Showing posts with label California State University Channel Islands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California State University Channel Islands. Show all posts
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Friday, January 24, 2014
To the Farm Worker in All of Us
As my son and I watched, deceased conservative radio broadcaster Paul Harvey recited his 1978 “So God Made a Farmer” paean as Ram trucks complemented avatars of Midwestern men, women, and children on presumed family farms. Imagery of cornfields, livestock, and the faces of weather-beaten cowboys valorized country life. Of the thirty-four slides a meager two contained people of color: an African American man sitting on the bed of a truck and a putative Latino son and mother before a produce stand.
The commercial raised my ire. Confused by my indignation, my boy asked why I was upset. I replied with the question, “Were the ‘farmers’ in the commercial what you see in the fields of the Oxnard Plain? After a reflective moment, my boy expressed his epiphany to the commercial’s fiction.
Like the majority of “farmers” in California, the people that labor in the fields, orchards, and vineyards of Ventura County don’t own the land; they earn a wage, are predominantly from Mexico and are, half the time, undocumented immigrants.
My parents, with immigrant origins from the Mexican states of Michoacán and Chihuahua, toiled in the “factories in the field” of fruits and vegetables as defined by Carey McWilliams, the paterfamilias of California History. And the dream that they held for their children was that we would not, someday, want to be “farmers.”
So the Chrysler Ram trailer is much more than an advertisement as it promotes an identity based on the Midwest region at the expense of people, living and dead, from different parts of the nation. (click to see Salvador Barajas's counter narrative "The Idea of Farmers")
Dating back to the mission era, California elites—whether they be missionaries, rancheros, or wheat barons—monopolized the land as lumpen classes of Native American, Asian, European, African, and Mexican origin people labored in the intense sun and bitter cold of agriculture.
Periodically, to improve their lot farm workers (composed of men, women, and children) collectively protested their station, sometimes successfully, for modest demands such as a living wage, water to drink, adequate shelter, and safe work conditions.
This occurred on the Oxnard Plain in 1903 when a coalition of Japanese and Mexican sugar beet workers and labor contractors formed the Japanese Mexican Labor Association. They resisted the attempt of a coterie of growers and financiers to slash the extant wage rate by fifty percent. The sugar beet barons also created the Western Agricultural Contracting Company to eliminate independent labor agents.
Despite the wealth and power of agribusiness, the JMLA enjoyed a victory against a class of employers that often pitted one ethnic group against another to undermine labor solidarity.
The omission of such events from our history preserves the Jeffersonian myth of the yeoman farmer as self-sufficient and individualistic.
Contrary to the yeoman legend, growers today belong to associations and bureaus to advance their interests as farming is big business. In fact, it has been so dating back to the early 19th century. For example, where I live the total value of agricultural production today, according to the Farm Bureau of Ventura County, approaches $2 billion, with the crops of strawberries and raspberries topping the list.
The people that own these prolific properties are not the ones involved in the cultivation of the land for wages near or below the poverty line of subsistence.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture the average annual income of crop farmworkers is $20,000. Sixty-eight percent of these workers come from Mexico; twenty-nine percent consist of people born in the US and Puerto Rico; the remaining three percent are from Central America and other countries.
But the Chrysler Super Bowl ad of last year veiled these realities from an audience seeking an escape from the anxiety filled actualities of modern life.
Indeed, the late US historian Richard Hofstadter argued in a 1956 American Heritage essay titled, “The Myth of the Happy Yeoman” that the more we find ourselves in an urbanized society the more powerful the fantasy of a fading agrarian ideal. Hofstadter also noted that since the early nineteenth century the market revolution of commerce and land speculation stoked the monetary passions of growers, not a spiritual devotion to the soil.
More recently, this nostalgic yearning has intensified as a demographic shift has emerged with an ever increasing number of people with origins like mine, from Mexico, and other parts of the world becoming the new majority. Chrysler might want to take note of this for its next Super Bowl commercial as non-Midwestern people, like “All of Us,” buy trucks too.
