Cal State L.A. and Baseball Reliquary Exhibition on Mexican-American Baseball

Opens March 26

WHAT: A reception celebrating the culmination of a year of scholarship and the opening of a unique exhibition, Mexican-American Baseball in Los Angeles: From the Barrios to the Big Leagues, will be held at California State University, Los Angeles. Refreshments will be served.

WHEN: Sunday, March 26, 2006, 2 - 4 p.m.

WHERE: John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, Courtyard, on the Cal State L.A. campus. The University is located at the Eastern Avenue exit, San Bernardino (I-10) Freeway, at the interchange of the 10 and 710 Freeways. Public (permit dispenser) parking is available in Lot F or the top level of Parking Structure 2. (For campus map, go to www.calstatela.edu/univ/maps/cslamap.htm)

PROGRAM: Several speakers will address various aspects of this comprehensive humanities-based project, which includes the establishment of a Mexican-American baseball archive in the Special Collections of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library. Featured speakers will be Cesar Caballero, acting university librarian, John F. Kennedy Memorial Library; Francisco E. Balderrama, professor of Chicano Studies and History, Cal State L.A.; and Richard Santillan, professor emeritus, Ethnic and Women's Studies Department, Cal Poly Pomona. Their remarks will be followed by a ribbon-cutting ceremony and viewing of the library exhibition. (The exhibit will be on display from March 26 through June 9.)

INFO: The event is open to the public and free of charge. For more information on the project, go to the Web site at www.baseballreliquary.org/MexicanAmericanBaseball.htm or call (323) 343-3974.

MEDIA: Members of the media are invited to attend. Please RSVP by March 20 to the Office of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A., (323) 343-3050.

BACKGROUND: A collaborative effort between the Baseball Reliquary-a Southern California-based nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering an appreciation of American art and culture through baseball history-and Cal State L.A.'s John F. Kennedy Memorial Library, Mexican-American Baseball in Los Angeles: From the Barrios to the Big Leagues is designed to document and interpret the historic role that baseball has played as a cohesive element and as a social and cultural force within the Mexican-American communities of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

The project includes the recording and preservation of oral histories; the establishment of an archive dedicated to Mexican-American baseball history as part of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library's Special Collections; and the presentation of an exhibition, featuring photographs, artwork, and artifacts, which will examine the social and ethnic ramifications of baseball within the Mexican-American communities of Los Angeles.

This project is made possible, in part, by a grant to the Baseball Reliquary from the California Council for the Humanities as part of the Council's statewide California Stories Initiative (www.californiastories.org), and from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.