All Events
Race Matters Series
Caged Birds: The Rebirth of Mexican Incarceration in the United States Kelly Lytle Hernandez
MCC Lounge
Statistics show that Blacks and Latinos comprise just over one half of the nation’s prison population. In California, Black and Brown men, mostly Mexicans and Mexican Americans, make up roughly 70% of the prison population. Thus, when scholars and activists discuss the story of race and mass incarceration in the United States today we often do so in terms of 'Black and Brown.' Historically speaking, however, we know relatively little about the rise of Mexican incarceration in the United States. Beginning in the years after the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-1848), when the project of conquest unfolded in the new Anglo-American West, white settlers pushed toward the Pacific Ocean. In pursuit of land and labor, they criminalized and incarcerated both indigenous persons and Mexicans living in the region. But this chapter of race and imprisonment came to a close as conquest seemed assured by the 1880s. It was not until the 1920s and 1930s when Mexican incarceration swelled again in the American West. Why and how Mexican incarceration was reborn during the 1920s and 1930s is the subject of 'Caged Birds: The Rebirth of Mexican Incarceration.' By tracking the carceral history that hangs between the days of conquest and the precipice of our present, 'Caged Birds' illuminates one of the roads by which we arrived at 'black and brown' imprisonment today. Professor Kelly Lytle Hernandez is associate professor of history at UCLA and director of the UCLA Public History Initiative. Co-sponsored by American Cultures & Global Contexts; AntiRacism, Inc.; and the Center for Black Studies Research.
Cup of Culture-Meet the Filmmaker
TransVisible: Bamby Salcedo’s Story
MCC Theater
Turning her daunting personal challenges and barriers into the very basis of her activism, this film follows renowned Los Angeles-based Trans Latina Activist and leader Bamby Salcedo’s unlikely and transcendent rise into becoming the effective social advocate and role model that she is today. Her work is shown giving voice and visibility to not only the Transgender community, but also to the multiple, overlapping communities her life has touched (Latina, immigrant, HIV+, youth, and LGBT communities). Discussion with Dante Alencastre and Bamby Salcedo following the screening. Dante Alencastre, 60 min., English, 2013, USA. Co-sponsored by A.S. Finance Board; the Department of Chican@ Studies; the Department of Feminist Studies; Humyn Rights Board; La Familia de Colores; the Lambda Beta International Fraternity; Queer Commission; the Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity; Sigma Alpha Zeta; Student Commission on Racial Equality; Take Back the Night; the Vice Chancellor Grant; and Womyn’s Commission.
The UCSB MultiCultural Center in Santa Barbara
An Evening of Spoken Word with Ryan Yamamoto
Muddy Waters Café- 508 E. Haley St., Santa Barbara
The MCC is excited to feature spoken word artist, Ryan Yamamoto in our quarterly MCC in Santa Barbara poetry series. Ryan draws on daily observations and his mixed-race heritage to weave together poems that are empowering and heartfelt. The young poet has opened for a number of internationally acclaimed artists such as Rudy Francisco, Mayda Del Valle, and Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai and has performed at the Mixed Roots & Literacy Festival, Lab Art LA, and SoHo.
Cup of Culture
Narco Cultura With Introduction by Steven Osuna
MCC Theater
Narco-traffickers have become iconic outlaws, glorified by musicians who praise their new models of fame and success. They represent a pathway out of the ghetto, nurturing a new American dream fueled by an addiction to money, drugs, and violence. This is an explosive look at the drug cartels’ pop culture influence on both sides of the border as experienced by an LA narcocorrido singer dreaming of stardom and a Juarez crime scene investigator on the front line of Mexico’s Drug War. UCSB PhD candidate, Steven Osuna, will share his research on this new subculture and will introduce the film. Shaul Schwarz, 102 min., English & Spanish with English subtitles, 2013, USA/Mexico.