Con Safos
fpb
Versions of this essay were published by The Bakersfield Californian,History News Network, the Ventura County Star, Amigos805, and LatinoLa.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
A Preoccupying Observation
Image: Los Angeles Times
Twice, on my way home from the gym last winter, around 6:15am, I noticed a tractor in a strawberry field that surrounds Oxnard High School. The headlights cut through the dark, the tanks contained some chemical, and its extended arms sprayed a mist. The driver donned a full protective suit.
As I drove by on Gonzales Road both times, I considered how the aerosol of the fumigant would affect, immediately or deferred, high schoolers that walked to campus within the next hour.
And as I started my morning constitutional around the perimeter of my workplace, California State University Channel Islands, this past week another tractor blanketed the crops (perhaps cabbage, who knows) off Potrero Road with some substance. This time, the driver did not wear a white panoply or respirator. So I worried about this person’s well-being, the students that resided in the dorms across the street and mine as I walked away faster.
The scene of crop spraying is common on the Oxnard Plain that encompasses the communities of Ventura, Oxnard, Somis, and Camarillo. In this rurban (not completely rural or urban) corridor, the business of agribusiness is in open view. Petrochemicals are part of the air we breathe, especially for fieldworkers. They are the most vulnerable. That is a central reason why strawberry pickers are covered and masked in clothing from head to toe, even during the hottest of days.
This leads me to ask, what is being sprayed on our food? How do such chemicals affect the health and well-being of farmworkers? Can such spraying take place earlier in the morning or later in evening so that farmworkers and our children will not be as exposed? Perhaps, non-profit, private, and government agencies can effectively provide the public with answers?
Con Safos
fpb
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Imperial Agriculture: A Curious Unions Talk
Image: Los Angeles Public Library
I will give a talk based on my book Curious Unions this Saturday, May 11th, at the Ventura E.P. Foster Library starting at 6pm.
A focus of the presentation will be on the history of farm worker housing on the Oxnard Plain.
As I have done previously, I will contextualize the creation of my book in how it challenges the Jeffersonian myth (the alloy of agricultural fact, fiction, distortion, and the omission of historical truths). In this regard, I have referenced in previous presentations this year’s Dodge Ram Super Bowl XLVII “Farmer” commercial.
To compare the Dodge Ram Midwestern perspective of the “Farmer,” here is Salvador Barajas’s “The Idea of Farmers”, a more inclusive photographic interpretation of the Paul Harvey verse.
See you at the E.P. Foster Library.
Con Safos
fpb
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Is there a doctor in the house?
When I was an undergraduate at California State University, Fresno my mentor Dr. Chang commented that UC Berkeley professors are generally not addressed as Dr. This remark was in response to the insistence of specific colleagues of his to be called doctor. At Berkeley, it was a given that the professors were PHDs. In fact, even the department secretaries there had PHDs, he stated facetiously.
Nonetheless, I called my professor Dr. Chang out of respect for his position. Especially being that he was one of a few historically underrepresented faculty at Fresno State. It also had a nice ring. Sort of like Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Dr. King, Dr. George I. Sanchez, etc.
When I recognize ethnic and racial minority academics or professional doctors with the Dr. handle it is not out of a fascination with elitism (well maybe a little) but to acknowledge their exceptional accomplishment in a society of unequal educational opportunity. I, myself, do not insist on being called Dr., but if I am I will not object. I do, however, feel uneasy being recognized as such in the case that there were a medical emergency where I may find myself and someone pleading, “IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?!” I could perform the Heimlich maneuver in the case of a person choking or cpr for a cardiac arrest—btw: is it 5 chest compressions per breath or 7?
I participate in the graduation ceremonies at California State University Channel Islands to serve as an example to students, particularly Chicanas/os, of the possible. I gladly pose with graduates as I imagine many never before viewed a Chicano in doctoral regalia.
When I graduated from Fresno State, I was impressed by the pomp and circumstance of the faculty procession into Bulldog stadium. I knew then that I wanted some day to be a part of that parade. Now I am and realize how actually few people of color are in such painted pageants.
As I was struggling to complete my dissertation, I posted a picture of the Claremont Graduate University’s doctoral regalia for inspiration. The pursuit of a PHD was not based on potty intentions but the desire to serve as a presumed voice of authority in my community when needed. Nor did I feel that being an academic was a professional career that would separate me from my working-class roots. As long as I depend on a wage, I will always be of the proletariat in solidarity with other workers, many with no degrees who make far more than I will ever realize.
