It's quiet now on the 5th floor of the Social Sciences Building, as I write these words, but wow, what a year it's been.
Our students practiced what it means to fashion a world within the Department, and within the university, that centralizes care, community, public engagement, and solidarity. The undergraduate lounge was a-buzz with activity, and the grad lounge too. The Barbara Christian Conference Room played host to lively intellectual exchanges among students, scholars, and the Berkeley community. The Department sponsored or co-sponsored dozens of events across the campus, from a photo exhibit about the Braceros to video art about Palestine to a lecture about the unnaming of Kroeber Hall. Our newest members of the faculty--Vernadette Gonzalez, Long Le-Khac, Lorena Oropeza, and Nicholas Vargas--all generously infused our Department with dynamic vision and creativity. Our lecturers met the moment with coursework chock full of analysis and inspiration. And our staff, day in and day out, ensured that Ethnic Studies is a place for all to thrive.
This Spring Newsletter provides a snapshot of the world Ethnic Studies has been busy building, in big ways and small, individually and collectively. For a comprehensive rundown of Department news, we invite you to check out our website. In the weeks ahead, we'll be welcoming our second cohort of Ethnic Studies educators into the High School Ethnic Studies Initiative(link is external)(link is external)(link is external), to participate in a week-long summer workshop. We'll also be upgrading the AV in the Barbara Christian Conference Room. And the staff are hard at work giving our website a major refresh, which we hope to launch in the fall. Stay tuned! Enjoy enjoy, get some rest, and see you in the Fall!
Keith P. Feldman
Chair, Ethnic Studies
Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies
Sonia Cristina Hart Suárez
“Panza Awareness: Constellations of Health and Healing Toward a Decolonial, Feminist Turn in Race-Conscious Medicine”
Committee Members
Chair - Ramon Grosfoguel
Academic Senate Representative - Charles Briggs
Additional Representatives - Winston Tseng
Joshua Acosta ♢ Jessica Jiang ♢ Breylan Martin ♢ Aneliza Ruiz
ASIAN AMERICAN AND ASIAN DIASPORA STUDIES
Ly Eang Ia ♢ Kylie Ka Lee ♢ Chloe Janelle Punsalan
CHICANX LATINX STUDIES
Priscilla Carrillo ♢ Cesar Castillo ♢ Jazmin Colon ♢ Agustin Barrera Cruz ♢ Mark Del Toro ♢ Angelica Garcia ♢ Angel Luis Garcia Ballesteros ♢ Sam Rose Garcia ♢ Ana Eva Jimenez ♢ Jackie Kleeberg ♢ Brian Aureliano Lopez-Gonzalez ♢ Nancy Martinex ♢ Keenia Saray Mata ♢ Alondra Medrano ♢ Jessica Mendez ♢ Lucia Meza ♢ Andrea Molina ♢ Sarah Morales ♢ Daniel Najera ♢ Alexa Navarro ♢ Wendolyn Ojeda ♢ Melissa Melanie Palmerin ♢ Alexander Miguel Parra ♢ Kimberley Pena Diaz ♢ Alexander Quiroz ♢ Enrique Renteria Jr. ♢ Tania Sarai Salceda ♢ Alondra Torres Arenas ♢ Isabella Rosalie Torres ♢ Sarai Yepiz
ETHNIC STUDIES
