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On Thursday, April 13, 2023, the UC Merced Library held an opening reception for the current exhibit, Building a New Future: Art and Activism in the Central Valley—Photographs by George Ballis. Ballis was an activist and photographer who documented the living and working conditions of farm workers beginning in the 1950s, and the development of organized agricultural labor.
Maia Ballis spoke at the reception and introduced her late husband’s work. “He made it a point to use his time to document what was going on in the fields,” she said, and described how he captured perspectives that may not have been seen otherwise, including images of Maria Moreno, the first woman organizer for the AFL-CIO. Ballis was impressed by Moreno’s strength, and with his photographs aimed to reflect the dignity he saw in each person.
Following the reception, Agustín Lira and Patricia Wells spoke of a similar intent in their music and performed a selection of songs, including “Quihubo Raza,” “When I Die,” and “If You’re Homeless,” which wove in themes of resistance to exploitation and the continued fight for workers' rights. Lira is a singer, songwriter, and director who cofounded El Teatro Campesino with Luis Valdez during the Delano Grape Strike and created songs that inspired and supported the farmworkers' efforts. Wells was active with the United Farm Workers in the 1970s and partnered with Lira to establish El Teatro de la Tierra as well as the musical group Alma. Lira discussed the experience of marching to Sacramento during the Delano Grape Strike and how his song, “La Peregrinación” (The Pilgrimage), expressed the sacrifice as well as the motivation of fellow organizers.
Desde Delano voy hasta Sacramento
Hasta Sacramento
mis derechos a pelear.
In a conversation with the audience moderated by Professor Manuel Martín Rodríguez, Lira and Wells asserted the urgency of the ongoing need to challenge dominant narratives in the media and to continue the traditions of protest music.
Songs of Struggle & Hope by Agustín Lira is available to UC Merced through Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries, VPN connection required.
Building a New Future: Art and Activism in the Central Valley—Photographs by George Ballis, will be exhibited through July 28th at the Kolligian Library, second floor.
On Sunday, April 2nd from midnight to 1am Pacific Time, ExLibris will be performing systems maintenance which may cause an interruption in online catalog services. We apologize for any inconvenience and hope this interruption will create minimal disruption to our users’ research.
Building a New Future: Art and Activism in the Central Valley
Photographs by George Ballis
March 22, 2023 - July 28, 2023
Kolligian Library, Second Floor
The industrial scale agriculture that dominates the Central Valley of California has historically relied on groups of seasonal, mostly migrant farmworkers. Foreign nationals from Asia, Mexico, and the Middle East, black Americans from the rural South, and members of other marginalized groups have been attracted to the world’s most productive agricultural region by the promise of employment and economic opportunity. Instead, they have faced meager wages, substandard housing, lack of access to clean water and healthcare, not to mention harsh conditions and exploitation. Attempts to organize any action against these conditions have typically been met with retaliation, and often with violence. While California fruits and vegetables predominate in the marketplace, the plight of the farmworkers remains largely hidden from the public eye.
George “Elfie” Ballis (1925-2010) gave up a football scholarship at the University of Minnesota to enlist in the Marine Corps during World War II. Returning from the war, he dedicated himself to the “doing” of more democratic institutions and majored in journalism and political science. After moving to Fresno in 1953 to become editor of a labor newspaper, he began taking photographs of migrant workers’ housing and working conditions and tried to establish trusting, respectful relationships with his subjects. Later working as a freelance photojournalist and farm labor organizer, Ballis chronicled the ins and outs of the farmworker movement and took tens of thousands of photographs. Movement organizers used his images to publicize the cause, and they were also supplied to the popular press to galvanize public support.
This exhibit presents but a small selection of Ballis’s photographs. They include key moments and figures of the farmworkers movement, as well as photographs Ballis took as he turned his attention to community and environmental organizing in the 1970s. By capturing the cultural and community-based elements of the farmworkers movement, the photographs of George Ballis tell a story beyond their precarity of life. They speak to the wealth of community action and cultural production that presents a vital legacy for change agents today.
“We got a lot of power. We can do a lot of things, if we just go out and do them... A lot of folks do not use their power not because they are afraid, but because they don’t want to accept the responsibility for freedom.”
—George Ballis, in an interview with Studs Terkel, 1979.
Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Merced, Meredith Van Natta, will present her recent book, Medical Legal Violence: Healthcare and Immigration Enforcement Against Latinx Noncitizens. In this book, Van Natta discusses how many immigrants are excluded from medical benefits and health care programs due to enforcement of noncitizen laws in regards to acquiring health care services. Additionally, the work of Van Natta sheds light on how safety-net health care workers have helped noncitizen patients find medical care against the politcal opposition and severe consequences of helping immigrants. Please join us for a powerful discussion around the themes presented in this book and the continuing research around noncitizen access to health care.
Medical Legal Violence: Healthcare and Immigration Enforcement Against Latinx Noncitizens can also be purcahsed on Amazon.