Con Safos
fpb
Monday, October 1, 2007
C.V.
Curriculum Vitae
July, 23, 2021
Frank P. Barajas
Professor History Program and Chicana/o Studies
California State University Channel Islands
One University Drive Camarillo, CA 93012
805.437.8862; frank.barajas@csuci.edu
http://www.frankpbarajas.blogspot.com/
Areas of expertise.
California History. Chicana/o History. Education. Immigration. Labor History. Race and Ethnicity.
EDUCATION:
AA Moorpark College Moorpark, California
BA and MA History California State University, Fresno Fresno, California
PhD History Claremont Graduate University Claremont, California
TEACHING
2012- Professor
2007 Professor Associate Professor at California State University Channel Islands
2001 Assistant Professor at California State University Channel Islands
1992-2001 Tenured at Cypress College.
2016-2018; 2019- Chair of History and Chicana/o Studies
Courses: U.S., California, and Chicana/o History
SCHOLARLY AND CREATIVE ACTIVITIES
PUBLICATIONS: Peer Reviewed
Mexican Americans with Moxie: A Tran-Generational History of El Movimiento Chicano in Ventura County California, 1945-1975. University of Nebraska Press, 2021.
“Decolonizing the Newspaper: The Historian and the Op-Ed.” Perspectives on History. February 2015 53 2: 38-39. (https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/february-2015/decolonizing-the-newspaper)
“Community and Measured Militancy: The Ventura County Community Service Organization, 1958-1968.” Southern California Quarterly 96 no. 3 (Fall 2014): 313-349.
Curious Unions: Mexican American Workers and Resistance in Oxnard, California, 1898-1961. University of Nebraska Press, 2012.
David G. Garcia, Tara J. Yosso, and Frank P. Barajas"'A Few of the Brightest, Cleanest Mexican Children': School Segregation as a Form of Mundane Educational Racism in Oxnard, California, 1900-1940." Harvard Educational Review Spring 2012: 1-25.
“An Invading Army: A Civil Gang Injunction in a Southern California Chicana/o Community.” Latino Studies 5 no. 4 (Winter 2007): 393-417.
“The Defense Committees of Sleepy Lagoon: A Convergent Struggle against Fascism, 1942-1944.” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 31 no. 1 (Spring 2006): 33-62.
“Resistance, Radicalism, and Repression on the Oxnard Plain: The Social Context of the Betabelero Strike of 1933.” Western Historical Quarterly XXXV no. 1 (Spring 2004): 27-51.
Non-Peer Reviewed
"The Vexation of History In An Age Of Police Violence." History News Network. June 14, 2014.
(https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/175956)
"Remembrances, Race, and Role Models: The Renaming of a Middle School." History News Network. February 9, 2020 (https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/174247) LatinoLA. January 30, 2020 (http://latinola.com/story.php?story=15183)
"Proposition 187's Twenty Fifth Anniversary." November 2, 2019.
“Say It Ain’t So Joe: Strategies of Segregation in Ventura County.” History News Network. July 14, 2019. (https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/172519?fbclid=IwAR11DNP3SUith_8SVhR4TvNCzHBXrVKXY1_qNq7zi9pGBFoheVU-HtCe7O0)
“Critic of Oxnard Police will get his day in court.” Ventura County Star newspaper. July 11, 2015. (http://www.vcstar.com/opinion/columnists/frank-p- barajas-trial-to-examine-claim-by-oxnard-police-critic_63604643)
“Murgia of the Past and Present.” Amigos805. July 15, 2015. (http://amigos805.com/guest-commentary-murgia-of-the-past-and-present) --“Murgia of the Past and Present.” LatinoLA. July 13, 2015. (http://latinola.com/story.php?story=13590)
“I got mine. You’re out of luck!” Ventura County Star newspaper. May 16, 2015. (http://www.vcstar.com/opinion/columnists/frank-p-barajas-i-got-mine-youre-out- of-luck_54013186)
“Do something about immense student debt in California.” The Bakersfield Californian newspaper. May 17, 2015. (http://www.bakersfield.com/Opinion/2015/05/04/FRANK-P-BARAJAS- Do-something-about-immense-student-debt-in-California.html)
“Making college affordable for California students.” Ventura County Star newspaper. February 5, 2015. (http://www.vcstar.com/opinion/columnists/frank-p-barajas-making-college- affordable-for-california-students_22857506)
“Governor, legislature need to make college more afforcable.” The Bakersfield Californian. January 23, 2015. (http://www.bakersfield.com/Opinion/2015/01/23/FRANK-BARAJAS- Governor-legislature-need-to-make-college-more-affordable.html)
“Are We Giving Cesar Too Much Credit.” History News Service (http://hnn.us/search?q=barajas) April 7, 2014.
