Congratulations to Nicole Guidotti-Hernández and Maylei Blackwell – both finalists for the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize for 2011. The winner will be announced in June. Nicole writes “I am so happy to be nominated amongst such strong intellectual prowess.”

Maylei’s work, Chicana Power!: Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement was reviewed here earlier this year. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia wrote “Blackwell analyzes Chicanas’ quest to bring gender and sexuality as well as race and class to the forefront of the Chicano movement. In documenting these women’s significance, she is not simply retelling a story but also making a political statement: until now, they have been relegated to the margins of both the Chicano civil rights and women’s liberation struggles. In fact, however, Chicana feminists built what Blackwell calls a complex “vision of liberation,” which shaped US women of color consciousness and evolved into the larger US and third world women’s movements of the 1970s and 1980s—which in turn influenced activists, artists, writers, and intellectuals.”

Nicole’s work is titled Unspeakable Violence: Remapping U.S. and Mexican National Imaginaries, released with the Duke University Press series, “Latin America Otherwise.” The work addresses the epistemic and physical violence inflicted on racialized and gendered subjects in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands from the mid-nineteenth century through the early twentieth. Arguing that this violence was fundamental to U.S., Mexican, and Chicana/o nationalisms, Nicole M. Guidotti-Hernández examines the lynching of a Mexican woman in California in 1851, the Camp Grant Indian Massacre of 1871, the racism evident in the work of the anthropologist Jovita González, and the attempted genocide, between 1876 and 1907, of the Yaqui Indians in the Arizona–Sonora borderlands. Unspeakable Violence calls for a new, transnational feminist approach to violence, gender, sexuality, race, and citizenship in the borderlands.

Congrats to both our amazing scholars! Please feel free to leave your comments below! (no registration required)
[Read more…] about Two MALCSista historians nominated for Berkshire history prize

Renowned Chicana poet, essayist, novelist and author of So Far From God, Ana Castillo will be giving a reading from books banned by TUSD to Mexican American Studies students and the general public on Friday May 4th at 6:30pm at the John Valenzuela Youth Center in South Tucson.

The reading will be followed by a fundraising reception for the “Save Ethnic Studies” organization at 8:30 at 1030 N. 4th Avenue.  Please rsvp to

Ms. Castillo offered to visit the actual classrooms in TUSD and meet the students of the dismantled MAS classes. Unfortunately, TUSD administration continued their discriminatory behavior toward MAS students by banning the media from recording Ms. Castillo’s visit, although media had been allowed access for similar author visits earlier in the year.

Ms. Castillo who was saddened by TUSD’s response said today that, “they can keep me out of the schools but as a U.S. law abiding citizen they cannot keep me out of Tucson.” In reaction, a community venue became the obvious choice for the Tucson community for all to attend. Before the actual reading Ms. Castillo will meet separately with students who were enrolled in MAS classes at 5:30pm, and discuss her writing which was a pivotal part of the program.

What: Ana Castillo Public Reading
When: Friday, May 4th, 6:30 pm
Where: John Valenzuela Youth Center, 1550 S 6th Avenue, South Tucson, AZ 85713

Fundraiser Reception
$50 donation suggested
1030 N. 4th Avenue

 

The National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project at the Washington College of Law at American University  will continue and expand the work that I have been doing for nearly 30 years.  Through our work at the Washington College of Law, NIWAP will engage a new generation of lawyers and advocates in work that benefits immigrant women, children, and immigrant survivors of domestic abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, and other crimes.

NIWAP is a national provider of training, legal and social science research, policy development, and technical assistance to advocates, attorneys, pro bono law firms, law schools, universities, law enforcement, prosecutors, social service and health care providers, justice system personnel, and other professionals who work with immigrant women, children and crime victims. Our work will include support for those in the field and in government who work to improve laws, regulations, policies, and practices to enhance legal options and opportunities for immigrant women and children. [Read more…] about New Organization: National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
“Todos Somos Arizona”: Confronting the Attacks on Difference
University of California, Santa Barbara
July 18-21, 2012

 Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) invites submissions for its annual Summer Institute to be held this year at the University of California Santa Barbara. This year’s theme is “Todos Somos Arizona:” Confronting the Attacks on Difference. [Read more…] about MALCS Summer Institute CFP July 2012 – New Deadline of May 1st!

