Register here: https://forms.gle/DiTiWD6NuzySAFcdA

Come learn about local movements for sanctuary, Palestine, workers, and antiracism! Please join us for the kick-off of Santa Cruz in Color, our open-access archive of local people’s struggles for justice. This launch of "A People's Archive of Santa Cruz" will feature presentations, workshops, and a community conversation.

About the project: SANTA CRUZ IN COLOR is a local social movement archive that extends the transformative reach of regional struggles against structural violence, dispossession, and exploitation into the present. Reimagining the greater Santa Cruz area against the implied whiteness of its “surf, sun, sustainable farming, and redwoods” image and its self-advertised lure as a Central Coast getaway, this open-access archive focuses on peoples’ struggles for life possibility, justice, and dignity in the most unaffordable area of the country. This teachable archive enables us, through study, to sharpen our understanding of the local landscape and strengthen our own movement work. Through community oral histories, curated historical documents, study modules, and walking tours, SCC facilitates public education on and critical engagement with grassroots mobilizations against racial injustice, labor exploitation, deportation, imperialist and neoliberal foreign policy, regional militarization, police violence and repression, displacement/gentrification, environmental racism, and educational inequity in our area.

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

Thursday, May 22, 2025 4:00pm-6:00pm | Cervantes Velasquez Room, Bay Tree Bldg, 420 Hagar Dr, Santa Cruz, CA

Land education, as both theory and pedagogy, works to unsettle the colonial dynamics that often remain quietly buried within land relations and learning environments. In this talk, I think with the geographies of Palestine to engage in a critical reading of two landscapes - pine forests and olive groves - to confront the ways in which settler colonial inheritances manifest across ecologies. From this reading, I discuss how pedagogical experiences and curricular designs rooted in land, for example, tree planting activities that are pervasive environmental education, can serve to either reinscribe colonial dynamics or, alternatively, can be designed in ways that build transnational solidarities and prefigure decolonial futures.

Maria E. Ramirez, of Chicana, Puerto Rican, and Apache heritage, was a 1960s student activist fighting for racial justice in higher education. After joining Los Siete in San Francisco through her UCB prison project work, she left college for full-time community activism. In 1972, she became one of the first Chicanas to visit China. Later returning to Union City, she earned her master's degree and has served as a community college counselor for over 25 years while developing her storytelling show "Chicana Herstory." She continues fighting gentrification and pollution as co-founder of Families United for Equity, advocating for the developmentally disabled.

Tsering Wangmo Dhompa's most recent work is The Politics of Sorrow (Columbia University Press). Other works include the chapbook Revolute (Albion Books, 2021) three collections of poetry: My Rice Tastes Like the Lake, In the Absent Everyday and Rules of the House (all from Apogee Press, Berkeley). Dhompa's first non-fiction book, A Home to Tibet was published by Penguin India. Dhompa is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Villanova University.

Reading Seminar: Wednesday, April 30, 2025 12:30-2:00pm | HUM 1 RM 408

This talk explores the linkages between the Dirty War in Argentina and the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea that have been obfuscated and erased by disciplinary borders. Dr. Kim examines the connections and intimacies between the overlapping histories of these two cities demonstrating the ways in which Global South countries were violently conscripted into dirty wars against communism. Through an analysis of Im Heung-soon's documentary Good Light, Good Air (2021), she reveals how missing bodies and transformed urban spaces haunt Gwangju and Buenos Aires, proposing that Korean-Latin American connections offer possibilities for imagining decolonial futures.

Dr. Kim's interdisciplinary research examines intersections of settler militarism, imperialism, and racial capitalism across East Asia, Latin America, and Asian American diasporas. Her current book project, Cacophonous Intimacies, centers Asian diasporas in Latin America while revealing connections between multiple imperialisms and postcolonial nation-building. She serves on editorial boards for numerous academic book series and is a core member of the Ending the Korean War Teaching Collective.

Talk: Tuesday, April 29, 2025 3:30-5:00pm | HUM 1 RM 202

This talk explores the linkages between the Dirty War in Argentina and the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea that have been obfuscated and erased by disciplinary borders. Dr. Kim examines the connections and intimacies between the overlapping histories of these two cities demonstrating the ways in which Global South countries were violently conscripted into dirty wars against communism. Through an analysis of Im Heung-soon's documentary Good Light, Good Air (2021), she reveals how missing bodies and transformed urban spaces haunt Gwangju and Buenos Aires, proposing that Korean-Latin American connections offer possibilities for imagining decolonial futures.

Dr. Kim's interdisciplinary research examines intersections of settler militarism, imperialism, and racial capitalism across East Asia, Latin America, and Asian American diasporas. Her current book project, Cacophonous Intimacies, centers Asian diasporas in Latin America while revealing connections between multiple imperialisms and postcolonial nation-building. She serves on editorial boards for numerous academic book series and is a core member of the Ending the Korean War Teaching Collective.

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

Thursday, April 24, 2025 4:00pm-6:00pm | Zoom

Register Here: https://ucsc.zoom.us/meeting/register/aiwZAJPTSS2NrUcA9f4Z9g

Analyses of Palestinian poetics often expose the violent structure of ongoing-Nakba — the Zionist settler-colonial uprooting and removal of Palestinians (both physically from the land and physiologically from life) since 1948. Thinking beyond colonial epistemology, however, is not merely a task of refuting settler-colonial narratives but of dismantling the very ways of knowing that produce them. This talk re-centers a Palestinian analytic through the lens of "radicality," which encompasses both Palestinian rootedness and revolutionary movement. This radicality both predates and regenerates in contravention of settler colonialism's violent uprootings/removals, unsettling colonial-national constructs of spatial belonging, and cohering the decolonization of literary analysis to then decolonization of our physical geographies. Palestinian writers navigate the dynamic tensions between rootedness and movement to forge liberatory pathways, opening up alternative horizons of political and creative possibility.

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