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Lytle Hernández Receives Bancroft Prize in American History

Kelly Lytle Hernández, professor of history, African American studies and urban planning, has been awarded the 2023 Bancroft Prize for her book “Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire and Revolution in the Borderlands.” The book tells the story of the band of Mexican rebels, led by journalist and dissident Ricardo Flores Magón, that helped spark the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Awarded annually by the trustees of Columbia University, the Bancroft Prize is considered one of the most prestigious honors for writing on American history and diplomacy. “Bad Mexicans” was also a finalist for the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award in the nonfiction category, and was named one of New Yorker magazine’s best of 2022. The book focuses on how Flores Magón and his magonistas — intellectuals, poor workers, dispossessed rural dwellers and other marginalized groups — waged a campaign to overthrow U.S.-backed Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz. Drawing on archives in both Mexico and the United States, the book explores how the cross-national movement threatened not only Díaz, who would eventually be deposed, but Mexican elites and powerful American capitalist interests that benefited from Díaz’s economic policies. In announcing the award, the Bancroft Prize jury praised Lytle Hernández’s “riveting story of revolution and counterrevolution,” adding that the book “helps shift the boundaries of what constitutes American history.” Lytle Hernández, who was awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2019, is also the author of “Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol” and “City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles.”

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New Book by Leap Portrays the Struggles of Women After Incarceration

A new book by Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap portrays the daily struggles of women returning to life after incarceration and proposes concrete solutions to the problems they face. “Entry Lessons: The Stories of Women Fighting for Their Place, Their Children, and Their Futures After Incarceration,” published by Beacon Press, draws on oral histories, interviews, embedded observation and extensive research conducted by Leap, an anthropologist who specializes in criminal justice and prison reform. At the end of 2019, women comprised the fastest-growing population within the U.S. criminal justice system, yet the impact of their journey — both on their own lives and on the lives of their children and families — is only beginning to be documented, Leap writes. “Entry Lessons” explores the traumas girls and women suffer, followed by the particular challenges they face in the criminal justice system, in incarceration and throughout their reentry into society. Leap includes several future-facing chapters that call for structural change through the development of meaningful programs and policies that end the cycles of abuse and trauma in the lives of women. In May, some of the women whose stories were shared in “Entry Lessons” appeared with Leap at a reception and book-signing at the UCLA Fowler Museum Courtyard, hosed by UCLA Luskin Social Welfare and Beacon Press.

View more photos from the book reception on Flickr.


 

Goh Explores Urban Climate Justice in New Book

A new book by Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Kian Goh explores the politics of urban climate change responses in different cities and the emergence of grassroots activism in resistance. “Form and Flow: The Spatial Politics of Urban Resilience and Climate Justice,” published today by MIT Press, traces the flow of ideas and influence in urban climate change plans in three key city centers — New York City; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Rotterdam, Netherlands. In the book, Goh analyzes major climate adaptation plans and projects such as Rebuild By Design in New York, the Giant Sea Wall masterplan in Jakarta and Rotterdam Climate Proof. Goh also discusses the rise of social movements and efforts among community organizations to reimagine their own futures in response to historical injustices and present-day challenges. Many groups of marginalized urban residents have pushed back against city plans and offered “counterplans” in protest against actions that they feel are unjust and exclusionary. Goh investigates how historically uneven development and global connections between cities have shaped the politics of climate urbanism, and her analysis provides insight on how to achieve a more just and resilient urban future. “Form and Flow” sheds light on the new wave of urban climate change interventions driven by environmental urgency, developmental pressures and global networks of expertise. Yale Professor Karen Seto called Goh’s book “a must-read for urban climate scholars and practitioners,” and Cambridge University Professor Matthew Gandy added that Goh’s “comparative global framework advances the field of political ecology in innovative directions.”


