Award-Winning Photographer to Present Lecture on Growing Up Latino in the U.S.

Photo Submitted

Durham, NC--Maximiliano Hernandez holds up an American flag during demonstration against Arizona law 1070, also referred to as "Show me your papers" law. Copyright Jose Galvez 2010

The University of Arkansas’ Latin American and Latino Studies Program is pleased to present Shine, a public lecture by award-winning photojournalist José Galvez. This event will take place at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 11, in Giffels Auditorium (Old Main 201) on the University of Arkansas campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.

For over 40 years, José Galvez has used black-and-white photography to document the cultures and everyday lives of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. Mr. Galvez spent twenty years working as a photojournalist and was the first Mexican American photographer at the Los Angeles Times. In 1984, Mr. Galvez and a team of fellow photographers and writers from the Times were the first-ever Mexican Americans to receive a Pulitzer Prize, awarded for their series on Latino life in Southern California. Galvez is the author or co-author of several volumes. His first book, Vatos, (written in collaboration with Luis Alberto Urrea), was recognized by the American Library Association. He co-authored Beloved Land: An Oral History of Mexican Americans in Southern Arizona (2004) with historian Patricia Martin; he published Shine Boy in 2009; and he served as the senior photo editor of (and contributor to) Americanos: Latino Life in the United States, a multi-media exhibition headed by Edward James Olmos.

When describing what inspires his work, Galvez writes, “My photography feels organic to me, arising from my very blood. From the moment I bought my first pawn-store camera as a teenager, I pivoted to capture my barrio, my familia, and our everyday lives.”  In Shine, Galvez will use spoken word and his own striking black-and-white images to trace his personal story, from the barrios of Tucson to his success as an award-winning documentarian of Latino life in the U.S. 

Since 2004, José Galvez has focused his efforts on capturing the Latino experience in the South. In 2005 Galvez and his wife Anne received funding from the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (supported by the Ford Foundation and J.P. Morgan Chase) for the photography/oral history project: “Land of Opportunity: Latino Entrepreneurs in North Carolina.” A related exhibit of Mr. Galvez’s photographs, “Al Norte al Sur: Latino Life in the South,” features images of Latinos in North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia and is currently on display in the West Hallway of Mullins Library’s main floor. This exhibit will be open and accessible to the pubic through Sept. 16.

Mr. Galvez’s public lecture, exhibition, and campus visit are being sponsored by the Latin American and Latino Studies Program, with very generous support from the Departments of History and English. Both events – Galvez’s Shine lecture (Thursday, Sept. 11, at 5:30 p.m. in Giffels Auditorium) and the exhibit, “Al Norte al Sur: Latino Life in the South,” (available for viewing from through Sept. 16 in the West Hallway on the main floor of Mullins Library) – are free and open to the public.