Creando Memorias en Oceanside: Film Screening of Oaxacalifornia: The Return (2021)

Enjoy this rare documentary screening led by UC Riverside Professor Dr. Xochitl Chavez.

Oaxacalifornia: The Return chronicles the Mejia family and deals with the nuances of both belonging and otherness that many individuals experience while growing up. The film challenges older narratives that defined the migrant experience of those like the Mejía grandparents as one stuck between two worlds, or being ni de aquí ni de allá (neither here nor there), the grandchildren explore and reclaim their identities as being both de aquí y de allá (from here and there).

Dr. Xóchitl C. Chávez is the first tenure track Chicanx assistant professor in the Department of Music at the University of California, Riverside. She is a scholar of expressive culture and performance, specializing in Indigenous communities from southern Mexico and transnational migration. Her current work focuses on second-generation Zapotec brass bands in Los Angeles, California and transborder relationships with their communities of origin in Oaxaca, Mexico.

This project was made possible with support from California Humanities non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Funding the Library Innovation Lab has also been provided by California Humanities and the State of California through the California State Library. Visit www.calhum.org.  These free events are also supported by the Friends of Oceanside Public Library.