Former CLLAS Team-Member, Feather Crawford, Leading DucksRISE

Feather Crawford is the Program Manager of the DucksRISE Program

Feather Crawford, formerly of CLLAS, was recently appointed the Program Manager of the DucksRISE Program. DucksRISE is a new program at UO that expands career readiness opportunities for BIPOC, first-generation, and Pell-eligible students. Cohorts connect with mentors and build professional networks with others who share similar identities. The main goal of DucksRISE is to bring into effect equitable post-graduation outcomes for BIPOC, first gen, and Pell-eligible students at UO.

DucksRISE is led by former CLLAS Executive Board member and Administrative Specialist, Feather Crawford, and Sandra Castro, who previously worked in the Department of Political Science.

Feather and Sandra started staff positions at UO within months of each other five years ago. They collaborated often in their respective positions at the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies (CLLAS) and the Department of Political Science and as members of the Latinx Strategies Group. Together now at DucksRISE, they are an unstoppable team. 

Crawford brings her wide network of campus partnerships developed during her years at CLLAS and community organizations dedicated to immigrant rights and human dignity, her connections at the City of Eugene, and with local businesses, law firms, media companies, and art communities to the program as potential internship partners and as resources for DucksRISE students. Any units or organizations interested in learning more about partnering with DucksRISE to develop summer internships are encouraged to complete this form: https://oregon.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3rDh1VSvYwaNzFk

Thanks to her years teaching as a doctoral candidate in the Department of History, Crawford is at ease in the classroom. But it is Castro’s presence in the classroom that is the instrumental element of their success thus far, she says.

“Along with bringing her many skills, deep institutional knowledge, and multiple areas of expertise, Sandra shares her perspective and insights with students before, during, and after class (as well as during her office hours). As a Ford Family Foundation and Gilman Scholar, UO alumni, Woman of Color, and longtime UO staff member, Sandra is uniquely positioned to see the student experience from multiple angles and build a dynamic, 2-year grant-funded program out into a permanent UO department,” Crawford stated.

“Sandra practices her dedication to DEI and is committed to helping BIPOC, first gen, and Pell-eligible students overcome the obstacles laid in their path by systems of oppression. This foundation of empathetic respect and meticulous attention to detail sets the ideal tone and welcomes our students into a safe and supportive space.”

This dynamic DucksRISE duo is robustly supported by UESS and their partners at CURE. 

Spring Graduate Research Colloquium II: Resilience in Transnational Communities

CLLAS Research Series

125 McKenzie

Alejandra Pedraza (Global Studies)

“The expansion of caregiving during the COVID-19 pandemic: Insights from a migrant-sending community in rural Mexico” 

Alejandra Pedraza is a second-year graduate student in the Global Studies department. She received her B.A. from the University of Colorado Boulder in Environmental Studies and Biology. During her undergraduate career, Alejandra immersed herself in various conservation and sustainability projects in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. This is where her passion for international development and Latin American affairs first developed. Upon graduating, Alejandra joined Peace Corps Mexico, where she worked until the COVID-19 pandemic forced her evacuation. 

For two years, Alejandra called a remote Mexican village in the Sierra Madre Occidental home. Through integration in an isolated village entirely dependent on remittances and living alongside the people directly impacted by the dynamics of transnational family life, particularly the women and children that remain behind, Alejandra discovered her passion for understanding Mexican American migration, transnational families, and the gendered costs of migration.  

Alejandra is currently working on a qualitative research study seeking to elucidate the ways the COVID-19 pandemic is expanding gendered caregiving responsibilities in remittance-dependent households in rural Mexico. In her research, Alejandra forefronts the social conditions of migration that have been exacerbated during the pandemic and the deep wellbeing implications these changes have for the mothers in her sample.  

David Peña (School of Art and Design)

“Ecotone” 

David Peña is a multidisciplinary artist, educator and cultural organizer from the border region between Tijuana and San Diego. I use the visual vocabulary of patterns as a way to contemplate personal and public occurrences and as a point of collaboration. I seek to connect my visual practice with my commitment to people and place, exploring ways to bridge community. I use my work as a vehicle for collaboration with artists engaged in diverse media, students and the general public. These collaborations have been realized as interventions with text, photography, murals, and self-publishing. 

Faculty Research Presentation: Cross-Border Hollywood: Production Politics and Practices in Mexico

CLLAS Research Series Faculty Research Presentation

Crater Lake Rooms, EMU

After World War II, Hollywood had a close and complex relationship to the Mexican film industry through investment, production, and talent exchange. Steinhart’s book project Cross-Border Hollywood: Production Politics and Practices in Mexico examines the fascinating history of Hollywood productions in Mexico from the mid-1940s until 1970. In this presentation, he explores a series of crises in the mid 1950s sparked by the U.S. government’s arrest and deportation of Mexican actress Rosaura Revueltas, the Mexican Actors Union’s retaliatory attempt to ban Hollywood actors working in Mexico, and the Mexican film industry’s ongoing strategies to censor certain Hollywood productions filming in Mexico. This chain of events sheds light on a dynamic of collaboration and resistance that defined the relationship between Hollywood and the Mexican film industry.

Daniel Gómez Steinhart is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cinema Studies. He is author of Runaway Hollywood: Internationalizing Postwar Production and Location Shooting (University of California Press, 2019). His follow-up research project examines Hollywood’s cross-border productions in Mexico from the 1940s–1960s. The project is the recipient of an NEH Senior Research Fellowship from the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. His work on film and media has appeared in Cinema Journal, Film History, Film Criticism, NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, InMedia: The French Journal of Media Studies, and various edited collections. He is a former film journalist and moving-image programmer.

CLLAS Undergraduate Award Ceremony

Lillis 282

Join us for the Undergrad Award Celebration 4-5:30!

Latino Roots Celebration

EMU Ballroom

Join us for the 2022 Latino Roots Celebration!