“Remember the Latinos in the ‘So Go Created a Farmer’ Super Bowl Ad Last Year? Neither Do We.” History News Network (http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/154604) January 30, 2014.
“The National Park Service Explores the History of Farm Labor in America.” History News Service (http://historynewsservice.org/2011/05/the-national-park- service-explores-the-history-of-farm-labor-in-america/) May 3, 2011.
“Park Service Explores the History of Farm Labor.” Ventura County Star newspaper. May 7, 2011. --Dallas Morning News link to Ventura County Star --“Reconstructing the History of Farm Labor in America.” The Bakersfield Californian.” May 7, 2011.
“The National Park Service Explores the History of Farm Labor in America.” History News Network (http://hnn.us/articles/139080.html) May 8, 2011.
“The Alinsky, Chavez, Obama Connection.” Ventura County Star newspaper. November 2, 2008.
“The Alinsky, Chavez, Obama Connection.” San Benito News newspaper. November 2, 2008.
“New Face of Segregation.” Ventura County Star newspaper. January 20, 2008. “Democracy, history linked.” Ventura County Star newspaper. September 27, 2007.
“Labor (and Community) Day.” Ventura County Star newspaper. August 31, 2007.
“Entertaining Democracy.” Ventura County Star newspaper. September 3, 2006.
BOOK REVIEWS:
The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas by Monica Muñoz Martinez. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018) for The Journal of American History, December 2019 106 3: 387.
Defiant Braceros: How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom by Mireya Loza. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016) for California History, Winter 2017: 62-64.
Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest by Mario Jimenez Sifuentez. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2016) for the Journal of American History, June 2017 104 10: 274-275.
From South Texas to the Nation: The Exploitation of Mexican Labor in the Twentieth Century by John Weber. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015) for the Western Historical Quarterly, Summer 2016 47 3: 353-354.
Power and Control in the Imperial Valley: Nature, Agribusiness, and Workers on the California Borderland, 1900-1940 by Benny Andrés Jr. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2015) for the Western Historical Quarterly, Winter 2015 46 4: 526-527.
Palomino: Clinton Jencks and Mexican-American Unionism in the American Southwest by James J. Lorence. (University of Illinois Press, 2013) for the New Mexico Historical Review, Summer 2014: 409-410.
Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870 to 1930 by Jeffrey Marcos Garcilazo (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2012) for the American Historical Review, December 2013 118 5: 409-410.
El Cinco De Mayo: An American Tradition by David E. Hayes-Bautista. (University of California, 2012) for The Historian, Winter 2013 75 4 918-920.
Justinian Caire and Santa Cruz Islands: The Rise and Fall of a California Dynasty by Frederic Caire Chiles. Arthur H. Clark Co., 2011) for the Journal of San Diego History, Spring 2012 28 1⁄2: 106-108.
Cosecha Triste: El Programa Bracero/Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program by Gilbert G. Gonzalez and Vivian Prince (Self-Produced) for the Pacific Historical Review, February 2012 81 1: 123-125.
Chicano Studies: The Genesis of a Discipline by Michael Soldatenko. (University of Arizona Press, 2009) for the Pacific Historical Review, February 2011 80 1: 144-145.
The Union of Their Dreams: Power, Hope, and Struggle in Cesar Chavez’s Farm Worker Movement by Miriam Pawel. (Bloomsbury Press, 2009) for the Western Historical Quarterly, Summer 2011 42 2: 250-251.
