Alicia Gaspar de Alba collection of Maquiladora Murders research materials, 1999-2007

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Summary

Abstract:
This collection is comprised of artifacts created and collected by Alicia Gaspar de Alba and Sandra Ruiz for a student-led exhibit on the Maquiladora Murders in Juarez. Alicia Gaspar de Alba is an award-winning novelist, professor, and poet who has written and researched the Maquiladora Murders in Ciudad JuƔrez. Her work includes the novel Desert Blood: The JuƔrez Murders. She also organized a conference on the issue, and some of the materials on this collection are related to that conference.
Extent:
15.85 Linear Feet (14 boxes)
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Alicia Gaspar de Alba collection of Maquiladora Murders research materials (Collection 109), Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA, Los Angeles, California.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection is comprised of artifacts created and collected by Alicia Gaspar de Alba and Sandra Ruiz for a student-led exhibit on the Maquiladora Murders in Juarez, as well as items from a conference related to the subject. Materials include clothing, artistic displays and objects, and papers.

Biographical / historical:

Alicia Gaspar de Alba is an award-winning novelist, professor, and poet. Gaspar de Alba was born in El Paso, Texas on July 29, 1958. She taught English to Mexican executives and staff members of General Motors' maquiladoras at the Instituto Interlingua in JuƔrez, Chihuahua, from 1978-1980. In 1979, the National Research Council (NRC) in Washington, D.C., offered her a Ford Foundation fellowship. She earned her B.A. in English in 1980 and M.A. in English in 1983 from the University of Texas in El Paso. She enrolled as a PhD student in American Studies at the University of Iowa in 1985. She temporarily took a pause from her doctoral studies, which she resumed at the University of New Mexico's American Studies program. She went on to graduate with distinction.

Gaspar de Alba's research focuses on Chicano/a art, pop culture, literature, and writing. Her dissertation was titled "Mi Casa [No] Es Su Casa: The Cultural Politics of the Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation Exhibit", for which she was awarded a Ralph Henry Gabriel American Studies Dissertation Fellowship in 1993, a Ford Foundation Fellowship in 1993, and a Chicana Dissertation Fellowship from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1992. Her named was also awarded Best Dissertation in the field of American Studies in 1994. The University of Texas Press eventually published the dissertation as a book titled Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Master's House: Cultural Politics and the CARA Exhibition in January 1998.

Much of Gaspar de Alba's work has focused on the murders of young women in Ciudad JuƔrez. Following the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, U.S.-based corporation increasingly moved their factories, or maquiladoras, to cities along the U.S.-Mexico border, such as Ciudad JuƔrez. This led to an increase in young women from rural areas moving to cities to look for jobs in American-owned maquiladoras. Gaspar de Alba's research has examined the deaths of over 300 young women over a 10-year period. She also helped to organized a conference titled "The Maquiladora Murders, Or, Who is Killing the Women of JuƔrez?" at UCLA. The conference examined how authorities on both sides of the border have been silent and complicit. Participants also discussed the sexism surrounding the murders and discussions of the victims.

Acquisition information:
Sandra Ruiz; gift; 2005. This collection has been deeded to the UCLA CSRC. Deed on file in the Archive office.
Processing information:

Processed by CSRC Staff, 2009.

Arrangement:

This collection has no series and is described at the item level.

Physical location:
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE: Advance notice is required for timely retrieval. Please request materials 4 weeks in advance. Researchers MUST make a research appointment via the Archival Research Application.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for research. Access is available by appointment for UCLA students and faculty, as well as independent researchers. Advance requests can be made via the Archival Research Application on the CSRC Library website.

Terms of access:

Property rights to the physical object belong to the CSRC Library. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish.

All requests for permission to publish must be submitted in writing to the Head Librarian of the CSRC Library. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Alicia Gaspar de Alba collection of Maquiladora Murders research materials (Collection 109), Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA, Los Angeles, California.

Location of this collection:
University of California, Los Angeles, Chicano Studies Research Center Library, 193 Haines Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1544, US
Contact:
(310) 206-6052
librarian@chicano.ucla.edu
Website