Evoke LA
Tyree Boyd-Pates, Suyapa Portillo Villeda, and Natalia Molina
In conversation with Josh Kun
Tuesday, Mar 22, 2022 | 7:00pm
Josh Kun
Josh Kun is an author and editor of many books and anthologies, and the curator of numerous art, music and public humanities projects. His research and practice focus on the arts, music and politics of cultural connection, with an emphasis on archives, global migration and Los Angeles. He has worked with The Getty Foundation, SFMOMA, the Grammy Museum, the California African American Museum, The Vincent Price Museum of Art, and more. From 2013–19, he led a trilogy of Library Foundation of Los Angeles projects based on the special collections of the Los Angeles Public Library that resulted in a celebrated series of books, exhibitions, and public programs—including, “Songs in the Key of L.A.,” “To Live and Dine in L.A.,” and “The Autograph Book of L.A.” His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, and more. He co-edits the book series Refiguring American Music for Duke University Press, serves on the editorial boards of Public Culture, Journal of Popular Music Studies and the Music Research Annual, and on the boards of Dublab and the University of California Humanities Research Institute. He co-curates CALA Crossfade Lab and directs The Popular Music Project of the Norman Lear Center.
Tyree Boyd-Pates
Tyree Boyd-Pates is the Associate Curator at the Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, CA, where he oversees history exhibitions that stimulate and engage communities that have been omitted from American history in the West. Previously, Tyree was the curator of History at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, CA, and Professor of Africana Studies at California State University Dominguez Hills. Tyree’s work has been supported by the University Southern California’s (USC) Annenberg School of Journalism and the University of California Los Angeles’ (UCLA) Luskin Center of History and Public Policy, of which he served as Annenberg fellow and Innovation Fellow and guest professor in 2020-2021. In addition, he is the curator of numerous critically acclaimed exhibitions such as No Justice, No Peace: LA 1992, How Sweet the Sound: Gospel Music in Los Angeles, California Bound: Slavery on the New Frontier, 1848-1865, and Cross Colours: Black Fashion in the 21st Century.
Suyapa G. Portillo Villeda
Suyapa G. Portillo Villeda is Associate Professor of Chicana/o Latina/o Transnational Studies at Pitzer College. Her research and teaching priorities include Central American history, migration to the U.S., gender and labor in Central America, LGBTTI Latina/o populations and queer (im)migration in the Americas. Her work focuses on the intersections between labor, gender, ethnicity, race and other marginalized identities in workers’ lives in Central America and in the U.S.
Natalia Molina
Natalia Molina is a Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Professor Molina’s work lies at the intersections of race, place, gender, culture, and citizenship. She is the author of two award-winning books, How Race Is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts and Fit to be Citizens?: Public Health and Race in Los Angeles, 1879-1939. Her newest book is A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community. Professor Molina is a 2020 MacArthur Fellow.
Photo credits: Tyree Boyd-Pates © Adam Amengual; Suyapa G. Portillo Villeda © Javier Lopez Casertano; Natalia Molina © John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.