African American History Month at CSUDH:
Ron Wilkins Journeys Through "Black Mexico"

The photography of Ron Wilkins, professor of Africana studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills, is featured in the exhibit “Journey to Black Mexico: A Photographic Discourse” at the 2nd City Council Gallery and Performance Space in Long Beach, Calif., through Feb. 28.

Wilkins, who has been chronicling the link between African and Mexican cultures for the last 15 years, focuses on how the two groups share a virtually unknown history that he feels can ease the present-day tensions between them.

“I attribute the uneasiness, tension and violence to historical amnesia,” says Wilkins, who grew up in South Los Angeles amid a backdrop of Chicano and African American turf wars. “We have a harmonious history together, that the public schools don’t teach. We share ancestors and we need to know that, especially when both communities feel uneasy around members of the other community and see them as adversaries.”

Wilkins cites the military leadership of Mexicans of African descent during the Mexican war for independence from Spanish rule and the efforts of Mexicans who helped thousands of slaves escape to freedom across the border from Texas plantations, saying that students who hear this history for the first time are “very surprised.”

“When young people hear this, they look at the guy or the girl next to them who is different and they no longer feel that tension,” says Wilkins, who presents African Mexican history to local high schools as well as his students at Dominguez Hills. “They’re ready to embrace the other person.”

Wilkins will present a lecture on “Creating and Sustaining Mutually-Supportive Relationships Between Black and Brown Students” on Saturday, Feb. 9 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the 2nd City Council Gallery. An artist’s reception will take place later that day, from 7 to 9 p.m. For more information on “Journey to Black Mexico” and the 2nd City Council Gallery and Performance Space, click here.

The Cal State Dominguez Hills African American History Month Celebration continues with the following events:

• Feb. 7: The 2nd Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium
  “King as Critic of Empire: Deconstruction Pax Americana”
  Symposium Panel:
  Dr. Melina Abdullah, professor of Pan-African studies, CSU Los Angeles
  Dr. Irene Vasquez, professor of Chicana/o studies, CSU Dominguez Hills
  Scott Brown, professor of history, UCLA
  
  
• Feb. 21: “African-Americans, Sacred Scriptures and the Quest for Social Power”
  Speaker: Vincent L. Wimbush, professor of religion and director of the Institute for Signifying Scriptures, Claremont Graduate University, School of Religion.
  Loker Student Union Ballroom, 7-9 p.m.; sponsored by the Philosophy Department
  
  
• Feb. 22- March 2: “The Colored Museum” by George C. Wolfe
  Directed by Jeffery Wright (Class of ’04)
  Edison Theatre, CSUDH
  For tickets and information, call (310) 243-3589 or order online at www.zaptix.com (browse “California”).
  
  
• Feb. 27: In Focus: Belizeans and Africans Outside the United States-
  The Ties That Bind
  Speaker: Zenaida Moya, mayor of Belize City, Belize
  Loker Student Union, TBA, 1-2:30 p.m.
  Sponsored by the Multicultural Center and Toro Productions
  For more information, call (310) 243-2519
  
  
• Afrikan Market Place
  Vendor Walkway, 10 a.m.- 7 p.m.
  Sponsored by the African American History Month Planning Committee

- Joanie Harmon