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Finding Aid for the Jose Luis Sedano Papers 1930-2000
53  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Access
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Acquisition Information
  • Biography
  • Scope and Content
  • Indexing Terms

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: Jose Luis Sedano Papers,
    Date (inclusive): 1930-2000
    Collection number: 53
    Creator: Sedano, Jose Luis 1942 - 2008
    Extent: Approx. 10 linear feet
    Repository: University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA
    Los Angeles, California 90095-1490
    Abstract: This collection consists of Jose Luis's collection of family history: Papers, photos, clippings, ephemera.

    This collection can serve as an excellent example of the experience of Mexican immigration into the U.S. Southwest in the 1930s - 1940s. It is well documented with photos and newspapers of the era.
    Physical location: Currently housed at the UCLA / CSRC Library Archive. In the future the collection will be stored off site at the UCLA Southern Regional Library Facility
    Language of Material: Collection materials in English, Spanish

    Access

    Collection is open for research. Access is available by appointment for UCLA student and faculty researchers as well as independent researchers. To view the collection or any part of it, please contact the archivist at www.chicano.ucla.edu

    Publication Rights

    For students and faculty researchers of UCLA, all others by permission only. Copyright has not been assigned to the Chicano Studies Research Center. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Archivist and/or the Librarian at the Chicano Studies Research Center 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], Jose Luis Sedano Papers, 53, Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA, University of California, Los Angeles.

    Acquisition Information

    Collection donated to the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. Deed on file in archive office.

    Biography

    Jose Luis Sedano Suarez

    Photographer



    Jose Luis Sedano Suarez was born on August 21, 1942 in Mexico City. Both the Sedano and Suarez families are originally from the state of Jalisco in Mexico. His father however, migrated to the United States as a bracero contract worker around 1948 The rest of his family soon followed. They came to California when Mr. Sedano Suarez was seven years old. They settled in Lincoln Heights – a neighborhood just northeast of Downtown, Los Angeles. He was about ten when he started taking snap-shots of family outings and summer trips to Mexico by train.



    Clearly, his love of the arts started at a very early age. In high school he was the photographer for his school newspaper. Likewise, he performed in several plays including Frank Pugliese's "Hope" is the Thing with Feathers and John Patrick's The Teahouse of the August Moon which garnered him the Best Supporting Actor award his senior year in high school.



    Similarly, his eye for capturing key events, landscapes, and personages through photography became evident in the summer of 1960 when his father took him to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to listen to Senator John F. Kennedy give his acceptance speech for president. At this event, he took a black and white photograph of President Kennedy. This photograph is now in the permanent collection of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.



    Likewise, Mr. Sedano Suarez, recalls how Barnsdall Art Park's Municipal Art Gallery here in Los Angeles, held an event titled "Christmas around the World" during the 1960s. According to him, this was a month-long celebration that featured different Christmas traditions associated with Los Angeles' diverse cultural communities. His family was chosen to participate in this event as representatives of Mexico's Christmas traditions. This was the first exhibit he helped design and install at Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Park. Since then, he has participated in several significant shows.



    Following his graduation from Bishop Mora Salesian High School in East Los Angeles, he decided to pursue study in the arts. First he enrolled at Los Angeles Trade Technical College to study photography, and then he transferred to Los Angeles City College's Theater Arts Department to study acting and theater craft. During the summers he worked at the Hollywood Bowl, then at the Los Angeles Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavillion. He was part of the original house staff.



    Around 1967 he decided to take time off from college to join VISTA – Volunteers in Service to America, which is part of the U.S. Peace Corps. During this time, he was assigned to a community development project working with migrant labor families within the southern Santa Clara Valley in California. However, before completing his period of service within VISTA, he was invited by the U.S. Peace Corps to serve for two years in the provinces of Acomayo and Catca in Peru as an agricultural extension agent. While working in Peru, he photographed a life cycle study of an Andean village in Acopia and this photographic essay evolved into an exhibit in 1973 at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Museum titled: ACOPIA: A Sandy Place. It was curated by Mary Beth Davis Bond and organized by the UCLA Ethnic Arts Museum – today, the Fowler Museum at UCLA. This was Mr. Sedano Suarez's first one-man photographic exhibit.



    After returning to school and graduating from the School of Film at the California Institute of the Arts, he was hired as a staff film producer on Project One created at MIT by Dr. Jerald Zackarius – inventor of the atomic clock and later, in 1975 while working at Boston's WGBH TV, he worked with Moctesuma Esparza on a PBS children's series titled: Infinity Factory. These were a series of 12 bilingual films promoting mathematics to children ages 8-12. It was part of PBS' Educational Development Center Program. This project then lead to his work on another PBS series – ZOOM, which aired between 1972 and 1978. This was a program intended to introduce children to ethnic diversity.



    Mr. Sedano Suarez also worked at the Semitic Museum at Harvard University as a line producer on the traveling exhibit titled Legacy of Light. This show sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the Morgan Guaranty Trust, featured a series of 19th century photographs taken in the Middle East. This show previewed in various places including: Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown, the University of Oxford, Bahrain University, Jordan, Syria, the King Faad Museum in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and at the U.S. Mission to UNESCO in Paris.



    He has held memberships and board positions in numerous organizations including: the Historic Cultural Neighborhood Council (where?), the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Symphonians from the Music Center Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, the Media Image Coalition, the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, the American Red Cross Blood Services, the National Marrow Donor Program, and the Boston Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Other organizations that Mr. Sedano Suarez has been actively involved in include the non-profit organization: Children's Television Workshop, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund's Leadership and Advocacy Program, and the UCLA Extension.

    Scope and Content

    This collection consists of Jose Luis's collection of family history: Papers, photos, clippings, ephemera.

    This collection can serve as an excellent example of the experience of Mexican immigration into the U.S. Southwest in the 1930s - 1940s. It is well documented with photos and newspapers of the era.

    Indexing Terms

    The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

    Subjects

    Sedano