Note from the Director, Sandy Magaña (Found in the Springl 2011 issue of Regeneración)

This semester has been full of collaborative, cultural and intellectual events at CLS. In addition to the events written about in the newsletter, I want to draw your attention to events that the CLS Program has co-sponsored with other groups. On January 26th and 27th, we started off the semester co-sponsoring with the History Department, a visit by Adrian Burgos. Dr. Burgos is a professor of History, African American Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and last but not least, Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Adrian's scholarship focuses on the history of Latinos and Blacks in baseball. Burgos was selected to be the History Department's first Selig Distinguished Lecturer in Sport and Society. In addition to a University-wide talk, Dr. Burgos participated in an intimate and lively brownbag discussion about Latinos and baseball at the CLS office.
We co-sponsored another visiting scholar, Norma González, with the Department of Curriculum and Instruction as part of the Visiting Minority Scholars Lecture Series. Norma is a Professor in the Department of Language, Reading and Culture, and an affiliated faculty as well as a member of the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching program at the University of Arizona. Dr. González also graciously participated in an intimate brownbag discussion hosted by CLS. Her insights about bilingual education and the importance of recognizing the strengths and "funds of knowledge" among Latino students and their families were discussed.

While many were away at Spring Break, some of us in CLS helped support MEChA with their annual MEChA Nationals Conference. This is the first time this annual, national conference was held in Madison, Wisconsin. What an accomplishment by our UW-Madison MEChA students! There were approximately 300 Chican@ & Latin@ students from all over the country gathered at the Memorial Union. CLS faculty and staff, including Alfonso Morales, Cynthia Lin, Marla Delgado and myself, put together a workshop entitled, "What does graduate school have to do with social justice." Not surprisingly, many attendees who aspire to pursue graduate school participated in this session. CLS also sponsored two workshops conducted by Phil Gonzales, an Instructor from the Chicano/Latin American Studies Department at California State University in Fresno, CA (and my cousin). His workshops were entitled, "Murales de mi Tío" and told the story of his uncle who painted incredible Chicano murals all over the inland areas of Southern California in the 1970s.

Other co-sponsored events included a talk by Ralina Joseph on April 18th called "Transcending Blackness in the 21st Century, or How Can I be Like Barack Obama?" put together by the Department of Communication Arts as well as Latino Ball held on April 15th, organized by Unión Puertorriqueña and Latinos Unidos. Another collaboration we are very proud of is one that came about through our advocacy and discussions with the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. As a result, S&P will be offering Spanish 206 and 207 next year, Spanish for Spanish Speakers. With the growing Latino population at UW-Madison, it is increasingly important to offer classes that build on the linguistic strengths of students who grew up speaking Spanish at home. These events and activities are a piece of what the CLS Program has engaged in this semester—read the inside pages to learn more about what we've been up to! ¡Adelante!

-Sandy Magaña, Director of the CLS Program

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