MIA, Mujeres Iniciando en las Américas

A 10-day Delegation Uniting Guatemalan and U.S. Women and Men, July 22 – August 1, 2012

The Latin American women’s movement is recognized internationally for its advances in combating violence against women. Latin America was the first region in the world where all countries ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the first to formulate a legal instrument explicitly designed to eradicate gender violence: the Convention for the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence Against Women. This delegation will meet with civil society organizations and high-ranking officials to investigate impunity and violence against women in Guatemala.

Cost for bearing witness, organizing, and celebrating with us is $1000, including in-country transportation, food, lodging, interpretation, and honorariums for our speakers. Airfare is not included.

A deposit of $100 is due June 1, 2012, and will be non-refundable after June 25, 2012. Deposit will apply toward cost of participation. For more information on MIA’s work and past delegations visit: www.miamericas.info

MIA is a registered 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization. To apply for delegation contact: ofni.saciremaimobfsctd-4aa805@enitsuJ

 

Call for Proposals: Extended Deadline, April 1

Rethinking Power & Resistance: Gender & Human Rights from Texas to the Transnational Americas

Re-imaginando el Poder y la Resistencia: Género y Derechos Humanos desde Texas hasta las Américas Transnacionales

5-6 octubre 2012 : Austin, Texas

Conference Date: 5-6 October 2012

Conference Location: Austin, Texas

Rethinking Power and Resistance: Gender and Human Rights from Texas to the Transnational Americas is a two-day conference in which scholars, activists, community organizers, and community members will gather to collaboratively work through some of the dominant themes and tensions within contemporary engagement of human rights language and strategies.

We are looking for work that discusses new movement strategies for gender justice that work at the intersections of citizenship status, ethnicity, gender identity, indigeneity, nationality, race, and sexuality.

We are particularly interested in work that engages and reimagines human rights language (addressing the usefulness of grassroots human rights strategies and/or the harm of neoliberal human rights appropriation) regarding the following issues: Incarceration/Immigration Detention, Forced Displacement and Gentrification, and Gender Violence.

This is a bilingual conference in Spanish and English.

From Egla Martinez:

We stepped onto the stage of the Teatro Nacional in Guatemala City as the credits rolled after the long anticipated Guatemala premiere of Granito: How to Nail a Dictator (Spanish title: Granito de Arena).  The huge hall was filled to the rafters with 2500 people who rose to give a sustained standing ovation (see the video here), which only increased in volume as the people that appear in the film joined us on stage.  When Maya leader Antonio Caba Caba came up, the crowd erupted.  We are so humbled and gratified by this resounding embrace of Granito by the people of Guatemala.

And in an uncanny juncture with justice, the dictator in Granito, General Efraín Ríos Montt, appeared before a judge the same day as the premiere to petition for his case to be dismissed, and was denied– he will stand trial for genocide.  When we announced the judge’s decision at the premiere, it elicited another burst of applause – Guatemalans have been waiting 30 years for Ríos Montt to face justice.

Already since the March 1 premiere we’ve received dozens of requests to show the film in universities, Maya communities, civil society organizations and churches all over the country.  We are releasing Granito in Spanish and the Maya languages K’iche and Ixil as well.  Along with Granito, we have launched a project with Guatemalan civil society organizations to restore the collective memory of the years of armed conflict, called Granito: Every Memory Matters (Granito: Cada Memoria Cuenta).  The history of those terrible years is not taught in Guatemala, and the goal of this project is to make the historical memory available in a public archive, and raise public awareness so that that history never repeats itself.  If you have a memory of the Guatemalan conflict to share, or know of anyone who might, or just want to take a look and get involved, please visit the project – you can learn more about it by clicking here: granitomem.comPaco de Onís, Pamela Yates, Peter Kinoy, Bea Gallardo

You can purchase the DVD of Granito: How to Nail a Dictator by clicking here.WINNER OF THE CINEMA FOR PEACE AWARD FOR JUSTICE 2012

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