May 31, 2004

Lionel Cantú Jr. Memorial Colloquium set for June 3

Horacio Ramírez, assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano studies at UC Santa Barbara, will be the featured speaker at the second annual Lionel Cantú Jr. Sociology Graduate Colloquium at UCSC on Thursday, June 3, from 4 to 5:30 p.m.

The event will be held in the Baobab Lounge at Merrill College. A reception will follow at 5:45 p.m. at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex Resource Center (GLBTI), which is being renamed in Cantú’s memory.

The colloquium honors the memory of Cantú, an assistant professor of sociology who died unexpectedly in 2002. The Lionel Cantú Memorial Award Fund was established to support graduate students who are pursuing studies in one or more of the areas in which Cantú worked: immigration studies, transnational/cross-border studies, Latino/Latina sociology, gender and sexuality, or gay men and masculinity. This year's recipient of the $500 award will be announced at the colloquium.

Ramírez is working on a book about the formation of queer Latina and Latino communities in the San Francisco Bay Area in the last four decades. He also conducts research on the coverage of queer issues and lives in Spanish-language media, and his creative writings explore self, identity, politics, and survival in queer and Latino contexts.

Ramírez received his Ph.D. in 2001 from UC Berkeley in the Department of Comparative Ethnic Studies with an emphasis on "Women, Gender, and Sexuality." He teaches courses on Central Americans in the United States; queer/GLBT identities, communities, and theories; oral history theories and methods; and transnational (queer) sexualities in the Americas.

During the reception, the GLBTI center will be renamed the Lionel Cantú GLBTI Resource Center. Those in attendance are invited to contribute to a memorial altar, view photos of the second annual Lesbian March in Mexico City, and enjoy a light meal.

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