News

Ethnic Studies Summit Features Artist and Activist Melanie Cervantes

February 25, 2022

Award-winning artist and activist Melanie Cervantes (Xicanx) will serve as keynote speaker at Foothill’s first annual Ethnic Studies Summit on Friday, March 4, from 1-3 p.m.  Co-founder of Dignidad Rebelde, a graphic arts collaboration with fellow artist Jesus Barraza, Cervantes creates visual art inspired by her communities' desire for radical social transformation.

Hosted virtually by the newly formed Ethnic Studies Department, the afternoon summit will bring together both local high school students and Foothill students for an informative afternoon, including student speakers.  Participants will gain a better understanding of how to apply Ethnic Studies to both their education and their lives, and ultimately be inspired to enroll in an Ethnic Studies course, according to Ethnic Studies professor and department chair Ulysses Acevedo.

The spring schedule of classes includes two Ethnic Studies courses—Introduction to Ethnic Studies and Introduction to Latinx Studies.

All Foothill Ethnic Studies courses satisfy CSU Area D and Area F, CSU’s new Ethnic Studies requirement as of Fall 2021.  The courses also satisfy Foothill GE requirements for Area I, Humanities, and Area VI, United States Cultures & Communities.

Special guest speaker Cervantes has exhibited extensively nationally, including at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco); National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago); and Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY) and internationally at the Musée d’Aquitaine (Bordeaux, France), Galerija Alkatraz (Ljubljana, Slovenia) and Museo Franz Mayer (Mexico City, Mexico). 

Her work is in the permanent collections of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, the Latin American Collection of the Green Library at Stanford, the Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College and the Library of Congress and the as well as various other public and private collections throughout the U.S.

Also she is the inaugural recipient of the two-year Art In Resistance Fellowship (2019-2020), as well as being recognized as Dignidad Rebelde with The Piri Thomas & Suzie Dodd Cultural Activist Award from Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (2016), Community Award, National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies (2015), the NALAC Fund for the Arts(2012) and the Exemplary Leadership award from San Francisco State University (2010). She holds a BA in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

For Zoom access to the free summit, please register in advance.

For more information about the event, contact Ulysses Acevedo at acevedoulysses@fhda.edu.

To learn more about the Ethnic Studies program, visit the department website.