City College hosts Latino heritage events
By Catherine Lee
The Guardsman
City College’s Rosenberg Library and Resource Center is hosting a free arts and lecture series for the October celebration of Latina/o Heritage Month, with events at five different campuses.
The series includes unique lectures and cultural events that will be in the main library during class hours to make it easy for students and faculty to attend.
“This particular program of lectures is put together by library staffers and seeks to support and augment the CCSF curriculum,” the series organizer and City College librarian Mauro Garcia said.
In addition to the author reading, slide presentations of historical postcard art, films and musical demonstrations, the Rosenberg library has a month–long display on the fourth floor defining the critical dates that make 2010 an important anniversary for Mexico.
In September of 1810 Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla made his famous “Grito de Dolores,” which was the “shout” for Mexican independence from the Spanish. In 1910, the Mexican Revolution roared to life, seeking social and economic justice through government reformation.
The library display will be supplemented by the show “Soil and Soul of Chihuahua” at the Back to the Picture Latin American gallery, Nov. 6-28.
Garcia and fellow college librarian Anthony Costa think the turnout will be big for the lecture and discussion with the labor rights leader, Dolores Huerta. “That’s going to be special,” they both agreed.
In 1962 Huerta co–founded the National Farm Workers Association with Cesar Chavez before going on to co–found the United Farm Workers of America, which profoundly changed how farm workers are treated on the job.
Garcia and Costa attended a presentation given by Charles Fracchia, a City College librarian and author who founded the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society. Fracchia jauntily breezed through hundreds of years of California history to get his audience up to speed for his main course, “Californios and Ranchos: Life in Alto California, 1822-1846.”
When Fracchia asked his audience if anyone recognized the names Ortega, Portola, Anza, Sutter, De Haro or Noe, he got a roomful of head nods. He proceeded to explain how the names of these Mexican settlers and explorers got onto all the California street and neighborhood markers.
“In 1833 the Mexican California government in Monterey gave out … land grants to settlers, and those lands were called Ranchos,” he said.
Rancho families became the developing force that changed California’s landscape into one sculpted by cattle both financially and environmentally.
Costa said part of the reason he wanted to hear Fracchia’s lecture was because his “grandfather was born at Rancho Camulos in Ventura County.”
The audience was composed of 50 adults, most of whom are in Jose Cuellar’s “History of the Mexican–American/Chicano” class. Cuellar appreciated the timing of the lecture series. His class was also scheduled to attend the next presentation at Ocean campus, “The Violent Lens: Photo Postcards of the Mexican Revolution.”
After Fracchia’s lecture, students and faculty members had a lively discussion with Fracchia about race and migration in California. The event only broke up because it was the end of the class period.
In addition to teaching at City College, Cuellar is a musician who plays with Dr. Loco and his Rockin’ Jalapeño Band.