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westernartgirlAnd Now, a Word From Our Intern
Editor’s note: Alie Chavez, now in her junior year at Loyola Marymount University, worked for ten weeks this summer under the direction of Marlene Head, the Autry’s director of publications, as the 2011 Getty Multicultural Undergraduate Intern in Publications. Among other things, she helped produce a stylebook for all Autry publications. As her last internship … Read more
A Latina Writer With Something to Say About Immigration — and Motherhood
Recently I asked the writer Melinda Palacio whether Latino writers still have something to say in 2011. The question is somewhat rhetorical, but she knew what I was referring to: through the 1980s and 1990s, it seemed like every new literary star was a Latino, and readers clamored for any novel with a slightly exotic … Read more
An Unspoiled Space: The West in the Eyes of Early 20th-Century Artists
Updated July 22 — At the end of June, the Autry opened its new art installation in the Romance gallery, Art and the 20th Century West, and it includes important works by early 20th-century artists such as Maynard Dixon, Ernest Blumenschein, Oscar Berninghaus, Robert Henri, Frank Applegate and John Sloan. Among the highlights is Dixon’s … Read more
The Endeavour Shuttle’s Final Flight into History
Updated May 20 — The space shuttle Endeavour lifted off Monday from Launch Pad 39A of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on its last flight into space, a 16-day mission to the International Space Station. But as historic as that is, it’s not necessarily the trip on Ken Phillips’ mind at the moment. The California Science … Read more
Decoding Punishment: the Prison System in California
Updated May 12 — As Californians — both voters and legislators — ponder how to balance the state’s budget, one of the most important questions to consider is whether and how to reform the state’s prison system. And to begin to decipher that question, says UCLA History Professor Michael Meranze, they should consider an even … Read more
George Harwood Phillips on Stitching Together the Story of a People
Updated May 9 — When, as a young academic at UCLA, George Harwood Phillips switched from African history to focusing on the Native peoples of California, he had no idea that they were probably one of the best-documented groups in existence. Phillips, now a retired Professor of History at the University of Colorado, Boulder, spoke … Read more
LA Plaza Opens a Space for Mexican-American History and Culture in Los Angeles
Given that almost anywhere you go in Los Angeles, you’re likely to encounter some aspect of its Mexican origins, on some level it seems almost redundant to have a museum dedicated to L.A.’s Mexican and Mexican-American history, culture and art. On the other hand, not to have one is unthinkable. The latest effort to rectify … Read more
Reyna Grande — Mexican Past, American Present
Updated May 11 — Author Reyna Grande looks off into the middle distance while she thinks about an interviewer’s question. She is mentally traveling in familiar but painful territory, and she seems to want to make sure she picks the correct words. She is in no hurry to answer. Grande, who was at the Autry … Read more
Gaining a Spouse and Losing Visibility
On Thursday morning, Mar. 31, National Public Radio aired a Census-based story about intermarriage among Native Americans: that they are the most likely to marry outside their group, and how that can sometimes jeopardize their legal standing as tribe members. “For the Eastern Shoshone of Wyoming, you have to be at least one-quarter Native American … Read more
Among Dusty Documents in Forgotten Drawers, a Real Treasure
It’s a bit faded, not to mention at least a couple of hundred years old. Until recently, it lay in a drawer under tissue paper in the Braun Research Library at the Southwest Museum, and none of the current staffers knew it even existed. But it appears that among the library’s holdings is a real … Read more
