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UCLA Professor Eric Avila Discusses How U.S. Infrastructure Historically Fostered Racial Inequality

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Recently U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said, “There is racism physically built into some of our highways.” It is this recognition that has shaped President Joe Biden’s plan to improve U.S. infrastructure. Dr. Eric Avila, Professor of History, César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies, and Urban Planning, was recently interviewed by PBS SoCal and NPR where he discussed the history of how communities of color were uprooted by highway construction.

In the PBS SoCal piece, Dr. Avila says, “I think that the conversation we’re having now about race, inequality and infrastructure at this level is new, and to me that’s encouraging.” To read the full article, “How infrastructure has historically promoted inequality,” click HERE.

To read and/or listen to the NPR segment “Beneath The Santa Monica Freeway Lies The Erasure Of Sugar Hill,” click HERE.

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Professor Avila Featured in PBS Film, “Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America”

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UCLA Professor Eric Avila, was one of the scholars and community activists that was featured in the PBS film, Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America. The film is defined as “a ground-breaking, two-hour documentary film by acclaimed historian Dr. Gretchen Sorin and Emmy-winning director Ric Burns, which examines the history of African Americans on the road from the early 1900s through the 1960s and beyond.”

Watch the film now for free until November 11th HERE. It will be available for purchase after that date.

To learn more about the film, check out the following links:

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHZjzJN0sVg

Website: http://www.dwbfilm.com/

Recent Reviews:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/13/entertainment/driving-while-black-review/index.html 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/driving-while-black-race-space-and-mobility-in-america-tv-review

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/13/923170416/pbs-documentary-driving-while-black-examines-long-road-of-racism

 

 

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UCLA Professor Eric Avila Discusses the Historical Link between White Supremacy and Los Angeles Transportation Plans

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In a recent KCRW Greater L.A. podcast titled, “LA Freeways: The infrastructure of racism,” UCLA Professor Eric Avila spoke about how White Supremacy motivated some city transportation plans. For example, “Boyle Heights…was redlined by banks and home insurance providers because its mix of races was considered unsafe. ‘It was described by the federal government as hopelessly heterogeneous. A Homeowners Loan Corporation report called it an ideal location for a slum clearance project. That slum clearance project was highway construction,’ says Avila.”

To listen and read the entire podcast, click HERE.

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LA Social Science Summer Course Previews: American Cultural History with Professor Avila

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As summer 2020 approaches, LA Social Science will be highlighting some of the summer courses being offered within the Division of Social Sciences at UCLA.

UCLA summer courses are open to BOTH UCLA students and non-UCLA students. All summer 2020 courses will be offered online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. You can enroll as long as you are 15 years of age or older by the first day of summer, and you do NOT have to be enrolled in an academic institution in order to participate in UCLA Summer Sessions. For more information, click HERE.

Check out Dr. Eric Avila’s UCLA ONLINE summer course, “American Popular Culture.” The course will discuss culture as told through stories that take shape through written and spoken language; images likes films and photographs; songs, dance, art, magazines, advertising, comic books, video games, music videos, sports, recreation, leisure, and many other forms of cultural expression and cultural experience. Ultimately, the course will emphasize the historical relationship between culture and power in the United States, exploring the many avenues, such as race, class, and gender, through which power flows through cultural expression and production. Join us as we study the diverse voices of American history and how they found powerful and popular forms of expression in the words, images, and sounds of American cultural history.

For more information about this course, see the preview video below, and enroll HERE TODAY!

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