Sana Afzal ♢ Gabrielle Velasquez Arreola ♢ Vanessa Bermudez ♢ Charyl Hannah Bowens ♢ Adam Brownell ♢ Kayla Cabrera ♢ Victoria Hom Cantrell ♢ Brenda Carrillo ♢ Maria Casique Leon ♢ Dominic Eric Cedillo ♢ Isela Liliana Chacon ♢ Jadyn Mahleah de Leon ♢ Alexandra Denise Dizon Cruz ♢ Suyen Dominguez ♢ Erika Estrada ♢ April Fernandez Rebolledo ♢ Marcus Andres Romero Garcia ♢ Xitlaly Garcia Olivera ♢ Kimberly Michel Hernandez Tay ♢ Ana Eva Jimenez ♢ Amir Lahai ♢ Junior Mejia ♢ Melody Moneda ♢ Alexis Azerth Murillo Amezcua ♢ Bianca Torres Murray ♢ Sade Oxlajj Neri ♢ Isayah Nuestro ♢ Alexia Perez Gamboa ♢ Kaya Poff ♢ Tara Rajan Popović ♢ Elizabeth Aileen Preovolos ♢ Flor Rios ♢ Deni Rodriguez ♢ David Muvid Marcelino Ruiz ♢ Quetzal Adrianna Ruvalcaba ♢ Grace Saechao ♢ Alaa Safia ♢ Julissa Acevado Salinas ♢ Jesmane Sanches ♢ Alishba Sardar ♢ Jessica Shim ♢ Maneek Sidhu ♢ Leilani Khalil Stewart ♢ Marianne Taleb ♢ Patrisia Xochitl Toscano ♢ Cát-Vi Trấn ♢ Fine Ashley Haualofa Tuitupou ♢ Alexis Turner ♢ Magdalena Ulloa ♢ Madeleine Vea ♢ Erica Villegas Padilla
NATIVE AMERICAN STUDIES
Indigo Carlson ♢ Poppy Gallegos-Zingarell
Chicanx Latinx Studies
Angelica Garcia
“Por Ustedes y Para Ustedes” Faculty Advisor: Pablo Gonzalez
Angel Luis Garcia Ballestero
“Eating, Surviving, and Resisting: How California’s Incarcerated Communities Counter the Growing Neoliberal Carceral Landscape” Faculty Advisor: Pablo Gonzalez
Bianca Regina Martinez
“Fortaleza Familiar: The Impact of Familismo on First-Generation, Low-Income Chicanx University Students” Faculty Advisor: Pablo Gonzalez
Melissa Melanie Palmerin
“The Act of Learning How to Struggle: Movidas of the 1960s and 1990s Undertaken by Chicano/a/x Students at UC Berkeley” Faculty Advisor: Juan Berumen
Alexander Miguel Parra
“Resisting Algorithmic Oppression: Community Organizing Using Social Media in El Sereno, Los Angeles” Faculty Advisor: Pablo Gonzalez
Tania Sarai Salceda
“Youth, Communidad, and Educational Tracking: A Common Latinx Central Coast Experience and Formation of Identity” Faculty Advisor: Pablo Gonzalez
Ethnic Studies
Sana Afzal
“Being Muslim at UC Berkeley: Negotiating Religious Practice as an Undergraduate Student” Faculty Advisor: Carolyn Chen
Jadyn Mahleah de Leon
“QTBIPOC Identity and Community in Berkeley, 2024” Faculty Advisor: Ray Telles
Xitlaly Garcia Olivera
“The Environmental and Sociological Impacts of Foreign Mining on Zapotec Communities in Oaxaca, Mexico”Faculty Advisor: Pablo Gonzalez
Jasmine Lozano Castillo
“Covid’s Collateral: Navigating Grief’s Unseen Impact Among First Generation College Students in the Wake of Covid” Faculty Advisor: Pablo Gonzalez
Alexis Azereth Murillo Amezcua
“Poniendo la bandera Mexicana bien en alto: Peso Pluma, Corridos Tumbados, and Afro-Caribbean/Diasporic Sonic Extraction through Mexican Nationalist Discourse” Faculty Advisor: Victoria Robinson
Sade Oxlajj Neri
“Aqui y Alla, Dentro y Fuera: Transgenerational Mexicana Emotional Health and Healing” Faculty Advisor: Pablo Gonzalez
Isayah Nuestro
“Out of the Fire: Indigenous Peoples and Ecological Crisis in the American West” Faculty Advisor: John Dougherty
Tara Rajan Popović
“South Asian Coalitional Futures: Community Organizing and Diasporic Identity(ies) in the Bay Area” Faculty Advisor: Victoria Robinson
Quetzel Adrianna Ruvalcaba
“Contesting Carceral CARE: SB 1338 as a Policy of De-Facto Criminalization and Banishment” Faculty Advisor: Victoria Robinson