Date: Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Audience: All
Registration is Required to Obtain the Zoom Link.
Sophia Wallace-Boyd, Kelli Breland, Julie Breland, Arlene Kranich, and Brian Fernandez.
Professor Yiran Xu and Brian Fernandez
Professor Alex Khislavsky and Sophia Wallace-Boyd
Images: Brian Fernandez (left) and Sophia Wallace-Boyd (right).
Since 2017, the UC Merced Library has offered an award to undergraduate students who demonstrate excellence in library research and use. This year, the Carter Joseph Abrescy and Larry Kranich Library Award for Student Research Excellence was awarded to Sophia Wallace-Boyd and Brian Fernandez.
Sophia Wallace-Boyd is a fourth-year student, studying Psychology. She began her college experience knowing that she was passionate about Psychology, but it wasn’t until she was invited to participate in a research lab on campus that she developed a passion for the process of psychological research. After being involved in research for many years, Sophia was given the opportunity to conduct her own independent research project as part of the course, “Upper Division Undergraduate Research,” under the guidance of Dr. Matthew Zawadzki. While writing the paper, “The gender differences in how relationship status relates to anxiety levels and the role of social support as a mediating variable,” she enhanced her ability to perform all steps of the research process, including finding credible sources that can be used to help create and support an idea and argument. Professor Zawadzki says of Sophia, “Sophia is among the most talented undergraduate students I have had the pleasure of working on research projects with of the nearly 100 students that have been part of the lab. She is creative in her design, has a keen intellect that she applies to her work, and has worked to make the most of the opportunities given to her. Although I am happy for Sophia to graduate, I will be sad to see her leave the lab … [she] received funding to start this project through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center ... [and] has been selected to present this work at both the Western Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science." Though the research process is not always easy, it is fulfilling, and through this experience, Sophia has learned that conducting research as a part of her career is something she wants to pursue.
Brian Fernandez is a fourth-year student from Visalia, studying Biological Sciences and Anthropology. He incorporated a simultaneously biological and anthropological approach in his research after taking the course, “Multilingualism and Identity in Transnational Contexts,” taught by Professor Yiran Xu. The interdisciplinary structure of the class prompted Brian to write: “The need for Spanish communication classes in medical education,” about the multilingualism and linguistics within medical education and patient care. As a result of writing this paper, Brian began to study multilingual UC Merced students and their writing education while building upon research skills. Of his research acumen, Professor Xu says: “Brian Fernandez is an exceptional student whose academic abilities and dedication have stood out during his time at UC Merced … [He] showed exceptional research ability and a remarkable capacity for synthesizing diverse perspectives and presenting nuanced arguments. Brian is deeply committed to promoting a translingual approach to medical education in the Central Valley. His passion and advocacy in this area are truly inspiring, and I have no doubt that he will continue to make meaningful contributions to our community.”
Brian is looking forward to furthering research multilingualism and linguistics in graduate school with a focus on patient care and medical education in the Central Valley. Brian is extremely grateful for the opportunities, guidance, and inspiration he has received from all his professors at UC Merced and looks forward to new projects and research.
A public reception to honor the achievements of Sophia Wallace-Boyd and Brian Fernandez will take place on Friday, March 10th at 1:00pm on the third floor of the Library near the Yosemite stained glass murals. All are welcome to attend.
In 2021, The UC Merced Library received a collection of photographic material depicting Cooperative Extension work at the San Joaquin Experimental Range (SJER). The collection was donated by Melvin George— UC Cooperative Extension Rangeland Management Specialist, Emeritus, and member of the Plant Sciences Department at UC Davis— and was added to the Madera County, UC Cooperative Extension Records in the California Agricultural Resources Archive (CARA). These materials have now been inventoried, transcribed, digitized, and placed online in our online digital repository, Calisphere.
The San Joaquin Experimental Range, established in Madera County in 1934, was the first range research station in the state of California and enabled year-round experimentation by UC Cooperative Extension rangeland specialists in subjects like range and grazing management, pasture improvement, water quality and natural resources, and animal husbandry. Major achievements of the SJER over the years include identifying the need for protein supplements for cattle during the Fall and Winter seasons, developing forage seasons, and creating standards for residual dry matter (RDM) to assess grazing levels.
Taken in the 1930s-40s, these photographs are distinctive from others in our collections due to the action by SJER specialists of adhering the photographs to heavily annotated envelopes. In our repository, we have labeled them as physical objects; they contain important contextual information that should stay close to the image. Duplicate copies of the black-and-white photographs were inside of the envelopes, but UC Merced Library archivists and student assistants placed them in archival quality housing next to the envelopes. Both image and text are important in this collection as its value is rooted in the ability to provide visual learning aids, and in their use as evidence in long-term documentation projects that track research and progression.