Mexicans in California: Transformations and Challenges by Ramon A. Gutierrez and Patricia Zavella. (University of Illinois Press, 2009) for Camino Real, December 2010 2 3: 181-182.
North for the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers & the Sugar Beet Industry by Jim Norris. (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009) for the Journal of American History, March 2010 96 4: 1235.
The Power of the Zoot: Youth Culture and Resistance during World War II by Luis Alvarez. (University of California Press, 2008) for the Western Historical Quarterly, Autumn 2009 40 3: 382.
Beasts of the Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769-1913 by Richard Steven Street. (Stanford University Press, 2004) for the Western Historical Quarterly Autumn 2005 36 3: 377-378.
PRESENTATIONS
“El Plan de Santa Barbara: Accountability and the Development of Leaders At California State University Channel Islands.” Presented at the 50th Anniversary Conference El Plan de Santa Barbara. February 22, 2019 University of California at Santa Barbara.
“Writing the Past and Present: The Historian as Participant Observer.” Presented at the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, August 6, 2016 Waikoloa, Hawaii.
“The Movement Before El Movimiento: Farmworker Advocacy and Organization Programs in Ventura County, 1961-1967.” Presented at the Sal Castro Memorial Conference. February 24, 2016 University of California at Santa Barbara.
“Mexican American with Moxie: Rachel Murguia Wong’s Struggle to Defend School Integration, 1968-1973.” Presented at Nuestra América: Rethinking Fronteras in US History A Conference Honoring the Career of Vicki L. Ruiz. February 20, 2015 University of California at Irvine.
“An Environment of Contention: Rachel Wong’s Struggle to Defend School Integration” Presented at the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, August 15, 2015 Portland Oregon.
National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Conference “Before Delano: Cesar Chavez and the Community Service Organization in a Southern California Community, 1958-1959. April 22, 2008 Austin Texas.
University of California at Los Angeles Conference “The Sleepy Lagoon Case, Constitutional Rights, and the Struggle for Democracy: A Commemorative Symposium”presentation. The Evolution of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. May 21, 2005 University of California Los Angeles. http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/special/scweb/slexhibit.htm
July, 23, 2021
Frank P. Barajas
Professor History Program and Chicana/o Studies
California State University Channel Islands
One University Drive Camarillo, CA 93012
805.437.8862; frank.barajas@csuci.edu
http://www.frankpbarajas.blogspot.com/
Areas of expertise.
California History. Chicana/o History. Education. Immigration. Labor History. Race and Ethnicity.
EDUCATION:
AA Moorpark College Moorpark, California
BA and MA History California State University, Fresno Fresno, California
PhD History Claremont Graduate University Claremont, California
TEACHING
2012- Professor
2007 Professor Associate Professor at California State University Channel Islands
2001 Assistant Professor at California State University Channel Islands
1992-2001 Tenured at Cypress College.
2016-2018; 2019- Chair of History and Chicana/o Studies
Courses: U.S., California, and Chicana/o History
SCHOLARLY AND CREATIVE ACTIVITIES
PUBLICATIONS: Peer Reviewed
Mexican Americans with Moxie: A Tran-Generational History of El Movimiento Chicano in Ventura County California, 1945-1975. University of Nebraska Press, 2021.
“Decolonizing the Newspaper: The Historian and the Op-Ed.” Perspectives on History. February 2015 53 2: 38-39. (https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/february-2015/decolonizing-the-newspaper)
“Community and Measured Militancy: The Ventura County Community Service Organization, 1958-1968.” Southern California Quarterly 96 no. 3 (Fall 2014): 313-349.
Curious Unions: Mexican American Workers and Resistance in Oxnard, California, 1898-1961. University of Nebraska Press, 2012.
David G. Garcia, Tara J. Yosso, and Frank P. Barajas"'A Few of the Brightest, Cleanest Mexican Children': School Segregation as a Form of Mundane Educational Racism in Oxnard, California, 1900-1940." Harvard Educational Review Spring 2012: 1-25.
