Promotional material by Marty Taylor, University of Arizona Libraries
In the mid-2000s I was a board member of Tucson Meet Yourself. Knowing that the 40th anniversary of the event was coming up, I decided to curate an exhibit on the event. Special Collections is home to the archives of the Southwest Folkore Center, which sponsored Tucson Meet Yourself. There was a wealth of materials to choose from, and it was great fun putting this exhibition together.
From the UA News Service: In celebration of the 40th anniversary of Tucson Meet Yourself, the UA Special Collections is hosting “40 Years of Tucson Meet Yourself” through Jan. 10. The special exhibition, curated by Bob Diaz, offers a retrospective review of the origins, traditions and celebrations that define Tucson Meet Yourself.
A view of the exhibition gallery
A display of Tucson Meet Yourself t-shirts
On display at Special Collections, 1510 E. University Blvd., the exhibition includes decades of posters, newspaper articles, programs, photographs and original documents, such as meeting notes. Also included is a music kiosk and a history of the festival’s annual corrido contest as well as a special profile of Griffith, the festival’s founder who is now retired from the UA.
Curated from the Tucson Meet Yourself Archive in Special Collections, which documents the festival from its first year through 1995, the exhibit also includes select items borrowed from the festival headquarters that were recently relocated to the UA Downtown campus in the Roy Place building.
A display of recordings by Lydia Mendoza and Lalo Guerrero, two regional musicians who performed at Tucson Meet Yourself
For more information about the 40th anniversary of Tucson Meet Yourself and the exhibition, see the Zocalo article, “Ephemera and Eccentricities”, by Monica Surfaro Spigelman.
Publicity material by Marty Taylor, University of Arizona Libraries
From the UA News Service:
UA Exhibition Reflects on Decades of Civil Rights in Tucson
Jan. 14, 2013
On Aug. 28, 1963, thousands were drawn to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to be part of what would become a historic event: the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
On a national level, the march spurred the passing of important civil rights legislation.
To honor that history, a new exhibition at the UA’s Special Collections will review how, 50 years later, the fight for civil rights has impacted local Tucson communities.
The exhibition, “50 Years: Civil Rights in Arizona from 1963 to Today,” is on display Jan. 15 through Aug. 31 at the UA Special Collections, 1510 E. University Blvd. The Special Collections exhibition focuses on national civil rights issues. A companion exhibition focusing on local civil rights will be on display in the UA Main Library during the same time period.
Highlights of the exhibit include national civil rights legislative documents from the Morris K. and Stewart L. Udall Collections and from the Tucson Council for Civic Unity archive, which detail the council’s effort to end discrimination and segregation in Tucson and Arizona.
The exhibition also includes photographs and papers from civil rights groups and individuals representing the African American, Native American, Asian American, Mexican American and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities of Tucson. An audio kiosk with songs from the civil rights era is also part of the exhibition.
A lecture series featuring community leaders, UA scholars and local educators, will accompany the exhibition. All lectures take place at Special Collections and are free and open to the public. They are:
Jan. 15: “50 Years: Tucson’s African American Community will be held 7-9 p.m. A screening of the documentary film “In Their Own Words: The 1960s Civil Rights Movement in Tucson” and a panel discussion with Charles Ford, former Tucson Vice Mayor and retired Tucson Unified School District principal, and Cressworth Lander, anative Tucsonan and president of the Dunbar Coalition.
Feb. 12: “50 Years: Tucson’s Native American Community” will be held 4-6 p.m. A discussion about Arizona, the Supreme Court and legal cases affecting and involving tribal members law cases, Arizona during the civil rights era with Robert A. Williams, Jr., the E. Thomas Sullivan Professor of Law and American Indian Studies at the UA James E. Rogers College of Law.
April 29: “50 Years: Tucson’s Mexican American Community” is a discussion with Lupe Castillo, a faculty member at Pima Community College, and Margo Cowan, a Pima County public defender.
Here is another overview of the exhibition and programs, from the February 21, 2013 issue of the Tucson Weekly. The exhibition and programs were The Weekly’s “Pick of the Week”.
Promotional material by Marty Taylor, University of Arizona Libraries
I co-curated this exhibit with Veronica Reyes-Escudero and a graduate student from the Library School. My portions of the exhibit dealt with stereotypes of people and places and included a focus on pulp fiction, movies and movie posters, as well as dude ranches and promotional material used by entities like the Tucson Sunshine Club. Veronica’s sections of the exhibit dealt with real life accounts of life along the border taken from diaries, for example and photographs of farming and ranching. The annotations that follow were all contributed by Veronica.
From the UA News Service: “Visions of the Borderlands: Myths and Realities is an exhibition inspired by two works published by the University of Arizona Press, Celluloid Pueblo by Jennifer L. Jenkins and Postcards from the Sonora Border by Daniel D. Arreola. There is a reality and a myth of the U.S.–Mexico borderlands, propagated through multiple lenses. Featuring material depicting both reality and myth through photography, posters, pamphlets and written documentation, this exhibit centers on important areas of enterprise for the Southwest such as photography and film; copper mining; tourism; and cattle ranching. It also expresses issues of discord such as the Mexican Revolution, mining strikes and immigrant exclusionary legislation of the time. “
Promotional video for “Visions of the Borderlands”
Local writer, Ernesto Portillo, Jr. featured “Visions of the Borderlands” in one of his “Neto’s Tucson” columns
The exhibit was also covered in a publication titled “Bear Essential News”. Click here to read it.
Two events were planned to go along with this exhibit. The opening event was titled, “Visions of the Borderlands: Exploring Popular Historical Imagery,” featuring author Daniel Arreola and University of Arizona Professor Jennifer Jenkins.
The second program “Visions of the Borderlands: Three Women Writers Share Their Stories”, featured the writers Denise Chavez, Patricia Preciado Martin, and Natalie Diaz. The program can be listened to in its entirety below. Producing this program was, for me, the best part of the whole project.
I worked with Dr. Charles Tatum of the Humanities program at the University of Arizona on this exhibit and lecture. Unfortunately, no photos of the actual exhibit exist, as they were lost when one of my hard drives bit the dust.
Promotional poster by Marty Taylor, University of Arizona Libraries
Main Library
April 2, 2012-June 12, 2012
News release by Bob Diaz
Tucson, Ariz. (March 29, 2012) – A new exhibit at the UA Main
Library explores the history of Latino literature in the United States
and chronicles a national movement to recover the Hispanic literary
tradition. On display from April 2 – June 12, 2012, “Arte Público Press
and the Legacy of Latino Publishing in the U.S.” showcases one of
nation’s oldest and most esteemed Hispanic publishing houses. Nicolás
Kanellos, director of Arte Público Press, will deliver the opening
lecture titled “From the Latino Archive to Your PC or Laptop or
Hand-Held Device: EBSCO Partners with Hispanic Recovery” on April 4 from
3:30 – 5:00 p.m. in UA Special Collections.
Nicolás Kanellos, founding publisher of the noted Hispanic literary journal The Americas Review (formerly Revista Chicano-Riqueña), established Arte Público Press in 1979. As that nation’s oldest and largest non-profit publisher of literature of U.S. Hispanic authors, Arte Público Press showcases Hispanic literary activity, arts, and culture. Its imprint for children and young adults, Piñata Books, is dedicated to the realistic and authentic portrayal of the customs, characters and themes unique to Hispanic culture in the United States.
Here is a selection of authors and book titles published by Arte Publico Press, and included in the exhibit.