New Book by Segura Measures the True Cost of War

A new book co-authored by UCLA Luskin Dean Gary Segura measures the full cost of war by examining the consequences of foreign combat on domestic politics. In “Costly Calculations: A Theory of War, Casualties, and Politics,” published by Cambridge University Press, the authors employ a variety of empirical methods to examine multiple wars from the last 100 years. The human toll – the military dead and injured – is generally the most salient measure of war costs and the primary instrument through which war affects the social, economic and political fabric of a nation, according to Segura and co-author Scott Sigmund Gartner, provost of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. Their work provides a framework for understanding war initiation, war policy and war termination in democratic polities, as well as the forces that shape public opinion. “War-making is not just strategic but also represents a political action of some consequence filtered through a societal lens,” the authors write. “Leaders embark upon a course of conflict with an eye on the level of public support, work hard to win that support if it’s missing, actively attempt to manage public beliefs about the conflict and its costs and benefits, and may suffer the political consequences when the people viewing a conflict through the eyes of their communities believe that they miscalculated.” 


 

New Book by Turner Focuses on Urban Sustainability

A new book by Assistant Professor of Urban Planning V. Kelly Turner highlights contributions to urban sustainability scholarship made by geographers in the 21st century. Co-edited by Turner and Professor David Kaplan of Kent State University and published by Routledge in December, “Geographic Perspectives on Urban Sustainability” delves into issues of transportation, green infrastructure and gentrification and analyzes the intersections of social theory, spatial science and geography. Exponential and uneven growth of urban areas and the growing threat of climate change have prompted concerns that current urbanization patterns are unsustainable. Experts in the field have recognized the need for increased scholarship on urban sustainability, including human-environment interactions and emerging urbanization patterns. Through chapters originally published in the journal Urban Geography, Turner and Kaplan raise questions of urban resilience, environmental justice, political ecology and planning from a geographic perspective. “Contributions [to the field of urbanization science] should embrace systems thinking, empirically connect social constructs to biophysical patterns and processes, and use the city as a laboratory to generate new theories,” they write. The book is a resource for scholars, students and policymakers interested in urban and city planning, political ecology and sustainable urbanism.


Villasenor Co-Authors Book on ‘Unassailable Ideas’ on Campuses

A new book by Public Policy Professor John Villasenor examines the dominant belief system on American campuses, its uncompromising enforcement through social media and the consequences for higher education. In “Unassailable Ideas: How Unwritten Rules and Social Media Shape Discourse in American Higher Education,” Villasenor and co-author Ilana Redstone argue that higher education is being reshaped by a campus culture that is increasingly intolerant to diverse views and open inquiry, a trend that is exacerbated by the narrow lens of social media. The book, which will be released Oct. 15, highlights a newly emerged environment in higher education that forecloses entire lines of research, entire discussions and entire ways of conducting classroom teaching. Following their critiques of the well-intentioned unwritten rules about identity on college campuses, Villasenor and Redstone present a set of recommendations to build a new campus climate that would be more tolerant toward diverse perspectives and open inquiry. The book has garnered praise from scholars including University of Pennsylvania Professor Jonathan Zimmerman, who said,  “The real danger to higher education isn’t a cabal of jack-booted censors but the much subtler forces that discourage us from critiquing our dominant assumptions about multiculturalism, discrimination and identity.” Cal State Los Angeles Sociology Professor Bradley Campbell said “Unassailable Ideas” is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the serious threat to free speech and academic freedom at American colleges and universities.


Umemoto’s ‘Mountain Movers’ Wins Bronze Book Award

“Mountain Movers: Student Activism & the Emergence of Asian American Studies,” a book co-edited by Urban Planning Professor Karen Umemoto, was awarded a bronze medal in the 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards for “Best Regional Nonfiction” in the West-Pacific region. Umemoto was one of six editors on the team that put together “Mountain Movers,” which chronicles the legacy of student activism at UCLA, UC Berkeley and San Francisco State. Published last year to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Asian American Studies programs that were established on all three campuses in 1969, the book profiles students who mobilized peers and community members to further the study of Asian American communities on their campuses. The “IPPY” Awards, launched in 1996 by Jenkins Group and IndependentPublisher.com, are designed to increase recognition of deserving but often unsung titles by independent authors and publishers. Established as the first awards program open exclusively to independent, university and self-published titles, over 5,500 “IPPYs” have been awarded in the last 24 years to authors and publishers around the world, recognizing excellence in a broad range of styles and subjects.


