ABOUT MARCH, INC. AND MARCH/ABRAZO PRESS

ABOUT MARCH’S LACASA CHICAGO PROJECT AND PUBLICATION SERIES

MARCH/ABRAZO AND LACASA PUBLICATIONS LIST

ABOUT COLLAGE DE LAS AMERICAS

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The Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH) was incorporated in Illinois in 1975 as a not-for-profit cultural/arts organization. Its goal was and is to promote Chicano and Latino literary and visual arts expression, with an emphasis on the Midwest and Chicago. MARCH/Abrazo Press is the publishing arm of MARCH which is dedicated to the publication of chapbooks and perfect bound literary texts by and about Chicanos, Latinos and Native Americans. For copies of MARCH publications, as well as requests for presentations by our writers, interested parties should contact MARCH, INC., P.O. Box 2890, Chicago, IL 60690; or send a FAX to (773)-539-0013.

Overseen by the MARCH Board of Directors and coordinated by Professor Marc Zimmerman (Latin American Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago), the Chicago Latin American/Latino/a Cultural Activities and Studies Arena (LACASA CHICAGO) seeks to work on given cultural projects (exhibitions, presentations, publications, etc.) with Chicago-area Latino community and academic groups and to develop Chicago Latino ties with other Latin American and Latino cultural projects and groups throughout the Americas and beyond.

LACASA CHICAGO‘s publications include Zimmerman's U.S. Latino Literature: An Essay and Annotated Bibliography (Chicago: MARCH/Abrazo, 1992) and New World [Dis]Orders and Peripheral Strains: Specifying Cultural Dimensions in Latin American and Latino Studies (Chicago: MARCH/Abrazo 1998), edited by Michael Piazza and Marc Zimmerman. Through MARCH/Abrazo, LACASA will also help promote and distribute other books published elsewhere, with our first such promotion being Disparities and Connections: The Excluded on Post-modernism (Chicago: Axe Street Arena, 1991). Future projects include texts and presentations portraying Chicago Latino life, culture, literature and the arts, and works on Latin American/Latino cultural transnationalization.. To contact LACASA, write Marc Zimmerman in care of MARCH (see above) or his E-mail address, Marczim@uic.edu. Consult LACASA’s developing Website, http://www.uic.edu/~marczim.

Carlos Cortez, De KANSAS a CALIFAS & Back to Chicago. ISBN 1-877636-09-6. Poems and woodcuts by a famous Chicano Wobbly bard. $6.50.

COLLAGE features exhibitions of Latin American folk-art, as in case of LACASA’s Sueños de los pueblos. COLLAGE also seeks to exhibit and carry work by Latin American visual artists, and collector’s pieces, including painters from Oaxaca and East L.A., San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the Pilsen area of Chicago; and masks by such masters as Miguel Caraballo and Raúl Ayala from Puerto Rico as well as by Juan Orta Castillo and Felipe Anciola from Tócuaro, Michoacán. From Mexico also are the fantastic figures or alebrijes of the Linares family and Saúl Moreno; cartoon-like ceramic work (Frida, death figures, etc.)by Josefina Aguilar and other members of the Aguilar family; by Carlomagno Pedro, Alfonso Castillo and the women of Ocumicho, Michoacán. One of the few Latina-owned pan-Latin American handicraft businesses in the U.S., COLLAGE seeks to establish relations with handicraft collectives; it maintains ecological and health standards and seeks the most equitable relations with artisans and artisan communities. Director Esther Soler has her social, communitarian and political values and commitments. But she underlines that COLLAGE is definitely a business; it must meet its bills or go under. In this context, COLLAGE seeks to work with organizations like LACASA Chicago in ways that are mutually advantageous.

COLLAGE will seek its own EMAIL and website addresses. In the meantime inquiries may be sent to COLLAGE at 1520 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647. Tel. (773)-252-2562; FAX 292-0730; EMAIL marczim@uic.edu. Located in the heart of Chicago’s Wicker Park area, COLLAGE is easily reached by cab or bus from O’Hare Airport or the "Loop"–but the easiest way is by train: just take the Congress Line to Damen, and walk one block southeast on Milwaukee Ave. Next time in Chicago, visit COLLAGE

First presented from November 30, 1997 to January 30, 1998 at the Chicago handicraft gallery, COLLAGE DE LAS AMERICAS, Sueños de los pueblos/ Village Dreams and Dreamers is a handicraft and art exhibit portraying Latin American worlds from the Southern Cone to U.S. Latino barrios. The exhibit was conceived and mounted by the Chicago Latin American Cultural Activities and Studies Arena (LACASA CHICAGO), a branch of the Movimiento Artístico Chicano (MARCH).

This catalog is a record of the exhibit; it also registers COLLAGE buying trips, as well as the places and artisans photographed along the way. Both exhibit and catalog are a tribute to the towns and the town dreamers represented directly or indirectly in the words and images presented.