September | October | November | December

James Samstad, a Ph.D. from the UC Berkeley Political Science Department, has been teaching at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Mexico and will be a visiting faculty member at Brown University during the current academic year.

Friday, August 11, 3:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

(An open meeting of the Agrarian Studies Working Group)
Professor Jonathan Fox, Chair of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, will present a synthesis of two related papers. The first is titled, "The Inter-Dependence Between Citizen Participation and Institutional Accountability: Lessons from Mexico's Rural Municipal Funds" and the second is titled, "Investing in Social Capital? Comparative Lessons from Ten World Bank Rural Develop.m.ent Projects in Mexico and the Philippines." Professor Alain de Janvry, Agricultural and Resource Economics (UC Berkeley), will be commenting on both papers. Refreshments will be provided.

Thursday, August 31, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

From left: CLAS Chair Harley Shaiken, Vice Chair Leah Carroll, and Program Assistant Margaret Lamb

Please join us to celebrate the award of Title VI funding and the beginning of another exciting semester. The Center for Latin American Studies cordially invites all new and continuing Latin Americanist students and faculty, visiting scholars, and friends to an informal reception.

Thursday, September 7, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Eliades Acosta (right) with Carlos Delgado, the librarian of Doe Library's Latin American collection

An informal conversation with Eliades Acosta, director of the José Martí National Library of Cuba. Dr. Acosta is a philosophy profesor in Santiago de Cuba, and the founder of the Santiago Cultural Center, a gathering place for Cuban intellectuals. He is in Berkeley to inaugurate the exhibit of Cuban materials donated to the Doe Library by the National Library of Cuba. A question and answer session will follow.
In Spanish with translation.

The Cuban book exhibit is being held in the Bernice Layne Brown Gallery of Doe Library until October 15, 2000.

Monday, September 11, 3:00-4:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

A lecture and reception to celebrate an exhibit of Cuban books presented to Doe Library by the José Martí National Library of Cuba. Dr. Acosta is director of the National Library, a philosophy professor in Santiago de Cuba, and the founder of the Santiago Cultural Center. Commentary will follow by Julio Ramos of the UC Berkeley Department of Spanish and Portuguese. This event is co-sponsored by The Bancroft Library, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and CLAS.
In Spanish with translation.

The Cuban book exhibit is being held in the Bernice Layne Brown Gallery of Doe Library until October 15, 2000.

Wednesday, September 13, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Morrison Room, Doe Library

Analysis and commentary for this event

Pablo Spiller
"Amateur Legislators, Professional Politicians: The Argentine Congress in the Twentieth Century"

Pablo Spiller

Wednesday, September 20, 12:00-1:30 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Analysis and commentary for this event

Series Conflict, Memory and Transitions

Elizabeth Lira is a Chilean psychologist and professor at the Universidad Jesuita Alberto Hurtado. Her current research focuses on Chilean reconciliation and resistance of memory. She is the supervisor of clinical teams working in domestic violence and abuse, and with victims of human rights violations for PRAIS, a public and mental health program for victims of human rights violations during the dictatorship from 1973 to 1990. Professor Lira has co-authored two books on political reconciliation with San Diego State University Professor Brian Loveman, and written a number of other books related to the collective memory of victims of human rights abuses.

This seminar is the first of a series titled Conflict, Memory and Transitions, sponsored by CLAS. The program will bring together speakers on the subjects of violence, war, memory, fear, truth commissions, postwar reconciliation, and peace. Concurrently, CLAS will sponsor a working/study group for faculty and students to discuss ethnographic studies on the subject. To register, attend the above seminar or e-mail Andres Alvarado at a_alvara@uclink.berkeley.edu.

Friday, September 22, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Analysis and commentary for this event

UC Berkeley Professor Beatriz Manz (Departments of Geography and Ethnic Studies), Xochitl Castañeda, Allison Davenport, and Ingrid Perry-Houts will present an article based on a research project entitled, "Guatemalan Immigration to the Bay Area." The talk will discuss causes of out-migration from Guatemala, networks subsequently established in the United States, employment trends, as well as the social and cultural impact of migration on migrants and their families and communities in Guatemala. The presentation is sponsored by the Center for Latino Policy Research to inaugurate the publication of the article.

Monday, September 25, 12:00-1:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch St.

Analysis and commentary for this event

Marcio Souza
"As Políticas Culturais Brasileiras: Passado e Presente."

