Many readers have responded with sympathetic, er, vigor to my Tuesday posting about Assistant Professor Katynka Z. Martínez.
Several of these outraged readers have directed me to the wbsite for SFSU’s Raza Studies Department. Prof. Martínez is not toiling away there alone: there are thirteen profs and assistant profs on the faculty.
What goes on in a Raza Studies Department? Let them tell us.
Roberto [Rivera] is presently finishing a book on Liberation Discourse which examines the semantics of counter-hegemony in the philosophies of Gustavo Gutierrez and Paulo Freire[Prof. Tomas Almaguer] is currently completing work on a book manuscript entitled Border Men: Gender and Sexuality in the Life Histories of Chicano Gay Men, which will be published by the University of California Press.[Prof. Teresa Carrillo]’s teaching and research interests reflect her fascination with Latinos as political actors in a constant interaction with local, national and transnational political forces …
In Systems of Elections, Latino Representation, and Student Outcomes in Central California and Faculty, Managers, and Administrators in the University of California, 1996 to 2002, [Assistant Professor Belinda] Reyes explores ethnic diversity in higher ed and k-12 and the potential consequences of under-representation.[Writing Specialist Alejandro Murguia]’s memoir The Medicine of Memory: A Mexica Clan in California, University of Texas Press, has been nominated for the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing.[Dr. Nancy Raquel Mirabal] teaches courses in the history of Latina/os, Caribbean diasporas, Afro-Latina/o diasporas, theory and methods, gender and sexuality, and oral history.Publications by [the aforementioned Asst. Prof.] Martínez include: … “Real Women and Their Curves: Letters to the Editor and a Magazine’s Celebration of the ‘Latina body’” in Latina/o Communication Studies Today, Ed. Angharad N. Valdivia (2008) …Felix [Kury] is Program Director and Faculty Advisor for Clinica Martin-Baro SFSU-UCSF … a student-organized free clinic operating Saturdays out of CARECEN (Centro de Recursos Centroamericanos) in the Mission District of San Francisco … Clinica’s model is based on Liberation Theology …[Velia Garcia] teaches Raza 485 — Criminalize Raza Youth, Introduction to Raza Studies, La Raza Women, Issues in Political Economy, Race, Crime and Justice, Sociological Perspectives and Step-to-College …Currently, [Brigitte Davila’s] area of focus is law and public policy, with an emphasis on community activism.[Jose Cuellar’s] recent publications include: “Chicanismo” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures (2001); “El Saxofón in Tejano and Norteño Music” in ¡Puro Conjunto! An Album in Words and Pictures. U of Texas Press (2001); “Cesar E. Chavez” and “Farm Labor” in Pollution — A toZ …[Prof. Carlos Cordova] presently teaches Raza 280 Acculturation Issues of La Raza; Raza 320 Raza Art History; Raza 460: Central Americans in the U.S.; Raza 450: Indigenismo: Indigenous Cultures and Personality; and Raza 440: Caribbean Cultures and Spirituality.
This is a public university, part-funded by the taxpayers of California . . . a state that is currently in the throes of one of the worst state-level fiscal crises in U.S. history.
Why do I feel perfectly certain that, whatever measures are taken to resolve California’s budgetary crisis, however many extra burdens are placed on state businesses and taxpayers, Professors Carrillo, Almaguer, Cordova, Cuellar, Davila, Duncan-Andrade, Garcia, Kury, Martínez, Mirabal, Murguia, Reyes, and Rivera need not fear any interruption to the vital pedagogical and scholarly work they are doing over there in the Department of Raza (“race, breed, strain” — Collin’s Spanish Gem Dictionary) Studies. The departments of Medicine, Business, and Engineering will be closed down first.
Doomed! Doomed!