(MALCS) Women Active in Letters and Social Change
Based on Antonia Castaneda’s 2012 MALCS Plenary presentation “MALCS’ Decolonizing Work: Naming and Undoing Institutional Violence, From SB1070 to Chicana/o Studies”
Reprinted from News from Nepantla, UCSB Chicano Studies Newsletter, Fall 2011, No. 5. Â Thank you to Aida Hurtado, Jessica Lopez Lyman, andWilliam Calvo-Quiros.
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,” Â 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. Â 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 RodrÃguez and Martha González, cover artwork by José RamÃrez, 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
History Professor Deena J. Gonzalez, Chair of Chicana/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University, and most recently Director of Faculty Development, has been promoted to Associate Provost at LMU.
LMU Provost Joseph Hellige announced:
“During the last year, we have been fortunate to have Dr. Deena González serving as Director of Faculty Development. I am pleased to tell you that this position is being expanded to consolidate more aspects of faculty life and that Dr. González has agreed to serve as Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs. In this role, she will oversee and coordinate the faculty promotion and tenure process, the preparation of faculty contracts, the faculty sabbatical process, and Chair and Director appointments. The Associate Provost will also continue to provide leadership and coordination for programs to support faculty development, including orientation, mentoring, recognition and awards, and work-life balance. In these activities, Dr. González will work collaboratively with various constituencies including the faculty, Deans, and the Committee on Rank and Tenure.â€
Dr. Gonzalez was named an ACE (American Council on Education) Fellow in 2010-11; she was the first Chicana Ph.D. awardee from UC Berkeley’s history department (1985) and is a founding authority in Chicana/o history, Borderlands Studies, and U.S. women’s history. Author of the monograph, Refusing the Favor (Oxford Univ Press) as well as two major encyclopedia projects in U.S. Latino/a Studies, also with Oxford University Press, she  serves currently as series co-editor for the Chicana Matters Series, University of Texas Press, with fifteen volumes, to date, and four more forthcoming.
MALCS Listjefa Nicole Guidotti-Hernandez recently webpublished this review essay at Ms.Magazine:
The impact of homegrown, San Antonio-based, all-woman band Girl in a Coma stretches far beyond the borders of Texas. Its fourth album Exits and All the Rest, recently named to NPR’s 50 best of 2011, shows the band’s range of talents–from the Morrissey-inspired “Smart†to the rough-edged anthem:
Phanie Diaz, Nina Diaz and Jenn Alva bring renewed vitality and political charge to what have historically been labeled “girl bands.â€
Don’t let their name fool you: GIAC is wide awake (their name is based on the song “Girlfriend in a Coma†from the Morrissey-led British band The Smiths), and its bluesy, rock sound gains tremendous force from Nina Diaz’s distinct vocals. These women are the real thing–and that’s probably why rock pioneer Joan Jett signed them to her Blackheart Records in 2006. “Joan really understands where we are coming from,†Phanie Diaz tells the Ms. Blog…..
Veterana Scholar-Activist Betita Martinez (a bio here) is increasingly frail, and has been moved from her Mission District Apartment to a residential care facility in SF by friends and family.  Several MALCSistas have suggested that local MALCS honor Betita’s accomplishments and hold a fundraiser for her medical needs…..
This post will be updated regularly and includes:
If you can offer direct financial support, please send to: Â Tony Platt, Prof Emeritus CSUS, 1607 Josephine Street, Berkeley, CA 94703 USA
[Read more…] about Update on Betita Martinez’ health from Tony Platt
By Nicole Guidotti-Hernandez, from the blog of Ms. Magazine …
Before I finished my Ph.D., I worked in the cosmetics industry for ten years as a makeup artist for Lauder Corp, which owns such prestige brands as Clinique, Estee Lauder, Bobbi Brown and MAC. The cosmetics industry is often a place where Chicanas and Latinas work their way through school, and I was one of them.
Knowing what I know about the industry and who works in it–and knowing that MAC, in particular, markets to women of color a makeup line that caters to their skin tones with multiple pigments–I am appalled by the lack of social awareness that spawned the Rodarte/MAC collaboration that resulted in the “Juarez-inspired†cosmetics line, with colors such as “Juarez,†“factory†and “ghost townâ€.
While MAC back-peddled and apologized for its “unfortunate choice of names†and promised to donate a portion of its proceeds from the cosmetics to the people of Juarez, their initial decision to go forward with it signifies the lack of awareness about violence against women that have characterized the Juarez situation for the last 10 years. It seems that the Rodarte designers and MAC have more consciousness about protecting animals from harm in testing products than they do about the human lives lost daily in the war zone that is the city of Juarez. It’s hip to personify death in cosmetic colors rather than engage a bleak and violent reality.
Let me explain. Since taking office in 2005, Mexican President Felipe Calderón has escalated the war against drug cartels, and Juarez has been a loci of retaliatory violence between federal police, the Mexican military, U.S. DEA agents, and drug cartels. The violence from the drug war has become so bad that border dwellers from Mexico have been seeking asylum on the U.S. side because their families and businesses have been threatened.
A Chicana/o Studies Ph.D. Program will be opening soon at UCLA. Under the leadership of Alicia Gaspar de Alba, current Chair of the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, the proposal for a combined MA/PhD degree program was approved by the University of California System on June 1, 2010.
UCLA will now be the second university in the world to offer a Ph.D. Program that focuses on Chicana/o Studies. The first PhD program in Chicana/o Studies was established at U.C. Santa Barbara in 2005. Michigan State University has a PhD in Chicano/Latino Studies. UCLA now joins their ranks, and will begin accepting applications in Fall 2010. We will admit our first cohort of graduate students in Fall 2011. Only students whose objective is the PhD (we will have no stand-alone MA, in other words), will be admitted. For more information about the program requirements, see our departmental webpage: https://www.chavez.ucla.edu.
Si Se Puede!
Alicia