Marcio Souza

(in Portuguese)

Thursday, September 28, 12:00-2:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Analysis and commentary for this event by Professor José Luiz Passos
Em português

 Teresa Palomo Acosta
"Desde'l Corazón de Tejas: Re-imaging and Re-telling Chicano Stories"

Teresa Palomo Acosta is an award-winning writer of poetry, fiction, and essays. She has published two collections of poetry (Passing Time [1984] and Nile and Other Poems [1999]), contributed to numerous anthologies and journals, and works with the Mexican American Theater in Austin. Co-sponsored with the Center for Latino Policy Research.

Thursday, September 28, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Ethnic Studies Conference Room, 554 Barrows

Analysis and commentary for this event

Series Develop.m.ent, Labor Standards, and Economic Integration in the Americas

Enrique de la Garza and Nestor de Buen
"Mexican Labor at a Crossroads"

Enrique de la Garza, professor of Sociology from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Iztapalapa), will speak on "The Political Transition and Mexican Labor." He is the author of, most recently, Cambio en las Relaciones Laborales (1999) and Tratado Latinamericano de Sociología del Trabajo (2000). Nestor de Buen, a professor of law at UNAM and a councilmember of the Human Rights Commission of Mexico City, will speak on "Prospects for Labor Law Reform in Mexico." De Buen is a key participant in the labor law reform process in Mexico.

Friday, September 29, 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Analysis and commentary for this event

Series New Directions for Mexico

Victor Lichtinger
"Toward an Effective Environmental Policy for Mexico"

Mr. Lichtinger, an international environmental consultant, spent four years as executive director of the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), a trinational agency set up to promote environmental enforcement by the three signatories of NAFTA. In this capacity, Lichtinger has helped reshape Mexico's environmental policies with regard to NAFTA. He is currently co-chair of the environmental transition team for President-elect Vicente Fox. Moderated by Professor Alain de Janvry (Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics); reception will follow the talk.

Monday, October 2, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Analysis and commentary for this event

	Series Visiting Faculty Fellows Noon Lecture
Fernando Calderón "Develop.m.ent and Democracy in Bolivia" Monday, October 2, 12:00-1:00 p.m. CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Series Guatemala: Perspectives

Rosalina Tuyuc

Rosalina Tuyuc is the founder and current president of Conavigua (the National Coordinate of Widows in Guatemala), an organization of mostly Mayan widows and their families in the areas most affected by the country's 35 years of armed conflict. Tuyuc was a congresswoman from 1996 to 2000, representing the Frente Democratico Nueva Guatemala party. During this time, she held the position of third vice president of Congress.

Tuyuc's was one of the first voices that rose after the destruction of civil organizations by the military dictatorship in the 1980s. Along with Conavigua, she was a vital force in the resurgence of organizations of civil society.

The lecture will be moderated by UC Berkeley Professor Beatriz Manz (Departments of Ethnic Studies and Geography).

(in Spanish, with translation)

Monday, October 2, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Analysis and commentary for this event

Gustavo Esteva is a grassroots activist and deprofessionalized intellectual. He is part of many independent organizations and networks, which he has assisted in creating, in Mexico and other countries, to foster social, economic, technological, and ecological alternatives. Esteva is the author of a dozen books and more than 500 essays. Among his recent books is Grassroots Postmodernism: Remaking the soil of culture with M.S. Prakish (Zed Books, London 1998). He has been the National Prizewinner of Political Economics (1978), President of the 5th World Congress on Rural Sociology (1980), a member of the Board and Interim Chairman of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Develop.m.ent (1980-1984), President of the Mexican Society for Planning, and Vice President of the InterAmerican Society for Planning. Currently Esteva is a columnist for Reforma, publishes regularly in different journals, and works with Indian groups and NGOs, including the Zapatista Army for National Liberation. The lecture will be moderated by UC Berkeley Professor Ignacio Chapela (Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management).

Thursday, October 5, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Analysis and commentary for this event

The Bancroft Library is hosting an all-day symposium, focusing on general and specialized Latin America and Mexican American research materials held at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and the Sutro Library in San Francisco. Attendance is extended to faculty and graduate students of the greater Bay Area who would substantially benefit from an introduction to the libraries, rare books, manuscripts, and archival resources housed in the participating libraries.