“An Invading Army: A Civil Gang Injunction in a Southern California Chicana/o Community.” Latino Studies 5 no. 4 (Winter 2007): 393-417.
“The Defense Committees of Sleepy Lagoon: A Convergent Struggle against Fascism, 1942-1944.” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 31 no. 1 (Spring 2006): 33-62.
“Resistance, Radicalism, and Repression on the Oxnard Plain: The Social Context of the Betabelero Strike of 1933.” Western Historical Quarterly XXXV no. 1 (Spring 2004): 27-51.
Non-Peer Reviewed
"The Vexation of History In An Age Of Police Violence." History News Network. June 14, 2014.
(https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/175956)
"Remembrances, Race, and Role Models: The Renaming of a Middle School." History News Network. February 9, 2020 (https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/174247) LatinoLA. January 30, 2020 (http://latinola.com/story.php?story=15183)
"Proposition 187's Twenty Fifth Anniversary." November 2, 2019.
“Say It Ain’t So Joe: Strategies of Segregation in Ventura County.” History News Network. July 14, 2019. (https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/172519?fbclid=IwAR11DNP3SUith_8SVhR4TvNCzHBXrVKXY1_qNq7zi9pGBFoheVU-HtCe7O0)
“Critic of Oxnard Police will get his day in court.” Ventura County Star newspaper. July 11, 2015. (http://www.vcstar.com/opinion/columnists/frank-p- barajas-trial-to-examine-claim-by-oxnard-police-critic_63604643)
“Murgia of the Past and Present.” Amigos805. July 15, 2015. (http://amigos805.com/guest-commentary-murgia-of-the-past-and-present) --“Murgia of the Past and Present.” LatinoLA. July 13, 2015. (http://latinola.com/story.php?story=13590)
“I got mine. You’re out of luck!” Ventura County Star newspaper. May 16, 2015. (http://www.vcstar.com/opinion/columnists/frank-p-barajas-i-got-mine-youre-out- of-luck_54013186)
“Do something about immense student debt in California.” The Bakersfield Californian newspaper. May 17, 2015. (http://www.bakersfield.com/Opinion/2015/05/04/FRANK-P-BARAJAS- Do-something-about-immense-student-debt-in-California.html)
“Making college affordable for California students.” Ventura County Star newspaper. February 5, 2015. (http://www.vcstar.com/opinion/columnists/frank-p-barajas-making-college- affordable-for-california-students_22857506)
“Governor, legislature need to make college more afforcable.” The Bakersfield Californian. January 23, 2015. (http://www.bakersfield.com/Opinion/2015/01/23/FRANK-BARAJAS- Governor-legislature-need-to-make-college-more-affordable.html)
“Are We Giving Cesar Too Much Credit.” History News Service (http://hnn.us/search?q=barajas) April 7, 2014.
“Remember the Latinos in the ‘So Go Created a Farmer’ Super Bowl Ad Last Year? Neither Do We.” History News Network (http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/154604) January 30, 2014.
“The National Park Service Explores the History of Farm Labor in America.” History News Service (http://historynewsservice.org/2011/05/the-national-park- service-explores-the-history-of-farm-labor-in-america/) May 3, 2011.
“Park Service Explores the History of Farm Labor.” Ventura County Star newspaper. May 7, 2011. --Dallas Morning News link to Ventura County Star --“Reconstructing the History of Farm Labor in America.” The Bakersfield Californian.” May 7, 2011.
“The National Park Service Explores the History of Farm Labor in America.” History News Network (http://hnn.us/articles/139080.html) May 8, 2011.
“The Alinsky, Chavez, Obama Connection.” Ventura County Star newspaper. November 2, 2008.
“The Alinsky, Chavez, Obama Connection.” San Benito News newspaper. November 2, 2008.
“New Face of Segregation.” Ventura County Star newspaper. January 20, 2008. “Democracy, history linked.” Ventura County Star newspaper. September 27, 2007.
“Labor (and Community) Day.” Ventura County Star newspaper. August 31, 2007.
“Entertaining Democracy.” Ventura County Star newspaper. September 3, 2006.
BOOK REVIEWS:
The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas by Monica Muñoz Martinez. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018) for The Journal of American History, December 2019 106 3: 387.