Prior to donating the materials, Melvin George worked alongside Neil McDougald, UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor, Emeritus, and former manager of the San Joaquin Experimental Range, to sift through the materials. They produced a detailed inventory with fundamental contextual information such as creator biographies, geographical locations, and content descriptions. This, in addition to the annotations, shape the metadata for the collection. The photographs are divided into subject categories including buildings, erosion, experimental methods, forage plants, utilization, run-off plots, rodent studies, and floods and these terms can assist in filtering the digital objects in Calisphere.
People are occasionally found in the images. For example, one photograph portrays members of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a work relief program established during the Great Depression to ease unemployment, posing for a photograph at SJER. CCC crews worked on the construction of the Range facilities and the creation of land surveys. A typed caption on the envelope reveals that “Five CCC boys that received 8th grade diplomas at the San Joaquin Experimental Range stub camp.”
Five California Conversation Corps (CCC) boys that received 8th grade diplomas, 1939
Madera County, UC Cooperative Extension Records, UC Merced, UC Cooperative Extension Archive
Another image shows an Extension worker measuring vegetation. The annotation identifies the plant as “Hairy grama (bouteloua hirsuta) twelve months after planting from seed.”
Hairy grama (bouteloua hirsuta) twelve months after planting from seed, 1935
Madera County, UC Cooperative Extension Records, UC Merced, UC Cooperative Extension Archive
Gullies, run-offs, and other types of erosion is traced in these photographs and is evident in the following examples.
Shoestring gullies on a denuded slope, 1932
Madera County, UC Cooperative Extension Records, UC Merced, UC Cooperative Extension Archive
Run-off plots 1, 2 and 3, just before grazing, 1940
Madera County, UC Cooperative Extension Records, UC Merced, UC Cooperative Extension Archive
The final example suggests UC Cooperative Extension’s emphasis on education and outreach by distributing knowledge and skills gained on the San Joaquin Experimental Range and sharing it with the wider public.
Impromptu Extension Service meeting to demonstrate results of supplemental feeding tube, 1936
Madera County, UC Cooperative Extension Records, UC Merced, UC Cooperative Extension Archive
Click here to view the entire digitized photographic collection of the San Joaquin Experimental Range!
The Zero-Cost Course Materials (ZCCM) grant supports instructors who wish to eliminate course materials costs for students and promote universal access to course materials.
The UC Merced Library is currently accepting ZCCM proposals that will bring course costs to zero for courses offered in summer or fall 2023. Faculty and lecturers who wish to replace commercial materials with Open Educational Resources (OER) and/or library licensed material are encouraged to apply for a ZCCM grant by March 27, 2023.
Two award opportunities are available.
Full program details including an updated application are available at https://libguides.ucmerced.edu/oer/zccm.
Drop-in sessions about the grant are offered at the following times:
This is now the second call for applications since the program received Scholar Transformational Impact Funds. We anticipate funds to support faculty and lecturers with ZCCM grants through spring 2025. Email library@ucmerced.edu or contact Sara Davidson Squibb, AUL for Research & Engagement sdavidson2@ucmerced.edu with any questions you may have.
The UC Merced Library is offering a graduate fellowship designed to support graduate students enrolled in a PhD or masters program to develop and enhance skills in archival research and working with archival materials within collections held at the UC Merced Library.
To view the requirements and submit an application, please visit: https://library.ucmerced.edu/graduate-fellowship.
Chelsy Bautista, an undergraduate at UC Merced, has worked on the California Agricultural Resources Archive project (cara.ucmerced.edu) as a student assistant at the UC Merced Library since earlier this year. This month, as she prepares to graduate, she shares her reflection on what the project has meant to her.
My name is Chelsy Bautista. I am currently a fifth-year student at the University of California Merced. I will be graduating this December with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. I was born and raised in the great city of Los Angeles, California. Although I lived there my whole life, I would also visit my parent's hometown in Oaxaca, Mexico every year for months on end, so sometimes I say that I was also raised there! When choosing my undergrad path, I decided to attend UC Merced because I felt that this school would be able to provide me with a lot more opportunities compared to a bigger campus. And just as predicted, it did exactly that. Being a part of a smaller community, I was given many amazing opportunities that helped me develop my leadership and work skills. One of these was being a part of the CARA project team.
Working on the CARA project for the UC Merced Library has opened my eyes to a new world that I didn’t know about. I love that I can look back and preserve records that may mean a lot to someone and can potentially help with someone's research. History museums have always been my thing—looking back on history with visual material is fascinating. So, the fact that I can do it as a job is my favorite thing. I have learned a lot about keeping records preserved, transcribing them, data entry, and spreadsheet skills. These are important skills that I will take into the future. While working on this project, I have come across a lot of different materials, but my favorite is a scrapbook that the 4-H students made. This scrapbook was a DIY yearbook, full of lots of different pictures and even a very old Disneyland ticket.
With my time at UC Merced coming to an end, I am grateful that I was able to be a part of the CARA project team. I have decided to further my education and would love to attend graduate school. I’m in the process of applying to an Industrial Organizational Psychology program for the fall semester while also searching for a job in human resources.
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