If you are interested in attending the symposium, please contact Melissa Stevens-Briceño at (510) 642-3782 at the Bancroft Library. Sponsored by the Bancroft Library (UC Berkeley), Stanford University Library, CLAS, the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford University, the California State Library, and the Townsend Center for the Humanities (UC Berkeley).

Friday, October 6, 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.
Bancroft Library

Elizabeth Burgos will discuss guerrilla movements in Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia that arose under the influence of Cuba after 1959 and concluded with the death of Che Guevara in 1967. She will also cover the Guatemalan guerrilla movement, which began in the 1970s and -- although the peace accords were not signed until 1996 -- was defeated militarily in 1982. Burgos has a Masters in Clinical Psychology and a PhD in Anthropology and is the editor of, most recently, El furor y el delirio (Barcelona, 1999). She interviewed Rigoberta Menchu and edited the interview as Yo, Rigoberta Menchu. Her current project, La lucha armada, is based on interviews with more than 50 participants in the various revolutionary movements she will discuss. The complete title of her latest book is El furor y el delirio: itinerario de un hijo de la Revolución cubana.

(in Spanish)

Tuesday and Wednesday, October 10 and 11, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Stone Seminar Room, Bancroft Library 

Analysis and commentary for this event

James Lerager
Photo Exhibit: Central America After the Wars

James Lerager

Contact CLAS for public viewing times

Read the artist's statement and view additional photos in our online gallery. 

Thursday, October 12, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
CLAS conference room, 2334 Bowditch Street    

Series New Directions for Mexico

Sen. Amalia García Medina
"Reflections on Mexico's Transition"

Senator Amalia García is the national president of the Partido de la Revolución Democratica (PRD) in Mexico, and the first woman to head a major political party in Mexico. She was one of the founders of the PRD and currently is an advisor to Mexico City's Human Rights Commission and the National Program for Women. Senator García spoke at CLAS' Alternatives for the Americas conference in December of 1998.

(in Spanish with translation)

Wednesday, October 18, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
145 McCone Hall

Analysis and commentary for this event

Series New Directions for Mexico

Adolfo Aguilar Zinser
"Challenges of the Transition"

Senior advisor and coordinator for foreign policy to President-elect Vicente Fox during the transition period, former independent Senator Aguilar has been a visiting professor at CLAS and participated in the CLAS conference Alternatives for the Americas.

Moderated by CLAS Chair Professor Harley Shaiken.

Wednesday, October 18, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
145 McCone Hall

Analysis and commentary for this event

This conference is co-sponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, CLAS, the Townsend Center for the Humanities, the Office of the Dean of Humanities, and the Library.

Welcome: Dru Dougherty, Chair, and Professor Francine Masiello, Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Panel 1: Contexts and Cultural Projects

Raquel Olea, Casa de la Mujer La Morada, Santiago de Chile, and Visiting Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Soledad Bianchi, Universidad de Chile
Marcelo Pellegrini, UC Berkeley and Valparaíso
Francine Masiello (moderator)

Video and slide presentation. The Politics of Vision: Aesthetics and Discord, by Catalina Parra, visual artist, New York and Santiago de Chile.

Panel 2: The Role of Culture

Carmen Berenguer, poet, Santiago de Chile
Jaime Concha, UC San Diego and Chile
Andrea Jeftanovich, UC Berkeley and Chile
Mary Louise Pratt, Stanford University (moderator)

Chilean writers reading: Andrea Jeftanovich, novelist; Sergio Missana, novelist; Luc a Guerra-Cunningham, novelist; Marcelo Pellegrini, poet; Carmen Berenguer, poet; and Soledad Falabella (moderator).

A reception will follow.

Friday, October 20, 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
370 Dwinelle Hall

The presentation discusses the relationship between political processes in Mexico and the activities of the Mexican immigrant community in the United States.

Jesús Martínez has published articles in the area of Mexican immigration to the United States, including work related to Mexican immigrant political activities, the right to vote for Mexicans abroad, and cultural matters. Since 1987, he has participated in immigrant organizations seeking the right to vote in Mexican presidential elections.

Andrès Jimènez is director of the California Policy Research Center (CPRC), a University of California Office of the President program that applies independent, nonpartisan scholarly research expertise to public policy issues. JimZnez has researched and written about society and politics in the United States and Mexico, US race and ethnic relations, US immigration policy, and US-Latin American relations.

