Rocky Mountain Foco 

Foco Virtual Conference
September 29-30, 2016

Honoring Our Legacies

program now available

The Rocky Mountain Region of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) has a long legacy of social, political, and cultural commitment to the Chicanx communities that reside in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and Wyoming. This year, the Rocky Mountain Foco will highlight the many ways in which we have created legacies in our individual states that serve as a reminder of our past and new struggles and the need to affirm and work toward the preservation of our heritage and the creation of new legacies for future generations. In this light, we welcome submissions that touch on any aspect of the Chicanx legacy – and look forward to productive dialogues among our Rocky Mountain Naccistas during our first virtual conference.

Please send a short abstract (250 words) to the following state coordinators by July 31, 2016. Abstracts should include your name, email, and any  requests for AV equipment. Email notifications of acceptance will be sent out by mid­-August.

All general inquiries can be addressed to the conference co­chairs: Dr. Vanessa Fonseca (vfonseca@asu.edu) and José Juan Gómez (jjgomez2@asu.edu)

Friday, September 30, 2016

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  2011 Regional Foco Conference

In Defense of Ethnic Studies and MEChA: A Proven Path to Higher Education in AZ & the US

Continuing Arizona Demographic Changes, HB 2281, and the Silencing
of the Cambium Report:
The Strategy of Fear and the Cultural Repression of a People

November 19 & 20, 2011
Arizona State University
Hosted by Rocky Mountain Foco, NACCS

atttendence is free 

see preliminary program

The year 2011 marks the first statewide application of law HB 2281 under which the State of Arizona targets one single American ethnic group and seeks to dismantle a federally-mandated educational program, namely Raza Studies, that has programmatically and effectively addressed, with an over 80% success rate, the recruitment and mentoring of US Latino K-12 students into college and university programs. In defense of such successful program, the instructors and administrators in Raza Studies, whose Mexican American curriculum is part of a multicultural program in the Ethnic Studies unit of the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD), have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of HB 2281. Coinciding with the legislative approval of the nefarious SB 1070, the drafting and passing of HB 2281 in 2010 was used as a wedge issue by major players in the Arizona Legislature and resulted in the rise of one-party rule in the state. Leadership for passing HB 2281 was provided by the new Arizona Attorney, who has delegated the task of dismantling the highly successful program of Raza Studies to his successor in the position of Arizona Superintendent of Schools. In contrast, across Arizona, the Rocky Mountain Region, the Southwest, and the rest of the United States much concern has risen regarding the future of the highly successful K-12 program in Mexican-American Studies/Raza Studies in TUSD. That is, many voices have come forward to defend Ethnic Studies, specifically TUSD’s Raza Studies, which is an integral part of other curriculum and instructional programs such as Afro-American Studies, Native-American Studies, and Asian-American Studies. In heeding these voices, putting into action the NACCS resolution passed at the 2011 annual NACCS conference in Pasadena, California, and adhering to NACCS founding principle of producing action research, the Rocky Mountain FOCO is seeking to engage in a constructive intellectual dialogue and will hold a multi-organization conference entitled “Continuing Arizona Demographic Changes, HB 2281, and the Silencing of the Cambium Report: The Strategy of Fear and the Cultural Repression of a People” to be convened and hosted November 19 and 20 by the Arizona State University at Tempe.

We are thus seeking proposals for papers, panels, and workshops, which address the central theme, and its four major subdivisions: 1) the Conscious Undermining of the Cambium Report; 2) the History of Ethnic Studies in Arizona’s College and Universities, 3) the History of Ethnic Studies in the United States: Fifty Years of Curricular, Instructional, and Applied Scholarly Research for America’s Universities and Society in General, 4) the un-American Criticisms of Ethnic Studies by Fear Inspired Arizona Politicians, 5) the Role of Students, Instructors, and Administrators in Mexican American/Chicano/a Studies; and 6) the Role of MEChA in Promoting Higher Education from 1969 to the Present.

Invited Speakers
Jeffrey J. Hernández, lead author of the Cambium Report; Renowned Historian Rodolfo Acuña; NACCS Past Chair Devon Peña; Arizona Superintendent of Schools John Huppenthal, and others.

Proposals
Proposal format: Name(s), address, home and work phone number(s), e-mail, one 25-50 word paragraph description, paper/panel/workshop title, and audio-video request.

Deadline
First priority: Saturday, October 29, 2011. Notification: Thursday, November 3, 2011. Please email submission to: NACCS 2011 Rocky Mountain Regional Conference Committee, c/o Dr. Manuel de Jesús Hernández-G., Mexican American Studies in Spanish, Spanish Program, SILC, Arizona State University, defendethnicstudiesmecha@gmail.com.