AS WE APPROACH THE 40th ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1985-87 CANNERY STRIKE,

PLEASE JOIN US FOR AN EVENT FEATURING FORMER STRIKERS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS.

In September 1985, in response to their employers drastically slashing salaries and health benefits, almost 2,000 workers at two canneries in Watsonville, the vast majority Mexicanas, went on strike. Over an 18-month period, these rank-and-file workers lost homes, endured hunger, and withstood police violence. They democratized local politics, challenging the racism and sexism of local unions and the power structure of Watsonville.

This presentation unravels love in its colonial manifestation as a rationale for genocidal violence. It centers in its analysis the discourse currently used by those supporting and perpetuating genocide in Gaza. Love expressed in contexts of Zionist loyalties and its brand of settler nationalism, originally and across its transit, gives us insight into the feelings that animate acts of violence. In response to it, Palestinian expression, particularly in relation to atrocity and apocalyptical dread, reveals what precedes in fundamental form and must conquer genocide. How must we bear love in the face of annihilation? What ideas of it must we confront? Whose love must we learn?

How does attention to the intimate help us understand the gendered and sexualized dynamics of empire, and the ways in which they continue to shape how we tell our stories in the present? Empire’s Mistress pieces together the life story of Isabel Rosario Cooper, a mixed-race vaudeville and early cinema star in Manila who became infamous for her liaison with General Douglas MacArthur during the height of American colonialism in the Philippines. It tracks the mobilities and relationships generated by the United States’ desire for the Philippine archipelago—and the ways in which colonized subjects—particularly women—turned those to their own advantage. The scattered and ephemeral archive of “women like her” whose cosmopolitan itineraries ranged from Manila, to Washington, D.C., and Hollywood, outline a life lived on the edges of power but always at the center of imperial desire. 

Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez is Professor of Ethnic Studies and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Empire’s Mistress, Starring Isabel Rosario Cooper and Securing Paradise: Tourism and Militarism in Hawai‘i and the Philippines. She is co-editor of Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawai’i (and the Duke University Press decolonial guide series) and the forthcoming Bangtan Remixed: A Critical BTS Reader.

How does attention to the intimate help us understand the gendered and sexualized dynamics of empire, and the ways in which they continue to shape how we tell our stories in the present? Empire’s Mistress pieces together the life story of Isabel Rosario Cooper, a mixed-race vaudeville and early cinema star in Manila who became infamous for her liaison with General Douglas MacArthur during the height of American colonialism in the Philippines. It tracks the mobilities and relationships generated by the United States’ desire for the Philippine archipelago—and the ways in which colonized subjects—particularly women—turned those to their own advantage. The scattered and ephemeral archive of “women like her” whose cosmopolitan itineraries ranged from Manila, to Washington, D.C., and Hollywood, outline a life lived on the edges of power but always at the center of imperial desire. 

Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez is Professor of Ethnic Studies and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Empire’s Mistress, Starring Isabel Rosario Cooper and Securing Paradise: Tourism and Militarism in Hawai‘i and the Philippines. She is co-editor of Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawai’i (and the Duke University Press decolonial guide series) and the forthcoming Bangtan Remixed: A Critical BTS Reader.

Come Join us to watch the groundbreaking 1954 drama about Mexican-American miners and their families fighting for dignity. Doors open at 6:00pm. Dinner provided. English Audio/Spanish subtitles.

This conversation brings together labor organizers, opposition politicians, scholars, and peace activists from South Korea to discuss the extraordinary attempt by President Yoon Seok-yeol to impose martial law on South Korea, a key U.S. ally. What are the structural conditions that enabled Yoon to declare martial law? Why is martial law in South Korea not assuredly a thing of the past? Even as the political landscape has shifted since the Carter administration authorized the deployment of South Korean military forces against the people of Gwangju who rose up for democracy in 1980, what is the U.S. role in this unfurling saga? What lessons are to be drawn from the organized resistance of the South Korean people, and what lies ahead?