Co-sponsored by the Center for Latino Policy Research

Wednesday, October 25, 4:15 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Series New Directions for Mexico

Governor-elect Pablo Salazar
"Chiapas and the Future of Mexico"

In July, Pablo Salazar won the gubernatorial elections in Chiapas, heading a broad opposition alliance that included both the PRD and the PAN.

Thursday, October 26, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
145 McCone Hall

Analysis and commentary for this event
Multimedia presentations for this event

Series Guatemala: Perspectives

Panel Discussion
" Testimonial and Legal Perspectives on Justice and Reparations in Guatemala"

Panel discussants include:
Jesús Tecú Osorio is a Maya Achí human rights activist and survivor of the Río Negro massacre of 177 members of his community. Tecú's testimony contributed to the prosecution of three civil patrol members. Barbara Rose Johnston is a senior research fellow a the Center for Poltical Ecology and has recently written a briefing paper for the World Commission on Dams in which she discusses the legal basis for reparations for involuntarily displaced communities. Naomi Roht-Arriaza is a professor at Hastings College of Law and the author of Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice. Mary Beth Kaufman is a law student at UC Berkeley's Boalt School of Law and worked with the Historical Clarification Commission in Guatemala. Moderated by UC Berkeley Professor Beatriz Manz (Departments of Ethnic Studies and Geography).

Monday, October 30, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
370 Dwinelle Hall

Analysis and commentary for this event

Series Guatemala: Perspectives

Panel Discussion
"The Role of the Catholic Church in the Cooperative Movement in Guatemala"

Father Luis Gurriaran is a Catholic Priest of the Spanish Sacred Heart Order who has been in the Diocese of El Quiche, Guatemala since the late 1950s. He specialized in cooperatives in Canada in the 1960s and became instrumental in creating several peasant cooperatives in El Quiche. In this capacity, he lead the colonization of the Ixcan rain forest in the early 1970s. As a result of military persecution, he left Guatemala and spent several years in Nicaragua and later lived with the Communities of Population in Resistance hidden inside Guatemala and in the refugee camps in Mexico. He currently lives in Guatemala and works with rural cooperatives. Moderated by Professor Beatriz Manz.

Wednesday, November 1, 4:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Analysis and commentary for this event

Series Development, Labor Standards, and Economic Integration in the Americas

Jeff Sluyter-Beltrão
"Fasting Alone: The Civic 'Maturation' of the New Unionism and the Dilapidation of Union Democracy in Brazil, 1978-1995"

Jeffrey Sluyter-Beltrão is a Ph.D. candidate in the UC Berkeley Political Science Department. His dissertation is on the internal politics of Brazil's leading national labor confederation, the CUT.

Thursday, November 2, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Analysis and commentary for this event

	Series Visiting Faculty Fellows Noon Lecture
Sandy Tolan "Environmental Issues along the US-Mexican Border" Monday, November 6, 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Series Conflict, Memory and Transitions

Elizabeth Jelin is a professor and senior researcher at the Institute of Social Research, Universidad de Buenos Aires, and at the National Council of Scientific Research, Argentina (CONICET). Her teaching and research interests encompass human rights and historical memory of repression, the family, citizenship and social movements. Her most recent publication was Pan y Afecto: La Transformaci-n de las Familias (1998) (Bread and Affection: Family Transitions).

Charles Hale is an Associate Professor in the Anthropology department of the University of Texas. Prof. Hale, a Stanford PhD, is also Associate Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at UT. His current research is on ethnic and racial politics, mestizo/ladino identities and ideologies of mestizaje with particular focus on Central America, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. His book Resistance and contradiction: Miskitu Indians and the Nicaraguan State, 1894-1987 was widely acclaimed.

Tani Adams works with CIRMA, the Center for Regional Research on Mesoamerica.

Saturday, November 11
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch

Analysis and commentary for this event

Series Guatemala: Perspectives

Clyde Snow, with Mercedes Doretti and Fredy Peccerilli
"Uncovering the 'Disappeared': Clyde Snow and Forensic Anthropologists' Work for Justice"

The three forensic anthropologists will address the uses of anthropology to determine human rights abuses in Guatemala and Argentina. Internationally renowned forensic anthropologist Clyde Snow presents how he first applied his forensic skills to ascertain human rights abuses among civilians who "disappeared" in Argentina, and later to determine the location of mass graves and the identity of victims in Guatemala. This work led to the training of forensic anthropologists, who continue these efforts around the world. Snow received a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Arizona. He has worked extensively with Americas Watch and other human rights groups, and his work led to the conviction of five military officers in Argentina.

