By Jill Goetz
College students from several East Coast states will visit Cornell this weekend for a conference celebrating Mexican-American art and culture.
"A Celebration of Chicana/o Cultural Productions: Utilizing Art as a Tool for Empowerment" is open to the public and will feature a lecture by filmmaker and actor Edward James Olmos on Saturday, April 27, at 8:30 p.m. in Statler Hall Auditorium. Free tickets will be available for Olmos' lecture, with one ticket per Cornell ID, today and Friday at the Information and Referral Center in Day Hall, on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Olmos directed the film American Me and appeared regularly on TV's "Miami Vice," as well as in the films Stand and Deliver and Mi Familia. Last year, he won a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his work in HBO's Burning Season. Olmos last spoke at Cornell in April 1993.
In addition to his Saturday evening lecture, Olmos will give a workshop from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Saturday afternoon.
Leading other Saturday workshops will be award-winning writers Benjamin Alire Saenz and Jose Antonio Burciaga; actress Rose Portillo; Cornell English Professor Ben Olguín; and Cornell student Adriana Palafox '97, founder of Ballet Folklorico Mexicano, which will perform at the conference.
"Our goal for this conference is to bring well-known artists, filmmakers, dancers and writers to Cornell to present and discuss how their art can be used as tools for empowerment," said Jennifer Estep '96, conference chair for the Cornell chapter of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, which is sponsoring the conference.
One of about 300 M.E.Ch.A. chapters nationally, the Cornell group works to foster community and security -- by building bridges between the campus Latino and non-Latino organizations -- and to increase the university's recruitment and retention of Chicano and Chicana students.
Except for a Saturday evening dinner, all conference workshops are free and open to the public; however, they do require registration. Registration will be held on Friday, April 26, from 5 to 8 p.m. in the Class of '28 community center.
For further information about the conference, call Jennifer Estep at 273-3786.