Defiant Braceros: How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom by Mireya Loza. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016) for California History, Winter 2017: 62-64.
Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest by Mario Jimenez Sifuentez. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2016) for the Journal of American History, June 2017 104 10: 274-275.
From South Texas to the Nation: The Exploitation of Mexican Labor in the Twentieth Century by John Weber. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015) for the Western Historical Quarterly, Summer 2016 47 3: 353-354.
Power and Control in the Imperial Valley: Nature, Agribusiness, and Workers on the California Borderland, 1900-1940 by Benny Andrés Jr. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2015) for the Western Historical Quarterly, Winter 2015 46 4: 526-527.
Palomino: Clinton Jencks and Mexican-American Unionism in the American Southwest by James J. Lorence. (University of Illinois Press, 2013) for the New Mexico Historical Review, Summer 2014: 409-410.
Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870 to 1930 by Jeffrey Marcos Garcilazo (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2012) for the American Historical Review, December 2013 118 5: 409-410.
El Cinco De Mayo: An American Tradition by David E. Hayes-Bautista. (University of California, 2012) for The Historian, Winter 2013 75 4 918-920.
Justinian Caire and Santa Cruz Islands: The Rise and Fall of a California Dynasty by Frederic Caire Chiles. Arthur H. Clark Co., 2011) for the Journal of San Diego History, Spring 2012 28 1⁄2: 106-108.
Cosecha Triste: El Programa Bracero/Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program by Gilbert G. Gonzalez and Vivian Prince (Self-Produced) for the Pacific Historical Review, February 2012 81 1: 123-125.
Chicano Studies: The Genesis of a Discipline by Michael Soldatenko. (University of Arizona Press, 2009) for the Pacific Historical Review, February 2011 80 1: 144-145.
The Union of Their Dreams: Power, Hope, and Struggle in Cesar Chavez’s Farm Worker Movement by Miriam Pawel. (Bloomsbury Press, 2009) for the Western Historical Quarterly, Summer 2011 42 2: 250-251.
Mexicans in California: Transformations and Challenges by Ramon A. Gutierrez and Patricia Zavella. (University of Illinois Press, 2009) for Camino Real, December 2010 2 3: 181-182.
North for the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers & the Sugar Beet Industry by Jim Norris. (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009) for the Journal of American History, March 2010 96 4: 1235.
The Power of the Zoot: Youth Culture and Resistance during World War II by Luis Alvarez. (University of California Press, 2008) for the Western Historical Quarterly, Autumn 2009 40 3: 382.
Beasts of the Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769-1913 by Richard Steven Street. (Stanford University Press, 2004) for the Western Historical Quarterly Autumn 2005 36 3: 377-378.
PRESENTATIONS
“El Plan de Santa Barbara: Accountability and the Development of Leaders At California State University Channel Islands.” Presented at the 50th Anniversary Conference El Plan de Santa Barbara. February 22, 2019 University of California at Santa Barbara.
“Writing the Past and Present: The Historian as Participant Observer.” Presented at the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, August 6, 2016 Waikoloa, Hawaii.
“The Movement Before El Movimiento: Farmworker Advocacy and Organization Programs in Ventura County, 1961-1967.” Presented at the Sal Castro Memorial Conference. February 24, 2016 University of California at Santa Barbara.
“Mexican American with Moxie: Rachel Murguia Wong’s Struggle to Defend School Integration, 1968-1973.” Presented at Nuestra América: Rethinking Fronteras in US History A Conference Honoring the Career of Vicki L. Ruiz. February 20, 2015 University of California at Irvine.
“An Environment of Contention: Rachel Wong’s Struggle to Defend School Integration” Presented at the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, August 15, 2015 Portland Oregon.
National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Conference “Before Delano: Cesar Chavez and the Community Service Organization in a Southern California Community, 1958-1959. April 22, 2008 Austin Texas.
University of California at Los Angeles Conference “The Sleepy Lagoon Case, Constitutional Rights, and the Struggle for Democracy: A Commemorative Symposium”presentation. The Evolution of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. May 21, 2005 University of California Los Angeles. http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/special/scweb/slexhibit.htm
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