Register for the webinar here.
Since the advent of the Bracero program in the 1940s, Indigenous Oaxacan migrants in California have created a vast infrastructure of networks across the de-territorialized region of Oaxacalifornia. For nearly four decades, these transborder networks have forged spaces to foster the reproduction of Zapotec cultural performances such as the Guelaguetza Festival and community-based Zapotec philharmonic bands. In this webinar, Dr. Chavez will share stories from second-generation organizing committee members, musicians, and dancers that shed light on the transnational movement of tangible and intangible cultural heritage from Oaxaca and the power of collective efforts to maintain cultural traditions and identity.
Dr. Xóchitl C. Chávez is the first tenure track Chicanx assistant professor in the Department of Music at the University of California, Riverside. She is a scholar of expressive culture and performance, specializing in Indigenous communities from southern Mexico and transnational migration. Her current work focuses on second-generation Zapotec brass bands in Los Angeles, California and transborder relationships with their communities of origin in Oaxaca, Mexico. Dr. Chávez forthcoming manuscript La Guelaguetza: Oaxacan Migrant Festivals and the Making of Transborder Indigeneity documents the lived and performative movements of how Oaxacan communities in Los Angeles and Santa Cruz, California reproduce the annual La Guelaguetza festival, one of the most celebrated indigenous celebrations of communal dances and musical forms.
All are welcome!