Lost in Translation “en el Fil”

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Conducting a focus group with Mixtec farmworkers in Madera, California, 2018. Photo by Leopoldo Peña.

by Sayil Camacho, Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University; and Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, Project Director, UCLA Labor Center

The California Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) contracted with the UCLA Labor Center to evaluate the LWDA’s educational resources on workplace rights and health and safety for California farmworkers. The goal was to ensure that those resources were accessible to Mexican immigrant and Indigenous populations who may have limited or no English or Spanish literacy.

Most California farmworkers are Mexican immigrants (68%), and a third of those are Indigenous. They are multi-ethnic and multilingual; Spanish is not their first language, and they are more likely to be fluent in Mixteco, Zapoteco, Triqui, or Mayan. The Labor Center developed an evaluation system that allowed us to assess the literacy levels, language barriers, and accessibility of LWDA educational resources to identify the communication barriers that made Mexican immigrants and Indigenous people more vulnerable at work. In addition, we presented LWDA with a series of recommendations guided by the lived experiences of Mexican immigrants and Indigenous people: (1) support workplace rights and access to health and safety information; (2) build coalition-based support within the workforce and in collaboration with community advocacy groups; and (3) translate educational resources into oral-based languages.

Our goal was to understand why Indigenous farmworkers experience higher levels of poverty and more discrimination within and outside of the workplace and how those experiences create communication barriers. More specifically, we sought to understand the ways that power functions to disenfranchise Indigenous people politically, socially, and economically and exacerbates linguistic and cultural barriers. The examination of power within communication is referred to as a “structural humility” approach, which obliges researchers to recognize and affirm the human dignity of immigrant and Indigenous people. Our research challenged standard cross-cultural competency methods by operationalizing Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and critical race theory.

Using a structural humility approach grounded in the lived experiences of Indigenous migrant workers, we were able to identify the forces that determine workplace vulnerabilities, the shift in attitude required by the LWDA to reduce the number of worker rights violations and on-the-job injuries and deaths, and the practices needed to make LWDA’s educational materials truly accessible.

The process of creating academic knowledge has historically failed to center the experiences and voices of Indigenous peoples or break down the hierarchy of knowledge production between researchers, organizations, stakeholders, and historically marginalized populations. Collaborative research must do the extra work to identify the structures that separate academics from community collaborators and research participants. As the Zapotec intellectual Odilia Romero explained, “Bene shtill shla gune ratgr gushalgshu disha chego concha bi gat disha checho da bguan bene gurase checho, le kate gat disha cha, ka na gat neda [White people have to open the path and talk to us so that our word will not die, because when my word dies, I will die too].”

 

Access the full article “Lost in Translation ‘en el Fil’: Actualizing Structural Humility for Indigenous Mexican Farmworkers in California” HERE.

Sayil Camacho (PhD, University of California, Los Angeles) is the inaugural director of the master’s in leading organizations program in the Peabody College of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University. Her research interests aim to actualize transformative reform for oppressed and repressed populations.

Gaspar Rivera‑Salgado (PhD, University of California, Santa Cruz) is a project director at the UCLA Labor Center, where he teaches classes on work, labor, and social justice in the United States, and immigration issues.

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Dr. Edward Walker Talks “Astroturfing” and the Rise of Misinformation Campaigns

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UCLA Sociology Professor Edward Walker, was recently featured in a video chronicling the increase in misinformation campaigns across the country that have been particularly visible since the pandemic began. The video by Scripps Media will be used as a tool for their ongoing NewsLit media literacy project. As an expert on social movements, Dr. Walker says: “Astroturfing is an effort to mobilize the mass public in a way that distances that mobilization from the person who is sponsoring it or the organization that’s sponsoring it.”

To learn more, watch the full video HERE.

 

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UCLA Sociology Professor Discusses “Millenials and the Great Reckoning on Race”

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Dr. S. Michael Gaddis, assistant professor of sociology at UCLA, recently wrote an op-ed published in The Hill titled “Millennials and the Great Reckoning on Race.” He writes that although Millenials appear to support “post-racial” attitudes, their “…actions speak louder than words.”  Dr. Gaddis writes: “Unfortunately, the actions of Millennials in recent research I conducted, with Raj Ghoshal of Elon University, suggest that Millennials still engage in racial discrimination and hold deep-seated racial prejudices and stereotypes. Let’s hold off on passing out the participation trophies for a moment.”

