen Anzoategui for the headsup

 

Tiffany Ana López named to Endowed Chair @UCR

Today, October 25, Dr. Tiffany Ana López was appointed to the Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair in the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the Riverside campus of the University of California.

This is a great distinction not only within the UC system but throughout the United States as Dr. López is the third Chicana to hold such an endowed post. Dr. Maria Herrera-Sobek was our first in 1997.

Dr. López is appointed for a five-year term. The Endowed Chair provides leadership on campus, in the region, and in the nation in Chicana/o and Latina/o creative writing and may embrace research issues central to Tomás Rivera’s life. The Endowed Chair coordinates the Annual Tomás Rivera Conference. Finally, the Endowed Chair serves as ambassador to the Tomás Rivera Archive.

Join me in sending our warmest and loudest and purely Chingona congrats to one of our MALCS leaders.

Karen Mary Davalos
Professor and Chair
Loyola Marymount University