All Events
Cup of Culture
Building the American Dream
MCC Theater
Across Texas, an unstoppable construction boom drives urban sprawl and luxury high-rises. Its dirty secret: abuse of immigrant labor. BUILDING THE AMERICAN DREAM captures a turning point as a movement forms to fight widespread construction industry injustices. Grieving their son, a Mexican family campaigns for a life-and-death safety ordinance. A Salvadorian electrician couple owing thousands in back pay fights for their children’s future. A bereaved son battles to protect others from his family's preventable tragedy. A story of courage, resilience, and community, the film reveals shocking truths about the hardworking immigrants who build the American Dream, of which they are excluded. 1 hour 15 minute
Diversity Lecture
Feeling Politics: The Role of Emotions in Environmental Racism Fights
Dr. Nadia Kim
MCC Theater
Dr. Kim’s book, Refusing Death, examines race, class, gender, and citizenship with respect to the growing social phenomenon of marginalized and unauthorized immigrants – especially women and youth – making political inroads by way of grassroots activism, at times, sidestepping the need for formal political channels. By way of nearly four years of ethnographic observation, in-depth interviews, and document analysis of Asian American and Latin@ environmental justice activism in the industrial-port belt of Los Angeles, she finds that these mostly female immigrant activists view their work as much more than an effort to spare their children’s lungs from the grey exhaust plumes of cargo ships and oil refineries; they are also redefining notions of politics, community, and citizenship in the face of America’s nativist racism and its system of class injustice, defined by disproportionate pollution and neglected schools, surveillance/deportation, and political marginalization. By inventively dovetailing all of these dimensions, the women show that they are highly conscious of how environmental and educational harms are an assault on their bodies and emotions; hence, they center embodied and affective strategies to uniquely challenge the neoliberal state’s neglect and betrayal and, ultimately, to refuse death.
Short Bio: Nadia Kim is Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies (and, by courtesy, Sociology) at Loyola Marymount University. Her research focuses on US race and citizenship injustices concerning Korean/Asian Americans and South Koreans, race and nativist racism in Los Angeles (e.g., 1992 LA Unrest), immigrant women activists, environmental racism and classism, and comparative racialization of Latinxs, Asian Americans, and Black Americans. Throughout her work, Kim’s approach centers on (neo)imperialism, transnationality, and the intersectionality of race, gender, class, and citizenship. Kim is author of the multi-award-winning Imperial Citizens: Koreans and Race from Seoul to LA (Stanford, 2008); of multi-award-winning Refusing Death: Immigrant Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice in LA (Stanford, 2021); and award-winning journal articles on race and assimilation and on racial attitudes. In part as a UCSB undergraduate, Kim has long organized on issues of immigrant rights, affirmative action, and environmental justice, some of which she has incorporated into her research. She and/or her work have also appeared (inter)nationally on National/Southern California Public Radio, Red Table Talk, Radio Korea, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Korea Times, NYLON Magazine, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Co-Sponsors: Environmental Justice Alliance, Office of Equal Opportunity & Discrimination Prevention, and Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Black Flea Market
MCC Lounge
Welcome to the Black Flea Market brought to you by the MCC in collaboration with the Office of Black Student Development (OBSD). This event is centered around celebrating Black magic during Black History Month. The goal is to embrace the Black community at UCSB with participation from various Black organizations, creatives, and most importantly YOU. Join us for delicious food, FREE goodies for the soul, body, mind, and spirit – music and the best of vibes.
Co-sponsors: - OBSD, BSU (Black Student Union), Alpha Phi Alpha, NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers and Scientists, EASA (East African Student Association), EOP AdCRC, NSA (Nigerian Student Association), among many others.
Flyer artwork by Afiya Browne.
**POSTPONED** - Mirror Memoirs: Trauma, Healing and Surviving as Tools for Social Justice
EVENT POSTPONED TO SPRING QUARTER
**EVENT POSTPONED** (2/21/23) - This event has been postponed to Spring quarter. Check back with the MCC for updates and new date.
Activist Scholar in Residence Series
MIRROR MEMOIRS: Trauma, Healing, and Surviving as Tools for Social Justice
Amita Swadhin & Jaden Fields are nationally-recognized survivor-activists in the movement to end child sexual abuse and rape culture. Together, they co-lead Mirror Memoirs, a national organization uplifting the narratives, leadership and healing of Black, Indigenous and of color LGBTQ+ child sexual abuse survivors. The Mirror Memoirs network counts 650 QTIBIPOC survivors and thousands of accomplices as members across the US.
In November 2021, Mirror Memoirs filmed a new theater project, "Transmutation: A Ceremony," featuring four Black transgender, non-binary and/or intersex assigned-male at birth women and femmes who survived child sexual abuse, navigate the ongoing violence of the world as Black trans femmes, and share their vision of healing and the world we need and deserve.
Visit linktr.ee/mirror.memoirs for more information, and follow their Instagram @mirror.memoirs
