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CSUN Chicano/a Studies Professor Receives Smithsonian Internship

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., May 1, 2007) — Cal State Northridge Chicano/a Studies professor Antonia Garcia-Orozco received a prestigious internship to study at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. this summer.

Garcia-Orozco will be working with the Latin Music Initiative (LMI), which is a part of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Center in conjunction with the Latino Center. Her studies in gender and race relations, feminist ethnography and performance art, and ethnic literature complement her work in researching cultural heritage. Her internship with the LMI will expand her studies to support her dissertation.

"I am reconstructing how Mexican women and Chicanas have created agency for themselves though a musical genre that historically has been male dominated," said Garcia-Orozco. "My work examines the intersection of race, class, gender, and feminist agency through an examination of the careers of the first queens of the ‘cancion ranchera.’"

Garcia-Orozco was invited to apply for the internship by Daniel Sheehy, director and curator of the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, when she gave a presentation on her dissertation and moderated a panel at the Society of Ethnomusicology conference in 2006.

For 15 years, Garcia-Orozco taught at Northridge’s Chicano/a Studies Department. The fall semester of 2007 will find Garcia-Orozco teaching at Cal State Long Beach in the Chicano/a Latino/a Studies Department.

Cultural heritage is an ever-expanding scope. It is used globally as a basis for multinational, national, state and local programs, and governance. It is also the focus of ideas and programs generated by hundreds of non-governmental organizations, community-based and advocacy groups, and businesses.

The Smithsonian internship program grants only 40 to 45 individuals each year the chance to work with different aspects in specialized areas of interest. Current research by staff folklorists, cultural anthropologists, and ethnomusicologists utilizes social scientific and humanistic methodologies to understand the expressive cultures of ethnic, regional, tribal, and occupational groups and the contexts in which they occur.

The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage is a research and educational unit of the Smithsonian Institution promoting the understanding and continuity of diverse, contemporary grassroots cultures in the United States and around the world.