Mercedes Doretti and Fredy Peccerelli also will present their experiences as part of forensic research teams whose results have contributed to national and international investigations and judicial processes. Peccerelli heads the Foundation for Forensic Anthropology of Guatemala. The presentation illustrates how the process of identifying victims and confirming events plays a key role in efforts to seek closure for the families of the "disappeared."

The discussion will be followed by a reception and a photographic exhibit by Vince Heptig on Guatemalan research.

Co-sponsored with the American Anthropological Association (AAA).

Friday, November 17, 6:15-7:45 p.m.
San Francisco Hilton and Towers

Analysis and commentary for this event
Text and Photos Documents from the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation

Amy Ross

Professor Ross earned an MA in Latin American Studies from Berkeley. Her thesis compared civilian militia in Peru and Guatemala in the context of the state -insurgency relations. Her doctoral thesis (Geography, 1999, UC-Berkeley) examined the experiences of truth commissions in Guatemala and South Africa). Prof. Ross sought to understand how narrations of past violence influence the transformation of future power-relations. She is especially interested in 'geographies of justice'--how the place and space where justice is practiced influence these efforts at accountability and power.

Her current research project focuses on the ICC (International Criminal Court) which will be established over the next few years in The Hague. Prof Ross explores how notions of justice contribute to the formation of Something called the 'international community'--and, in turn, how such a community influences the develop.m.ent of justice.

If you wish to attend, please register beforehand by contacting Professor Beatriz Manz.

Tuesday November 21, 4:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Alfredo Prieto is the editor of the Cuban cultural journal Temas and head of the Communications Department at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center, an institution of Christian inspiration in Havana. In recent years he has written extensively on U.S. media coverage of Cuba, in addition to that of the 1990 elections in Nicaragua and Haitian migration. Prieto is currently a visiting scholar at the DataCenter in Oakland.

The talk will be moderated by Professor of Journalism Lydia Chavez.

Tuesday, November 28, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Owen Herrnstadt is the Director of International Affairs for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). He develops and implements union strategies to confront the realities of globalization, and has built relationships with unions in other countries. He has also been deeply involved in the debate over the relationship between labor standards and trade. The Machinists' Union represents 750,000 workers in more than 200 basic industries in North America, including major manufacturing and aerospace firms such as Boeing in Seattle. The Machinists were among the unions participating at W.T.O. protests in Seattle last year.

Wednesday, November 29, 1:00-3:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Analysis and commentary for this event

A veteran Bay Area social activist and long-time resident of Mexico City, Ross was one of the first reporters to cover the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas in January 1994. His book Rebellion from the Roots won the American Book Award the following year. In November Ross will be touring the West Coast with his latest book, The War Against Oblivion - Zapatista Chronicles 1994-2000, the season-by-season saga of the conflict in Chiapas. Ross's other titles include The Annexation of Mexico - from the Aztecs to the IMF and Tonatiuh's People, a novel of the Mexican cataclysm.

Wednesday, November 29, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
370 Dwinelle

Analysis and commentary for this event

	Series Visiting Faculty Fellows Noon Lecture
Gerardo Munck "Latin American Politics: Recent Trends and Future Challenges" Thursday, November 30, 12:00-1:00 p.m. CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Professor Juárez is a noted researcher and analyst of collective bargaining in the Mexican auto industry and he is a Professor at the Autonomous University of Puebla, Mexico. He serves as the economic advisor to the Volkswagen Union, and he played a critical role in the recent strike and negotiations at VW. His talk will analyze the potential impact of trade-related labor standards on Mexican automobile industry workers, in the context of Mexico's political and economic transformations.

Friday, December 1, 10:00 -11:00 a.m
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch

Francisco Leal is a professor of political science and sociology at the University of the Andes in Bogotà, Colombia, and currently an investigating professor at Flacso-Sede Ecuador in Quito. He was a founder of the magazines Estudios Rurales Latinoamericanos, Anàlisis Político, and Revista de Estudios Sociales and has written numerous articles and books, including Clientelism: The Political System and its Regional Expression (Leal and Andrès Dàvila, 1990) and The Role of the War: National Security in Colombia (1994). James Robinson will be the moderator for this event.

Monday, December 4, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street

Calixto Machado is from the Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Havana, Cuba.

Tuesday, December 5, 12 p.m.
CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch Street