Alishba Sardar
“The Promises and Limits of University Support for Foster Care Students: Defining Care” Faculty Advisor: Salar Mameni
Leilani Khalil Stewart
"Race, Rape, and the Law: The Historical Development of Black Womanhood in the Face of Racialized Sexual Violence" Faculty Advisor: Keith Feldman
Magdalena Ulloa
“How can Ethnic Studies Foster the Development of a Socially Aware Citizen Using Care and Diverse Teaching Methodologies?” Faculty Advisor: Salar Mameni
Poppy Gallegos-Zingarelli
“Native American Stereotypes in American Summer Camps: The Indigenous Experience, Culture Shifts and the Improvement of Camp Mendocino’s Culture” Faculty Advisor: Shari Huhndorf
Take a look at some of the great events we sponsored this year!
August 28, 2023
Fall 2023 Welcome Luncheon
September 18, 2023
Cheryl Suzack, “Bella Bella Research Stories: Reflections on Being a Guest and Researcher in Heitsuk Territory”
September 21, 2023
Piss E Sissy, Kayla Tange, Empress Wu, and Zihan Loo, “Intimate Collections: Artists Archiving Sex in the Asian Diaspora”
September 22, 2023
Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Health Equity in a Post-Covid Era: Pathways for Advocacy, Leadership, and Research
September 28, 2023
Latinx Poetry Now: A Reading and Conversation with J. Michael Martinez + aracelis girmay
October 2, 2023
The Strikers of Coachella, a book talk with Christian O. Paiz
October 18, 2023
On-Campus Info Session - The Beinecke Scholarship
October 19, 2023
Ilan Pappe, “Crisis in Zionism, Opportunity for Palestine?”
November 1, 2024
Tanya Lukin Linklater, "Ewako ôma askiy. This then is the earth."
November 1, 2024
Gaza Teach-In, with Angela Davis, Ussama Makdisi, Samera Esmeir, Harvey Dong, and Hatem Bazian
November 13, 2023
Raven Chacon, “What Gets Amplified”
December 7, 2023
Ethnic Studies Holiday Party
January 19, 2024
The Unnaming of Kroeber Hall, a book talk with Andrew Garrett
Spring 2024
“Let’s Talk about Palestine” Lecture Series, featuring Hatem Bazian, Ahmad Diab, Samera Esmeir, Keith Feldman, Ussama Makdisi, Stefania Pandolfo, and Wadie Said
February 15 - March 15, 2024
Photo Exhibition: The Braceros and the Rubber Soldiers: A History of Labor and Power in the Americas
February 15, 2024
Betty Shamieh, "Reorienting American Theater"
February 26, 2024
Christina Leza and Trevor Reed, "Unsettling Sound Technologies: Indigenous Sonic Sovereignty and Border Politics"
March 4, 2024
Author Meets Critics, Terracene, with Salar Mameni
March 7, 2024
Leyya Mona Tawil, "We Place Ourselves: Palestinian Futurism & Live Art"
March 12, 2024
Israelism, film screening and panel discussion
May 2, 2024
Ethnic Studies Undergraduate Honors Symposium
May 16, 2024
Ethnic Studies Department Commencement Ceremony
Mario Barrera, Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies, passed away on March 29, 2024, in Ventura, California. He was one of the founders of the field of Chicano Studies, whose influential writings shaped the discipline. He was our respected and beloved colleague. Professor Lorena Oropeza has written a lovely reflection on Professor Barrera's scholarly contributions.Click here to read
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