Cultural Writing. Latino/Latina Studies. Art. For more than three decades, Self Help Graphics &amp; Art has been a national model for community-based art making and art-based community making. Through its innovative printmaking and other programs, Self Help has empowered local artists and reached out to the world beyond East Los Angeles with the vibrancy of Chicano/Latino art. In addition to the historical essay, the book includes a finding aid to the CEMA archives and a note on strategic partnerships between the public university and community-based arts.

Self Help Graphics & Art

Arts & Photography

Guzman, Kristen

History & Criticism

UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press

The Art of Healing Latinos collects the wisdom of health professionals who have particular expertise in treating Latino patients. Their knowledge comes from many years of service in fields that range from pediatrics to geriatrics, oncology to psychology. Uniquely qualified to bridge the gap between the world of American medicine and the traditions of Latino culture, these physicians, researchers, administrators, and activists offer insight and advice to all who provide, or aspire to provide, health services to the Latino community.

The Art of Healing Latinos: Firsthand Accounts from Physicians and Other Health Advocates

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

“It is important for us to be visually literate; it is a survival skill. The media is what passes for culture in contemporary U.S. culture, and it is extremely powerful. It is crucial that we systematically explore the cultural misdefinition of Mexicans and Latin Americans that is presented in the media.” —Yolanda López
Chicana artist Yolanda López achieved international recognition for her groundbreaking and controversial Virgin of Guadalupe series of paintings (1975–78) in which she transformed the beloved icon in order to celebrate and sanctify ordinary Mexican and Mexican American women as hardworking, assertive, and vibrant. Born in San Diego, California, López formally trained as a painter but has since expanded into a variety of media, including installation, video, and slide presentations.
Karen Mary Davalos identifies the themes and concerns that unify the artist’s diverse body of work. At times playful, political, and feminist, López is unwavering in her commitment to representing the experiences of Mexican American women in the United States, confronting stereotypes about Latin Americans and challenging U.S. immigration policy.
Karen Mary Davalos is associate professor of Chicano/a studies at Loyola Marymount University and the author of Exhibiting Mestizaje.

Yolanda M. López (A Ver: Revisioning Art History, Volume 2)

Karen Mary Davalos

Gronk was born in 1954 in the barrios of East Los Angeles. An autodidact by circumstance, he began his career as an urban muralist who had to look up the word “mural” to know whether he could paint one. Over time, he has grown into an international figure who has created grand sets for operas and computerized animation for panoramic screens.
In this sweeping examination of Gronk’s oeuvre, Max Benavidez elucidates how the artist can cross genres, sexual categories, and ethnic barriers, yet still remain true to himself. From street murals to mail art, from large-scale action painting to performance art and operatic set design, Gronk has made a lasting mark on the Chicano art movement, the punk scene, gay art, and the cultural world stage. As a founder of the East L.A. avant-garde art collective Asco (Spanish for nausea), Gronk and his contemporaries responded to Hollywood’s rejection of Chicanos by creating a conceptual countercinema, the No Movie, that incorporated Hollywood imagery and style even as it wickedly dissected the banality and biases of the mass media. In collaborations with Cyclona, Mundo Meza, Jerry Dreva, and Tomata DuPlenty, Gronk challenged the limits of sexuality, gender norms, and taste. 
What Benavidez ultimately reveals is Gronk’s uncanny power to reinvent himself and his art, moving through one vivid artistic and subcultural scene to another. Add large doses of Gronk’s wit, irony, and talent and you have the story of his major contribution not only to Chicano art but to late twentieth-century culture. 
Max Benavidez is a writer, independent scholar, essayist for the Los Angeles Times, and a consultant to a wide range of cultural and academic institutions.

Gronk (A Ver: Revisioning Art History, Volume 1)

Max Benavidez

In Paths to Discovery a group of extraordinary Chicanas trace how their interest in math and science at a young age developed into a passion fed by talent and determination. Today they are teaching at major universities, setting public and institutional policy, and pursuing groundbreaking research. These testimonios―personal stories―will encourage young Chicanas to enter the fields of mathematics, science, and engineering and to create futures in classrooms, boardrooms, and laboratories across the nation.

Paths to Discovery: Autobiographies from Chicanas with Careers in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

The Fire of Life, the collection of performance artist Robert Legorreta, is a fascinating and eclectic archive. Correspondence, artwork, photographs, and other materials document Legorreta’s artistic career and trace the development of the East L.A. arts scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The collection contains more than a thousand LPs, gathered primarily for the Latino imagery on their covers, and toys, coupons, and ads, that show how Latino themes have been used to promote consumer products.