Please join us in a dynamic conversation, facilitated by Simone Chun, with Jeong-eun Hwang, Haeyoung Lee, Wol-san Liem, Daehan Song, and Sung-hee Choi.

This talk will discuss the ways psychic intrusions are central features of settler colonial logics and how they are used with specific intent to disrupt solidarities. Palestine-Lebanon solidarities will be used as a "case study" to read the psycho-politico-affective forces that demobilize.

Part of the Possibilities of Palestinian Refusal: Against Disciplining Knowledge and Movement Speaking Series

Featuring:

• Kamau Sadiki

• Joycelyn Davis

Register Here: bit.ly/sept-freedomschool

Join us for an evening with the PVUSD Board Trustee candidates up for election this November.

A Question and Answer on:

• Ethnic Studies

• Student Empowerment

• Measure M Funding Priorities

• Accountability to Community

• Democratic Process and Transparency in the Board

Featuring:

• Carol Turley, Area 2

• Gabriel Medina, Area 3

• Jessica Carrasco, Area 6

• Adam Scow, Area 6

• Dr. Lourdes Barraza and Elias Gonzales, Panel Moderators

This Event is Sponsored By:

MILPA | UCSC Center for Racial Justice | Resource Center for Nonviolence | Pajaro Valley for Ethnic Studies and Justice

Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez is Professor of Ethnic Studies and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Empire’s Mistress, Starring Isabel Rosario Cooper and Securing Paradise: Tourism and Militarism in Hawai‘i and the Philippines. She is co-editor of Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawai’i (and the Duke University Press decolonial guide series) and the forthcoming Bangtan Remixed: A Critical BTS Reader

This is a story of a land grab by the US Government in 1942. It is a story of racial injustice and resistance. 80 years later [the time of filming] the 2687 acres have still yet to be given back, as promised, to the descendants of the original owners, (deeded the land in 1865) Black people living in MacIntosh County, Harris Neck, GA 

Register Here: http://bit.ly/pv4esj-townhall

Join us as we bring our Pajaro Valley Unified School District community together to educate and learn from one another on the current state of theEthnic Studies program, the Community Responsive Education contract, and to build a community rooted movement for justice and equity in PVUSD!

Through the playful, lovably naive lens of an 8-year-old Reyes, Prieto tells the story of an overprotective grandmother who recycles bottles to support her family while her grandson wonders why they can't have money like his friends. It tells the story of chismosa vecinas (gossipy neighbors) who peek through their windows and watch as the neighborhood boys tease young Reyes for "acting like a girl." To escape from the taunting and the daily toil, Reyes creates an imaginary world for himself -- one made up of books and '90s R&B. Prieto saw its world premiere production at San Francisco's Brava Theater in October 2022. Now on tour with The Living Word Project, Prieto has seen productions at San Jose Theater, and Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA) in San Jose, CA. 

In its emergence in the Cold War U.S. university, ethnic studies located itself in an international Third Worldist struggle for liberation from the shackles of imperialism. Grounded in revolutionary theory and committed to real-world action, it signaled a movement for education, in the proverbial belly of the beast, aimed at serving the broadest possible collective. Animated by the radical idea that education must serve communities, the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) was part of a movement landscape that gave rise, under the rubric of community self-determination, to what might now be called mutual aid. What lessons can we draw from over half a century of ethnic studies struggle? 

The First Amerasians tells the powerful, oftentimes heartbreaking story of how Americans created and used the concept of the Amerasian to remove thousands of mixed race children from their Korean mothers in US-occupied South Korea to adoptive American homes during the 1950s and 1960s. It explores the Cold War ideologies undergirding this so-called rescue and shows how the process of child removal and placement via US refugee and adoption laws profoundly shaped the lives of mixed race Koreans and their mothers.

Yuri W. Doolan is Assistant Professor of History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and inaugural Chair of Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies at Brandeis University. He is the author of The First Amerasians: Mixed Race Koreans from Camptowns to America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024).