To read his informative and thoughtful essay, click HERE.

To learn more about his research, check out this article written by Jessica Wolf for UCLA Newsroom, “Are millennials really as ‘post-racial’ as we think?”

 

 

 

 

 

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E. Victor Wolfenstein Memorial Lecture “Reckoning with Global Racism” Presented by VC Anna Spain Bradley on March 16

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Michael Chwe

Chair and Professor

UCLA Department of Political Science

invites you to attend the

E. VICTOR WOLFENSTEIN MEMORIAL LECTURE

Reckoning with Global Racism

presented by

Anna Spain Bradley

UCLA Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

Professor of Law

followed by a conversation with

Lorrie Frasure

Acting Director, Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies

Associate Professor, UCLA Departments of Political Science and African American Studies

***

Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at 3:00 p.m. PST

Live streaming via Zoom

RSVP HERE

To see the invitation, click HERE

Please submit your questions in advance of the webinar via email to:

hnadworny@support.ucla.edu by Thursday, March 4 at 3:00 p.m.

Instructions to join the webinar will be provided once your registration has been confirmed.

About the discussion: Drawing upon her scholarship and experience as a Legal Expert

to the UN Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Contemporary Standards, Vice

Chancellor Spain Bradley will discuss the need for a global effort in combating racism,

the lack of a definition of racism under international law, and how human rights systems

both frustrates and advances this cause.

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RSVP Now for the UCLA/Getty Program’s Distinguished Speaker Series featuring Dr. Gabrielle Tayac on March 5

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Dr. Glenn Wharton

Chair, UCLA/Getty Program in the Conservation of

Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials

invites you to attend

UCLA/Getty Program’s Distinguished Speaker Series

featuring

Dr. Gabrielle Tayac

Associate Professor of Public History, George Mason University

Former Curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian

Speaking on

Ancestors Speaking:

Objects and Cultural Sovereignty in Native America

with opening remarks by

Dr. Darnell Hunt

Dean, UCLA Division of Social Sciences

Professor of Sociology and African American Studies

***

Friday, March 5, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. PST

Live streaming via Zoom

RSVP HERE

To see the invitation, Click Here

Please submit your questions in advance of the webinar via email to:
hnadworny@support.ucla.edu by Thursday, March 4 at 3:00 p.m.

Instructions to join the webinar will be provided once your registration has been confirmed.

About the lecture: A family of baskets. A library in a shell. A vow breathing through stone. For diverse indigenous communities across the Americas, material objects connect to a wider web of cultural relationships. These pieces are part of people’s lives, with essences that may be considered kin through time and space. They merge humans together with each other, spirit, and the seen natural world over generations.  Colonialism purposefully and relentlessly unleashed actions to repress and even eradicate indigenous peoples for centuries – along with their beloved objects. Late 20th  century policies shifted to open conditions for Native communities to innovate culture in multiple ways, including reconnections to ancestral material culture. In this lecture, Dr. Gabrielle Tayac will share learnings that she’s experienced across the continent with knowledge keepers who know how to amplify their ancestors’ voices.

About the speaker:  Dr. Gabrielle Tayac, a member of the Piscataway Indian Nation, is an activist scholar committed to empowering indigenous perspectives. Gabi earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from Harvard University, and her B.S. in Social Work and American Indian Studies from Cornell University. Her scholarly research focuses on hemispheric American Indian identity, multiracialism, indigenous religions, and social movements, maintaining a regional specialization in the Chesapeake Bay. Gabi served on the staff of Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian for 18 years as its first education director and then as a historian and curator. She engages deeply in community relationships and public discourse with audiences from kindergarten classes to the (Obama) White House. She recently returned from a two-year journey to uplift the voices of indigenous elder women leaders and help them preserve their treasured cultural legacies, sponsored by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Gabi is now an Associate Professor of Public History at George Mason University.

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LA Social Science Book Series on Korean Intergroup Relations in LA with Professor Kyeyoung Park

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In LA Rising: Korean Relations with Blacks and Latinos after Civil Unrest, UCLA Anthropology Professor Kyeyoung Park revisits the 1992 Los Angeles unrest and provides a deep dive of the interrelations between minority groups. She provides a comprehensive examination of how race, class citizenship, and culture impacted relations between multiple groups in South Los Angeles. This is an important read as many of the past issues examined are still relevant today.

Interview Chapters:

0:04​ – Intro

0:53​ – What is the main argument/contribution of the book?