The Fire of Life: The Robert Legorreta-Cyclona Collection (Chicano Archive)

Hernández, Robb

Ruben C. Cordova traces the history of Con Safo, one of the earliest and most significant of the Chicano art groups, from 1968, when it formed as El Grupo, to the mid-1970s, when Con Safo gradually disbanded. Founded by Felipe Reyes, the original group was made up of six San Antonio artists. The fluxuating membership over the decade of the group's existence included Mel Casas, Jose Esquivel, Rudy Treviño, and Roberto Ríos. Although the structure of the original group changed, its mission did not: Con Safo defined possibilities for Chicano art at a time when Chicano culture was largely invisible. Cordova’s painstaking research, which included extensive archival work and interviews with group members and activists, resolves many of the contradictions and fills in many of the gaps that exist in earlier accounts of the group. Con Safo: The Chicano Art Group and the Politics of South Texas is an important resource for anyone interested in Chicano art and Chicano history. The book concludes with reproductions of original documents related to the group, including Casas’s “Brown Paper Report."

Con Safo: The Chicano Art Group and the Politics of South Texas

Cordova, Ruben C.

The second edition of the Chicano Studies Reader brings this best-selling anthology up to date with a new section, "Continuing to Push Boundaries." Five additional essays address current issues, including cross-disciplinary studies, investigations of mass media and public culture, and explorations of the intersection of race, sexuality, and citizenship. These essays correspond to the themes that organize the original set of essays: "Decolonizing the Territory," "Performing Politics," "Configuring Identities, and Remapping the World." The revised edition documents the foundation of Chicano studies, testifies to its broad disciplinary range, and explores its continuing development.
The contributors are Eric Avila, Maxine Baca Zinn, Gilberto Cardenas, David Carrasco, Angie Chabram-Dernersesian, John Alba Cutler, Karen Mary Davalos, Adelaida R. Del Castillo, Shifra M. Goldman, Juan Gomez-Qui-ones, Deena J. Gonzalez, Ramon A. GutiŽrrez, Jorge A. Huerta, Jessica E. Jones, Chon A. Noriega, AmŽrico Paredes, Fernando Peoalosa, Rafael Perez-Torres, Beatriz M. Pesquera, David Roman, Robert Chao Romero, Rosaura Sanchez, Chela Sandoval, Alex M. Saragoza, Denise A. Segura, Marian E. Schlotterbeck, Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell, Kay Turner, and Steven S. Volk.
"This volume should be required reading for any undergraduate or graduate course in ethnic studies." -George Sanchez, president of the American Studies Association
"A landmark collection on the state of Chicano studies." -Alberto Lopez Pulido, University of San Diego, in American Quarterly

The Chicano Studies Reader: An Anthology of Aztlan, 1970-2010

Reference

Since the late 1960s, photographer Oscar Castillo has documented the Chicano community in Los Angeles and South Texas, from major political events to cultural practices to the work of muralists and painters. His photographs explore major themes (social movement, cultural heritage, urban environment, and everyday barrio life) and approaches (photojournalism, portraiture, art photography). The Oscar Castillo Photograph Collection includes over 3,000 images by the photographer that are available through an online digital archive at UCLA. Colin Gunckel brings together essays by scholars and artists who consider the social, political, historical, and aesthetic dimensions of Castillo's work. An illustrated section features selections from the digital archive. The book includes illustrations from the digital archive, a detailed finding aid for the Oscar Castillo Papers, a small collection of correspondence and other documents housed at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, and a collection-level description of the digital archive. A selected bibliography completes the volume. This book is made possible in part with support from The Getty Foundation. Honorable Mention, Best Reference Book - English from the 2012 International Latino Book Awards

Oscar Castillo Papers and Photograph Collection (Chicano Archives)

Photography & Video

Oral history has been employed for decades by anthropologists, historians, and sociologists to collect data about lived experience. This volume explores how oral history, using video recordings and storytelling as well as interviews, can be used for a number of purposes in communities of color. The authors discuss oral histories that are intended not only to record the culture and history of understudied communities; they also address other goals, such as increasing student interaction with diverse communities and developing effective health interventions. Oral History and Communities of Color presents five essays, each of which considers a different racial/ethnic community: Asian American, American Indian, Latino, African American, and Muslim. Interviews with two scholars who integrate oral history into their research touch on oral history's theoretical foundation in cultural anthropology, particular considerations for collecting oral histories in specific communities, and the importance of including the narrator's personal story.

Oral History and Communities of Color

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