From Francisca James Hernandez: 
Please share these informative graphics!

[Read more…] about Free contraceptives, preventive healthcare NOW

Received from Amelia Montes: (via Kathryn Blackmer Reyes)

Update 8/2: 

Read Diane Lefer’s touching tribute to tatiana here. 

Update 8/1: 

Queridas y Queridos NACCS familia:
As you may have heard, our colega, poeta, feminista, powerful Latina Lesbiana, tatiana de la tierra has died. Tatiana and I share writing duties for an international website: La Bloga.  I would like to honor tatiana this Sunday by posting YOUR thoughts, words, memories of Tatiana.

Please send me a sentence or two to the following e-mail address: ten.knilhtraeobfsctd-37e395@54ajoral. Don’t forget to include your full name and where you are. Gracias y abrazos, Amelia [Read more…] about Rest in peace, tatiana de la tierra

Remembering this wonderful actress, Lupe Ontiveros.  

By Mireya Navarro, from the NY Times (July 27, 2012)

Lupe Ontiveros, a Mexican-American character actress who struggled through Hollywood typecasting to play memorable roles in television and film and become a model of perseverance for Latino actors, died on Thursday [July 26] in Whittier, Calif. She was 69. A son, Nicholas Ontiveros, said the cause was liver cancer.

Ms. Ontiveros worked steadily throughout a career of more than 35 years in roles as disparate as a murderous fan in “Selena” and a domineering mother in “Real Women Have Curves,” which brought her a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002. She was nominated for an Emmy as Eva Longoria’s suspicious mother-in-law in the ABC series “Desperate Housewives.”In “Selena,” released in 1997, Ms. Ontiveros was so credible as the killer of the popular Tejano music star Selena Quintanilla, played by Jennifer Lopez, that for years the singer’s fans would hiss at her when she walked into a public place.

“There were people who would stop her and say things,” the actor Edward James Olmos said. “She’d explain she felt the same way they did.”  As an actor, Mr. Olmos said, “she had this incredible ability to make you believe.”

Ms. Ontiveros’s signature role became that of the Hispanic maid, which she figured she had played more than 150 times in television and films, like James L. Brooks’s “As Good as It Gets” and Steven Spielberg’s “Goonies.”

That she was repeatedly cast in the role mostly reflected Hollywood stereotyping and the lack of variety in roles offered to Latino actors, she said.  “They don’t know we’re very much a part of this country and that we make up every part of this country,” she told The New York Times in 2002. “When I go in there and speak perfect English, I don’t get the part.”

Putting on a Spanish accent was part of acting for Ms. Ontiveros, who was born Guadalupe Moreno to Mexican immigrants on Sept. 17, 1942, in El Paso. Her parents owned two restaurants and a tortilla factory in El Paso, gave their only child dance and piano lessons, and sent her to Texas Woman’s University, where she majored in psychology and social work.

Ms. Ontiveros was working as a social worker when her artistic leanings led her to pursue acting in the 1970s.  Along with Mr. Olmos, she was a cast member of “Zoot Suit,” which in 1979 was the first Mexican-American production to come to Broadway. In 1985, she became a founder of the Latino Theater Company in Los Angeles.

….

With characteristic saltiness, Ms. Ontiveros once said, “I’ve made chicken salad” out of chicken manure. But she did not regret playing so many maids, she said, because it allowed for steady work and for portraying working people with dignity. She narrated the 2005 documentary “Maid in America.”

“I’m proud to represent those hands that labor in this country,” she told The Times. “I’ve given every maid I’ve portrayed soul and heart.”

Ms. Ontiveros, who lived in Pico Rivera, Calif., is survived by her husband, Elias Ontiveros Jr.; her sons Nicholas, Alejandro and Elias, and two granddaughters.

Complete article at the NY Times

Reprinted from Inside Higher Education
By Kerry Ann Rockquemore

Last year, sociologists tested the hypothesis that women do more service than their male counterparts at mid-career and found significant gender gaps in both service work (women do more of it) and advancement to full professor (men are more likely to advance). While working the same number of total hours, men spent seven hours more per week on research than women, who were investing that time in service and mentoring. I often work with mid-career faculty members (mostly women) who are overwhelmed with service requests, overfunctioning on departmental service, and feeling exhausted, angry and resentful about the work. And yet, when asked why they keep doing more service, I hear the same thing repeatedly: “I can’t say no.”

Given the twin realities that mid-career women (especially the “nice” and “helpful” ones) get more service requests than their male counterparts and that too many yeses suck time away from the very activities that lead down the path to promotion, it seems to me that one of the most critical skills for success at mid-career is ability to say “no” clearly and confidently and to remove the phrase “I can’t say no” from your professional vocabulary.

What Keeps You From Saying No?
If you’re someone who is overfunctioning on service to the detriment of your post-tenure pathway, don’t worry! There’s no shame in acknowledging it and moving toward an exploration of why that is your reality. In other words, if you know you should say “no” and you need to say “no” more often, then the most important question is what’s keeping you from uttering the magic word?

I’ve observed three types of factors that keep mid-career faculty (especially women) from saying “no” more often, more confidently, and more strategically then is necessary to pursue their post-tenure path: 1) Technical Errors, 2) Psychological Blocks and 3) External Realities

Read original article at Inside Higher Ed

The second day of MALCS got started off bright and early as the cool sea breeze rolled onto campus. At 9:00 I walked over to make sure all the panels were set and ready to go with their individual technology requests and I ran into none other than Ana Nieto Gomez! I had one of those moments when you become star struck by experiencing your first encounter with a scholar you have read and heard stories of. Just a few hours before I was in my apartment talking with conference attendee Liliana Trujillo and conference presenter Gloria Negrete about Maylei Blackwell’s book Chicana Power! and about the struggles our scholarly fore-madres have faced in reflection of yesterday’s Plenary on Institutional Violence. You can only imagine my surprise to see Ana in front of me when I had not even had a chance to get my coffee!

During the second plenary, there were approximately 97 people in attendance. Plenary II was titled “Technologies of Visibility: The practice of Diálogo, Testimonio y Performance” During the session, attorney Arcelia Hurtado presented a video displaying the testimonio of a young boy whose dads are gay and explained the impact that policy has on changing the ways young people feel about themselves. Martha Gonzalez showed a video displaying the ways fandango brings women together and how teaching fandango and teaching dance and musical production brings in a new method of teaching about culture and about life.

The testimonio video Stephanie showed reminded me of many of the experiences I have had in my quest to enter higher education both at the undergraduate level and the graduate level. The way the students at UTPA coordinated the Anzaldúa exhibit was truly inspirational. The project presented by Stephanie Alvarez titled “Cosecha Voices” (which documents the migrant farm worker experience) integrates performance, testimonio, and incorporates digital storytelling and diálogo with familia and amigos. When she mentioned that 80% of the students who participate in these projects graduate there was a feeling of happiness and pride throughout the auditorium. The plenary concluded with the summary of the message the panelists have tried to convey: Acknowledging invisibility because by making it visible people have to react. They may not take action but seeing it occur has the ability to transform both those who see the change and those who participate in its making.

The concluding portion of the plenary was particularly striking as Martha, Arcelia and Stephanie had the concluding synthesis presentation in which they asked plenary attendees to recite the theory on which these projects are based upon., all together in unison and in one voice. The digital storytelling has given me a breadth of ideas for my own knowledge producing methodologies and it has provided me with ideas that I can implement in my classrooms as I teach.

In the evening, MALCS attendees gathered at Casa de la Raza in Downtown Santa Barbara where we settled into our tables and ate a delicious dinner. Tortuga Award winners Gloria Cuádraz and Raquel López were announced and although Gloria was not there, Raquel gave a moving speech about her tenure as the director of Casa de la Raza. Following the presentation of the awards a collective of women named Entre Mujeres played a set of jarocho and jarocho-inspired music and dance. After a long night of selling raffle tickets, winners were announced and Rusty Barceló won the grand prize, a New black 16GB iPad. Other winners included Elvia Niebla, Cristina Serna, and Georgina Guzman. After the winners were announced the DJ got the party started with an amazing set of music and I spotted Chela Sandoval, Edwina Barvosa, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Norma Cantú and Aida Hurtado dancing the night away.

After the amazing centerpieces were swept away by attendees and the tables were picked up by the various clean up crews and the last shuttle vans rolled out, we went home with our feet throbbing, with joy in our hearts and sisterhood in our waking and sleeping dreams.