Tonight’s Blair Center Legacy Series Symposium Explores ‘Legacies of the Chicano Movement’

The Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences will host its seventh Blair Legacy Series symposium, titled “Legacies of the Chicano Movement” with keynote speaker José Ángel Gutiérrez, a Chicano Movement leader and professor emeritus of political science at the University of Texas at Arlington. It will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2 in Giffels Auditorium in Old Main.

“Examining and reflecting upon the legacies of the Chicano Movement is an especially fitting topic at this time,” said Xavier Medina Vidal, Diane D. Blair Professor of Latino Studies and assistant professor in the Department of Political Science, “Because this year marks the 50th anniversary of a number of events in U.S. history that are critical to the advancement of civil rights for Latino Americans.”

In 1967, the Mexican American Youth Organization began to develop chapters on Texas college campuses. Meanwhile, in California, Chicano students were organizing as the United Mexican American Students. This same year in New Mexico, the Alianza Federal de las Mercedes [Pueblos Libres] defended indo-hispano land rights through actions that included the Río Arriba County Courthouse raid that summer.

“The protests, capacity building and organizing that has taken place in the decades since 1967 all inform the strategies and modes of political action taken by today’s generation of Latino civil rights activists, the DREAMers,” said Medina Vidal, who organized the symposium. “The Blair Center has convened a prestigious group of scholars actively engaged in the research, teaching, activism and other forms of political action rooted in the Chicano Movement as contributors to the seventh Blair Legacy Series symposium.”

The keynote address will be delivered by Gutiérrez, who is an accomplished political science scholar, activist, public official, and living legend of the Chicano Movement. Gutiérrez co-founded the Mexican American Youth Organization, the Raza Unida Party of Texas, and Ciudadanos Unidos (hometown association) and Obreros Unidos Independientes (labor union), and the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington.

He was a key figure in the founding of the Mexican American Unity Council, the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Midwest and Northwest Voter Registration and Education Projects, and the Oregon Council for Hispanic Advancement. He has been elected and appointed to public office since 1970. He has authored or co-authored more than 13 books documenting Chicano politics, Texas politics, organizing and his own leadership experiences.

In addition to the keynote address, an accompanying art exhibit titled, “Drawings from the Phantom Limb” will run from Nov. 1 to Nov. 10 in the Anne Kittrell Art Gallery of the Arkansas Union.

The exhibit features the work of Eric J. García, a Chicano artist based in Chicago.

García has shown in numerous national and international exhibitions and has received many awards, including the prestigious Jacob Javits Fellowship, and one of the Midwestern Voices and Visions Residencies. Born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico’s South Valley, García earned his M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A versatile artist working in an assortment of media — from hand-printed posters, to nationally published political cartoons, to large scale public murals — they all have a common goal of educating and challenging.

Additionally, symposium scholars will include:

• Dennis J. Aguirre, assistant professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Northern Colorado
• Juan José Bustamante, assistant professor of Sociology and Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Arkansas
• Melina Juárez, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Mexico and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy Doctoral Fellow
• David Maciel, emeritus professor, the Universidad National Autónoma de México (UNAM), the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, the University of New Mexico, UCLA, and the University of Arizona
• Celeste Montoya, associate professor of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder
• Jimmy Patiño, assistant professor of Chicano and Latino Studies at the University of Minnesota
• Christine Marie Sierra, professor emerita of Political Science and director emerita of the Southwest Hispanic Research Institute at the University of New Mexico
• Daisy Verduzco Reyes, assistant professor of Sociology and El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean and Latin American Studies at the University of Connecticut

About the Blair Legacy Series: The Blair Legacy Series invites senior scholars to assess the regional, national, and international impact of southern politicians, intellectuals, and social leaders. Published and forthcoming books developed from Blair Legacy Series Symposia include:

• The Legacy of Second-Wave Feminism in American Politics (Springer Publishing, 2018), edited by Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields.
• Taking the Measure: The Presidency of George W. Bush (Texas A&M University Press, 2013), edited by Donald R. Kelley and Todd Shields.
• The Ongoing Burden of Southern History: Politics and Identity in the Twenty-First Century South(Louisiana State University Press, 2012), edited by Angie Maxwell, Todd Shields, Jeannie Whayne.
• Unlocking V.O. Key: Southern Politics for the Twenty-First Century (University of Arkansas Press, 2011), edited by Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields.
• The Clinton Riddle: Perspectives on the Forty-Second President (University of Arkansas Press, 2004), edited by Todd Shields, Jeannie Whayne, and Donald R. Kelley.

About the Blair Center: The Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society was established in 2001 by an act of the US Congress, making it one of the rare research centers in the country to be established by congressional appropriation. It is named in honor of political scientist Diane Divers Blair who taught for thirty years in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas. Her career outside of teaching included extensive public service as chair of both the U.S. Corporation of Public Broadcasting and the Commission on Public Employee Rights. Diane D. Blair was a champion of interdisciplinary research and critical thinking, and she reached across academic aisles often and with ease. The Blair Center reflects her academic model and strives to approach the study of the American South from a variety of angles, attempting to reveal the undercurrents of politics, history, and culture that have shaped the region over time. For more information about the Blair Center, visit blaircenter.uark.edu. 

This story originally appeared in the University of Arkansas’ Newswire publication. Please visit news.uark.edu for more stories like this.