During a time when ethnic studies is under highly coordinated, powerfully funded attack, this workshop focuses on the theoretical foundations of ethnic studies in order to clarify the stakes of the field as a socially transformative arena of thought and action. This workshop gives us an opportunity to collectively study theorizations of racism central to the field and to begin to consider the role of theory in the liberatory practices of ethnic studies. In small discussion groups, we will examine and analyze examples of ethnic studies theory from below and to the left.

ALL EVENTS ARE FREE

• Public Talk: Digital Arts Research Center 108

• Public Performance: Wednesday, January 17th, 2024 7:30pm | Mainstage

• Workshop: Thursday, January 18th, 2024 *for UCSC community members only

In a moment of broad statewide implementation of ethnic studies in response to AB 101, this workshop revisits the field's origins in the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) struggles led by students at Bay Area universities. Among other questions, we will explore how returning to the roots of ethnic studies enables us to understand its relevance to anticolonial and anti-racist struggles today. We will ask: how was the internationalist concept of the "Third World" vital to the field's formation? Why did the state unleash war and police power against striking students? By delving into digital archives together, we will collectively examine select materials and discuss incorporating them into teaching, in both classrooms and community spaces.

The HSI Equity Talks are a place for regular discussion on topics relevant to UCSC as a Hispanic-Serving Institution. We seek to engage speakers from across campus as we welcome the attendees to engage critically with the content presented at these talks. Together we will unpack complex topics centered on the praxis equity and servingness.

In the wake of the Jeju 4.3 Uprising and the Korean War, the women of Jeju Island were molded into “Wise Mothers, Good Wives” in service to family and nation. Following the targeted decimation of men in Jeju through counterinsurgency massacres, women were enjoined to practice self-sacrifice, uphold Confucian morality, and assume economic roles as primary caretakers. How did this process of gender formation in the aftermath of war contribute to the broader process of South Korea national reconstruction? What aspects of post-war gender ideology did Jeju women resist? By interrogating these matters, this talk examines how Jeju women’s struggles shed light on the intertwined histories of militarization and gendered violence between Korea and the United States.

Ccccome to play across love, place, memory and form, with me and my Mom, Carmelina C. Wilson, who inspired my works Carmelina: Figures (Wendy's Subway, 2021) as she volleys much into Virgil Kills: Stories (Nightboat Books, 2022). Please bring a photograph of a younger you, your fave loved one, and/or a note, playing, or at play; and you're invited to add this to our "Live, Down the Line Collage of Beings," linking us ALL together through the space of the poetic line, sentence, paragraph, and picture. Get Ready to be where you are, and to play with us, all, together in our match of shared room/s, courts and fieldzzZ....!    –Ronaldo V. Wilson

This urgent and timely event focuses on fighting the academic repression that is ramping up in concert with the Zionist genocide in Palestine. Join us this Thursday from 9am-11am PST on Zoom for a conversation between Isaac Kamola, Rana Jaleel, and Heather Steffen on countering fascistic criminalization of academic speech and strategizing around community defense and anti-repression. This event is sponsored by the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council, and co-sponsored by the National  Students for Justice in Palestine, UC Divest, the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, Decolonizing Humanism(?) at UCR's Center for Ideas and Society, Cops Off Campus at UCR, and the UCSC Center for Racial Justice.

This teach-in is open to all, but will be geared toward those teaching and TA’ing this quarter. We will contextualize the unfolding genocide on Gaza and offer resources for facilitating these discussions in your classrooms.

Rana M. Jaleel is an Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Davis. There, she is a 2022-2025 Chancellor’s Fellow and a 2021-2024 College of Arts & Sciences Dean's Faculty Fellow. She is the Chair of the Cultural Studies Graduate Group, and Faculty Advisor for the Sexuality Studies Minor. Her book, The Work of Rape received a 2021 Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award and was co-winner of the 2022 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Prize from the National Women's Studies Association. A long time member of the American Association of University Professors, she presently serves on the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure.