WINTER 2013 - No. 8 Chican@ Studies Department University of California, Santa Barbara 93106-4120 - 1713 South Hall Phone: (805) 893-8880 Fax: (805) 893-4076 www.chicst.ucsb.edu www.facebook.com/Chicana.o.Studies Libros, Libros, y Más Libros: Chicana and Chicano Studies in Action Cold as Editorial by Aída Hurtado Estimados Colegas, and Chicano Studies in San Antonio, Texas. ICE ! With every edition of the Chicana and Chicano It is difficult to believe that Studies Department the discipline of Chicana and e-newsletter, one can’t Chicano Studies is in decline help but feel the pos- when so many individuals sibility and magic of the manifest the vibrancy of discipline of Chicana the field in so many arenas. and Chicano Studies. It is important to remind The winter edition of ourselves that the field the e-newsletter is no emerged out of struggle and exception. You will be Aída Hurtado was created by visionaries. delighted as you read Tireless intellectuals and so- each of the articles and amazed by our cial justice seekers who did not know accomplishments as a field. From the the discipline’s trajectory but had an interview with Professor Gerardo Al- unshakeable belief in the power of dana, who had a national and interna- people to learn about themselves tional presence in scholarly and media when institutions of higher learning made them invisible. The discipline of “The books produced by these Chicana and Chicano Studies was cre- extraordinary and gifted women ated from this subterranean knowl- are small miracles that few edge with few resources and a lot of would have predicted and that dedication and corazón. It developed a space in the academy of creativity now have become and inclusiveness. It is also important foundational to the discipline to remind ourselves that building a dis- of Chicana and Chicano Studies.” cipline is not linear, without struggle, and without contention. Persistence, circles explaining the misunderstand- vision, dedication, hard work, and ing of the Mayan calendar as the end a continued belief in the power of of 2012 approached, to the beautiful positive action will lead to a more just and inspiring history of the Depart- society based on our collective pursuit ment’s Chicana Dissertation Fellow- of knowledge. ships (1978-2005), to the accomplish- In this edition: ments of our undergraduates as they There were two recent events that re- Faculty Spotlight .......................... 2 expose the public to the wealth and minded me to always have faith in the diversity of Xicana/Mexicana music, to unknown and to trust the goodness Luis Leal Memorial ..................... 3 the continuing richness of the Depart- and dedication of the human spirit. Chicana Dissertation Fellowship ... 4 ment’s intellectual life as represented The first was the archival research Featured Scholar ..........................7 in the quarterly colloquium series, and conducted for the Chicana Fellowship Undergraduate Corner ................ 8 finally to the extraordinary range of article included in this newsletter. research presented by our graduate Over and over we heard recipients of NACCS 2013 .............................. 10 students and faculty at the meetings the fellowship share stories of how Dpt. Colloquium ........................ 11 of the National Association for Chicana (Continued on page 9) [1] the Copan dynasty, for example, may not have been a favored prince from Teotihuacan, bringing a new order to part of the Maya region. He may Faculty Spotlight: have been a refugee from a crumbling metropolis, looking for someplace far Gerardo Aldana from home to set up shop. Without a By D. Inés Casillas secure calendar correlation, though, we have to be open to both (and more) possibilities. Q: Because of your work, you have travelled extensively throughout Q: Is there anyone happier than you Mexico. What is one of your favorite to see this 2012 hype fade? areas to revisit? A: That would be hard to imagine. A: This is impossible to respond to, When it first started to get big in the so I’ll just go with the most recent. I media, my colleagues and I agreed was just at el Lago de Santiago Ati- that we should take it as an opportuni- tlan in the Highlands of Guatemala ty—a chance to bring up some of the and it was straight power. The lake academic interpretations of ancient is surrounded by volcanoes, so you Mayan cultures. In every interview see these massive clouds roll in in the or talk I’ve given, for example, I’ve in- afternoon, playing with the moun- cluded references to individual Mayan tain peaks. Then there are lightning historical figures, like K’an B’ahlam, storms nightly right over the water, the ruler of Palenque who patronized so you feel the thunder and see these the hieroglyphic texts that have been bolts of electricity along with their misinterpreted to drive much of the reflections. The first night I was there 2012 hype. But mostly this has been I was awakened in the early morning ignored, and we’ve found ourselves by an earthquake—it turns out they’re spending our time talking about what Q: Your recent work challenges Maya very common in the area. So basically the ancient Maya were not. scholars the soundness of the fixed what’s so impressive is that you can’t numerical value (called the GMT help but feel that the earth is very Q: You were interviewed on numerous constant) to correlate the dates on much alive—not just teaming with life occasions by news sources to com- the ancient Maya calendar with those (as in bugs, birds, reptiles, etc.), but ment on 2012. on the modern cal- geologically alive. It’s nothing like the What was your endar. You make paved-over, polluted, insulated experi- standard line? a groundbreak- ences we get used to in so many cities “It’s a powerful thing to see what ing point that the in the U.S. A: I’m going with indigenous authors reading of the cal- “a perfect storm endar may be off Q. You are, quite possibly, the only of misinforma- wrote for indige- by 50 to 100 years. Chicano Studies professor in the tion.” You really nous audiences, Holy. Smokes. nation who teaches a glyph course. have a situation and then to find that that has How do Chicanos react to learning an in which a few been totally reinterpreted by A: I think one of ancestral language/code of writing? misunderstand- others for their own purposes.” the interesting pos- ings have come sibilities has to do A: It takes all forms, which is actu- together in with the relation- ally pretty nice. Some students are the ‘atmosphere of cyberspace’ to ship between the relieved to finally get at the sources of produce an effect that is far greater Classic Maya and other parts of Meso- where so many interpretations of Me- than the sum of its individual parts. america. With the GMT, for example, soamerica come from. It’s a powerful From there, it’s just a matter of going the intense interactions between thing to see what indigenous authors through the errors: problems with Teotihuacan (the massive Classic wrote for indigenous audiences, and interpreting mythology, problems period city outside of current Mexico then to find that that has been totally interpreting the Mayan calendar, City) and Tikal (a “superpower” of reinterpreted by others for their own problems interpreting astronomical Classic Mayan civilization) occur during purposes. What I find most reward- records, hieroglyphic records… the the height of Teotihuacan’s power. If ing, though, is when students begin farther you go, the more there is to the GMT is off significantly, then the to get past the exoticism and see the get wrong, and the bigger the storm. connection may have been triggered real people behind the texts. When The result, then, is a devastation of by the decline of Teotihuacan, and that they start seeing the men and women the public understanding of who the would give us a very different overall who were just as complicated as any ancient Maya were. scenario. Yax K’uk’ Mo’, the founder of (Continued on page 9) [2] Quince Cajas de Libros (Fifteen Boxes of Books) Ode to Don Luis Leal (Participants at the event from Left to Right: Mario Garcia, Philip Wyatt, Antonio Leal, Aída Hurtado, Sara Poot-Herrera, Carlos Fuentes, and D. Inés Casillas) Then I think, and think, and I can’t seem to get the thought out of my mind—quince cajas de libros [fifteen boxes of books]—what do these books symbolize? What do they mean for a life lived? Our department commemorates the life and work of Don Luis Leal each I pick up a few—beautifully aged, January. Aida Hurtado holds the mostly yellow, mostly soft covered— Luis Leal Endowed Chair. Below are not the fancy type that line the library excerpts from her ode shared at our walls of Downton Abbey. And I smile, community celebration. one of Don Luis’ jokes comes to mind the memory of spending long hours as told to me by Professor Lomelí— reading in the McAllen Public Library I received an email telling me, “we “Don Luis used to say, ‘Yes, I had a as a refuge from the racism in South have fifteen boxes of Don Luis’s professor come and ask me—Profes- Texas, the classism in my high school, books—they are about to be burned sor Leal, I heard they are dedicating a of the restrictions girls always experi- if no one claims them. The library has library in your honor at Oxford—you ence when you are too bookish.