All Events
Race Matters Series
Santa Bruta—Home of El Indio Muerto: The Colonial-Carceral City’s Attempt to Eliminate the “Mexican Problem”
Dr. Amy Martinez
MCC Theater
Dr. Martinez examines the intersections between U.S. settler-colonial ideology and its influence on contemporary perceptions of race, imprisonment, and gang involvement. She examines prominent instances of gang violence, the responses of cities and law enforcement to gang presence, and the significance of tattooing practices within gangs. She aims to shed light on how the policing of body art impacts the daily experiences of Mexican/Chicano males in Santa Barbara. Dr. Martinez argues that Santa Barbara provides valuable insights into how its settler-colonial history shapes and contributes to the racialization and criminalization of Indigenous, Chicanx, and Mexican communities.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Amy Andrea is a lecturer in the Sociology Department at UCSB and an Assistant Professor in the Justice Studies Department at San Jose State University. Her research interests include Mexican/Chicano Gang Culture, Mass Incarceration, Third World & Indigenous Qualitative Research Methods, U.S. (Settler) Colonialism, Police Use of Lethal Force, and Prison/Police Abolition. As a first-generation, working-class, and system impacted Xicana from Southern California, her experiences inform her commitment to decolonial gang research on Mexican/Chicanx families and their associations and experiences with gang and street life.
Cup of Culture
Code of the Freaks with Post-Film Discussion with CODE
CODE
MCC Theater
Code of the Freaks, a feature-length documentary, is a radical reframing of the use of disabled characters in film. Hollywood continues to crank out all the old disability clichés and hollow inspirational narratives – what disability activists call “inspiration porn” – that have served so well for more than a century. Code of the Freaks (the title is a line from Tod Browning’s 1932 classic Freaks) counters these formulaic entertainments with a powerful corrective: it dares to imagine a cinematic landscape that takes disabled people seriously and offers audiences an example of what it means to center the voices of disabled people. Film will be presented with closed captioning. Please contact micky_brown@ucsb.edu if you have any questions regarding accessibility for this event. 1 hour, 6 minutes.
Co- Sponsors: CODE (Commission on Disability Equity)
Resilient Love
Navigating With(out) Instruments - the workshop
traci kato-kiriyama
MCC Lounge
our processes require creativity
our creativity leans on curiosity, courage, experimentation
our creative experimentation asks us to trust the process
Enter into this writing workshop space, open and curious, and join in a two-hour collective experience with author, theatre deviser, multidisciplinary artist, organizer, traci kato-kiriyama (they+she / tkk).
traci will give a brief intro of their work, including theatrical and literary practices alongside a long journey of art+community organizing and solidarity work. tkk will take us through themes of their book, Navigating With(out) Instruments, and make space for folks to build poems for storytelling and writing - all oriented to each participant’s own “Table of Contents” (an exercise that will carry into our writing processes well beyond the day of the workshop).
They’ll invite you to take risks and be open about your process, but you’ll never be forced to share aloud. It’ll be a challenging, yet nurturing entry point into writing again, continuing to write, or to writing anew - all are welcome.
Themes include:
1. intersectional solidarity work; radical love; community organizing, and
2. mental/spiritual/emotional wellness; collective care.
Let’s take a collective, transformational DIVE!
Resilient Love
Navigating With(out) Instruments: risk & vulnerability, reckoning and healing, creative excavation & collective joy
traci kato-kiriyama (they/she)
MCC Theater
Join artivist, author, organizer, traci kato-kiriyama (they+she) in a reading from Navigating With(out) Instruments—poetry, micro essays, notes to self. tkk will read and speak on various themes from their book—from friendship & solidarity, to reclaiming pasts & visioning self-determined futures, to queerness & love, to creative process, and being director/co-founder of the longest running Asian American free public arts series in the country, Tuesday Night Cafe. tkk’s reading and talk will be followed by a conversation with graduate students and a Q&A with the audience. Books and signing will be available at the event. Hanging out afterward is encouraged!