Loukaitou-Sideris Co-Authors Book on ‘New Practices for Reimagining the City’

Urban Planning Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is one of five co-authors of the new book “Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City,” published by MIT Press. Urban humanities is the emerging field at the intersection of the humanities, urban planning and design, according to the authors. Their book offers a new approach not only for understanding cities in a global context but for intervening in them, interpreting their histories, engaging with them in the present and speculating about their futures. The book offers case studies of real-world projects in mega-cities in the Pacific Rim, including Tokyo, Shanghai, Mexico City and Los Angeles. Several projects are described in detail, including playful spaces for children in car-oriented Mexico City, a commons in a Tokyo neighborhood, and a rolling story-telling box to promote “literary justice” in Los Angeles. The interdisciplinary nature of the book is highlighted by the team of authors, which includes four of Loukaitou-Sideris’ UCLA colleagues from other departments: Dana Cuff, Todd Presner, Maite Zubiaurre and Jonathan Jae-an Crisman. The book features work from faculty and students in the Urban Humanities Initiative, who come from the urban planning, architecture and humanities programs. The initiative draws from humanist practices and a concern for social justice to interpret and intervene in the city. Loukaitou-Sideris is the author of numerous articles and co-editor of multiple books. “Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City” is Loukaitou-Sideris’ fourth co-authored project.

Armenta’s ‘Protect, Serve, and Deport’ Receives Book Prizes

“Protect, Serve, and Deport: The Rise of Policing as Immigration Enforcement,” written by Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Amada Armenta, has received two awards from the American Sociological Association (ASA). The book explains how local police and jail employees in Nashville, Tenn., were pulled into a federal deportation system that removed nearly 10,000 immigrants in five years, many for minor violations. Armenta will accept the Distinguished Book Award from the Sociology of Law Section and the Distinguished Contribution to Research Book Award from the Latina/o Sociology Section at the ASA’s annual meeting in New York from Aug. 10-13. At the conference, Armenta will also present research from her ongoing project on unauthorized immigrants in Philadelphia.


 

‘Mountain Movers’ Marks 50th Anniversary of Asian American Studies

Urban Planning Professor Karen Umemoto was one of six editors on the team that put together “Mountain Movers: Student Activism and the Emergence of Asian American Studies,” a book about the legacy of student activism at UCLA, UC Berkeley and San Francisco State. “Mountain Movers” profiles students who mobilized peers and community members to further the study of Asian American communities on their campuses. The joint publication commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Asian American Studies programs that were established on all three campuses in 1969. Three of the nine activists profiled in the book are UCLA alumni. Preeti Sharma, who came to UCLA in 2006 to earn a master’s in Asian American studies, became involved in community organizations in the area, including Khmer Girls in Action and Chinatown Community for Equitable Development. After migrating to Los Angeles from the Philippines, Casimiro Tolentino became involved in the Asian American movement at UCLA while earning bachelor’s and law degrees in the 1960s and ’70s. He went on to serve as an attorney for the Asian Pacific Legal Center, among other roles. After joining the movement during the ’60s, Amy Uyematsu joined the staff of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, where she worked as a researcher, publications coordinator and instructor. The center, now directed by Umemoto, celebrated the 50th anniversary of Asian American Studies at UCLA with a book launch in May. “Mountain Movers” reflects the social transformation of ethnic study in higher education as a result of the efforts of student activist groups. — Zoe Day