5:09​ – How did racial cartography allow you to examine relations between Korean, Black, and Latino populations?

10:09​ – How does your book add to and/or challenge the narratives around the 1992 civil unrest?

13:00​ – How does the book connect with current unrest related to police brutality?

15:34​ – Why should someone read/assign this book?

To learn more, check out Professor Park’s book LA Rising: Korean Relations with Blacks and Latinos After Civil Unrest.

 

Subscribe to LA Social Science and be the first to learn more insight and knowledge from UCLA’s Division of Social Science experts and other faculty about upcoming video/audio sessions and posts about current issues.

 

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UCLA Podcast “Then & Now” Discusses the Role of a Public Historian with UCLA Alumna Anthea Hartig

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UCLA’s Luskin Center for History and Policy (LCHP) has continued to be a leading voice in connecting past to present. The center’s “Then & Now” podcast has tackled some of the most challenge topics of the day by connecting them to the past. The latest conversation is with UCLA alumna Anthea Hartig. LCHP writes:

“In 2019, Anthea M. Hartig made headlines when she became the first woman director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. Since then, she has been a fierce advocate for public history in the nation’s capital. Join us for this President’s Day episode as we learn about how Hartig, a UCLA alumna, fell in love with history, developed a rich and challenging approach to the past, and sees history as a key to navigating the present.”

To hear this informative podcast, click HERE.

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LA Social Science Book Series About Incarcerated Indigenous Women Migrants with Professor Shannon Speed

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UCLA Professor Shannon Speed‘s new book, Incarcerated Stories: Indigenous Women Migrants and Violence in the Settler-Capitalist State, examines the myriad forms of violence that Indigenous women from the Americas face. Dr. Speed, UCLA American Indian Studies Center Director and Gender Studies and Anthropology Professor, characterizes the structural violence these women endure as “neoliberal multicriminalism” where economic and political policies render them vulnerable. Her book uses a critically engaged, activist-research approach, specifically ethnographic practices, to record and recount stories from Indigenous women in U.S. detention. Dr. Speed demonstrates that these women’s vulnerability to individual and state violence is not rooted in a failure to exercise agency. Rather, it is a structural condition, created and reinforced by settler colonialism, which consistently deploys racial and gender ideologies to manage the ongoing business of occupation and capitalist exploitation.

Interview Chapters:

0:04 – Introduction

0:51 – What are the myriad forms of violence that Indigenous women from the Americas face?

4:05 – What do the women’s stories reveal?

5:22 – Can you elaborate on your term “neoliberal multicriminalism”?

11:15 – What nuance can you get out of a critically engaged, activist-research approach?

12:55 – How does the book help us understand contemporary times? And how does it challenge and combat “multicriminalism”?

To learn more, check out Professor Speed’s book, Incarcerated Stories: Indigenous Women Migrants and Violence in the Settler-Capitalist State.

 

Subscribe to LA Social Science and be the first to learn more insight and knowledge from UCLA’s Division of Social Science experts and other faculty about upcoming video/audio sessions and posts about current issues.

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Incoming UCLA Professor Dunnavant’s Research Featured in ‘American Archaeology Magazine’

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The research of Dr. Justin Dunnavant, an incoming professor in the UCLA Department of Anthropology, and his colleagues was recently featured as the cover story for American Archaeology Magazine. Dr. Dunnavant consults for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture Slave Wrecks Project, which is chronicled in the story. It covers their research at the Estate Little Princess in St. Croix and their forthcoming research in Africatown, Alabama.

The American Archaeology Magazine article features an excerpt HERE, and the full printed article is available HERE.

 

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UCLA Professor Srinivasan Talks About Social Media, Trump, and Big Tech

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Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan, UCLA Professor of Graduate Studies of Education and Information Sciences and Bedari Kindness Institute Faculty Advisory Committee member, describes his work as carefully exploring the connection between new transformations in technology, political and social life, and examining these concerns around radicalization and polarization facilitated by technology.

On the day after the insurrection at the Capitol, he joined NPR to discuss what happened on January 6 and where we can go from here.

To listen to the NPR “Here and Now” interview, click HERE.

Last month, he joined Democracy Now! to “argue that we must demand greater public governance and accountability over private technology corporations who have monetized every aspect of our lives, while leaving us disoriented and in the dark.”

To listen to the Democracy Now! interview, click HERE.

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