When Barack Obama set out to choose his secretary of Labor, his top priority was probably not recruiting an emblematic Angeleno. But in tapping Hilda L. Solis, a Democrat who represents a portion of the San Gabriel Valley in Congress, that’s just what he’s done.

The Latina daughter of immigrants, a product and champion of the labor movement, a staunch environmentalist, an ardent feminist and one of the gutsiest elected officials in American politics, Solis personifies the best of the new Los Angeles. [Read more…] about CA Congresswoman Hilda Solis named Obama's Secretary of Labor

The CalArts School of Theater will present blu, a new play by Virginia Grise, named runner up for the 2008 Latino/a Playwriting Award at the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival.  The play tells the story of two Chicanas leading their family to unearth sacred rituals and restore balance despite barrio realities of gang violence. Blu was written by Virginia Grise and will be directed by Jon Rivera.

Virginia Grise is a Chicana cultural worker-writer, performer and teacher from San Antonio, Texas. She has worked as a curator, artist and activist facilitating organizing efforts among women, immigrant, Chicano, working class and queer youth. Virginia has taught writing as a public school teacher, in community centers and in the juvenile correction system. She is currently teaching playwriting to high school students in East Los Angeles, through the CalArts Community Arts Partnership (CAP). As part of the Latino/a Playwriting Award Virginia was awarded a Kennedy Center summer fellow residency with Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center to further develop the script for this production of blu.

Dates:
Wednesday, December 3 through Saturday, December 6, 2008 at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, December 6, 2008 at 2:00 p.m.
Monday, December 8 through Wednesday, December 10, 2008 at 8:00 p.m.

Place:
Ensemble Theater II (E407) at CalArts (24700 McBean Parkway, Valencia).

Admission is free and by reservation only. For reservations, please visit the CalArts events site and click on blu.

Jon Lawrence Rivera most recently directed The Joy Luck Club by Susan Kim, adapted from the novel by Amy Tan (East West Players), Sea Change by Nick Salamone (Davidson/ Valentini Theater) and The Third From The Left by Jean Colonomos (2008 NY Fringe Festival). He is the recipient of two Ovation Award nominations for directing the musical Songs For A New World by Jason Robert Brown at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre (Santa Barbara Independent Award, best director) and for directing the Los Angeles premiere of Dogeaters at SIPA (Maddy Award, best director). He is the founding artistic director of Playwrights’ Arena and his productions have garnered over 80 local and international awards.

Hola mujeres,
I thought you’d like to know that our comadre Profesora Pat Zavella is being honored by our campus for her outstanding research and academic accomplishments. We are very proud of her so I thought I’d share it with our network. Please forward to anyone that may be interested. Abrazos, Aida [Hurtado]

2nd annual UCSC ‘Founders Day’ gala dinner at Cocoanut Grove to honor three exceptional individuals

UC Santa Cruz hosts its second annual Founders Day gala dinner at the Cocoanut Grove on Friday, October 24, beginning at 7 p.m. Launched last year to celebrate the spirit of community that resulted in the founding of a University of California campus in Santa Cruz,the event recognizes and honors extraordinary individuals and their outstanding contributions to society.

This year’s featured honorees will be:
* Dana Priest-UCSC alumna and award-winning reporter for the Washington Post, who earned her second Pulitzer Prize in April for a 2007 exposé of the mistreatment of wounded Iraq war veterans at Walter Reed Medical Center.
* Narinder Singh Kapany-Research scientist, professor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist who is acknowledged by many as the “father of fiber optics.”
* Patricia Zavella-UCSC professor of Latin American and Latino Studies, and one of the world’s leading scholars in the fields of feminist ethnography and Chicana studies.

With a theme of “Fulfilling the Promise,” the evening will include a celebratory dinner, awards presentation ceremony, and video tributes to each of the three recipients.

….Zavella is known for her pioneering research on Chicana/Mexicana social life-including issues of labor, migration, family, gender, feminism, health, sexuality, and popular culture. Her work has been instrumental in setting the Latino research agenda.

Zavella directs UCSC’s Chicano/Latino Research Center and chairs the statewide UC Committee on Latino Research–a multi-campus unit that advises the Office of the President about research related to Latinos in California. Her public service work includes contributions such as helping to organize Binational Health Week in 2001–a collaboration between the state of California and the government of Mexico to improve the health of Mexicans in California.

Zavella has been a leader in national organizations, serving as a member of the Executive Committee of the American Anthropological Association, chair of the Feminist Studies track for the Latin American Studies Association, and as president of the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists.

Congratulations to Texas State University Anthropology professor Ana Juárez for receiving NSF funding for the “Research Experience for Undergraduate Site on Culture and Globalization in Highland Guatemala” program. The three-year multi-institutional grant will provide funding for students from four institutions to conduct research in Guatemala, including students from Texas State University-San Marcos.

See full story here

The National Association of Chicana & Chicano Studies (NACCS) is this week/end….and will feature the 2007 NACCS Scholar Award for Dr. Antonia Castaneda’s “lifetime of scholarly achievements, longstanding commitment to NACCS and its future development, unwavering dedications towards undergraduate students, graduate students, young scholars and colleagues. A professor at St. Mary’s University in Texas, Castañada has mentored Chicana/o students to present their work at national conferences and encouraged the development of Chicana/o studies for several decades. Through her scholarly writings, she has challenged and transformed the fields of Chicano/a Studies, California history and western history by focusing on issues of sexuality, gender, and conquest.”

Read full entry at NACCS; see conference info here…