Borders, Migration and Art. The U.S. Mexico Experience, Lecture and Q&A led by Dr. Gilberto Cárdenas

Apr. 3, 2021

Apr. 3, 2021 @ 11:00 am 12:30 pm

Artwork used in event banner: Luis Jimenez, Cruzando el Río Bravo, 1987, Lithograph on paper, 38 3/4″ x 28 1/2″. Mexic-Arte Museum Permanent Collection

Join the Mexic-Arte Museum on Saturday, April 3th starting at 11am CST for “Borders, Migration and Art. The U.S. Mexico Experience”, Lecture led by Dr. Gilberto Cárdenas as part of the Museum’s current virtual exhibition, Life and Experiences in the U.S./Mexico Borderlands on view now via the Museum’s website. The virtual lecture will be live streamed via Zoom and Facebook Live and moderated by Mexic-Arte Museum Curator & Director of Programs, Dr. George Vargas. Participants can pre-register for the event via Zoom by filling out info and clicking the Register button on this site or simply by viewing the lecture on the Museum’s Facebook page on the day of the event. Participants will get a chance to engage in a Q&A with Dr. Gilberto Cárdenas during the last few minutes of the virtual event!


Visit the Museum’s current virtual exhibition, Life and Experiences in the U.S/Mexico Borderlands on view now!

About the Virtual Lecture

This presentation first will focus on the current exhibition Mexico, the Border, and Beyond: Selections from the Juan Antonio Sandoval Jr. Collection at Mexic-Arte Museum, and Dr. Cárdenas personal connection to Juan Sandoval in the years past. Dr. Cárdenas will cover the origins of his interest in photography and art, the evolution of my collection of Latino art, beginning with his interest in social change. Dr. Cárdenas will provide a summary of the research on migration that he has conducted and the connection between research and attention to the visual story of migration provided by artists. Artwork in Dr. Cárdenas collection often overlapped with works in Juan’s collection and currently on display at the Mexic-Arte Museum.

About Dr. Gilberto Cárdenas

Gilberto Cárdenas was the founding Executive Director of the Notre Dame Center for Arts and Culture. He was the founding Director of the Institute for Latino Studies 1999-2012 and Assistant Provost at the University of Notre Dame. He held the Julian Samora Chair in Latino Studies, 1999-2012. He was a full professor in the Department of Sociology.

Dr. Cardenas taught at the University of Texas at Austin from 1975 to 1999. He has also served as the Executive Director for the Inter-University Program for Latino Research (IUPLR) from 1995 to 2013, a national consortium of 25 member centers and institutes.

He received his BA from the California State University at Los Angeles and his MA and PhD from the University of Notre Dame. His principal research interests are immigration, race and ethnic relations, Latino art and culture, and visual sociology.

Dr. Cárdenas has worked in the area of immigration for over forty-four years and has gained international recognition as a scholar in Mexican immigration. Three times named by Hispanic Business Magazine as one of the 100 most influential Latinos in the United States, Cárdenas has authored and edited numerous books, articles, monographs, and reports on topics covering several fields of specialization, including international migration, economy and society, and race and ethnic relations.

These works include his co-authorship of Los Mojados: The Wetback Story 1971(with Julian Samora and Jorge Bustamante); co-editorship of Health and Social Services among International Labor Migrants: A Comparative Perspective, which was published in 1998 by the University of Texas Press and the Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS) as part of their Border series; editorship of La Causa: Civil Rights, Social Justice, and the Struggle for Equality in the Midwest, which was published in 2004 in Arte Público Press’s Hispanic Civil Rights series.

Dr. Cardenas was the Latino Series Editor for Notre Dame Press and previously served as the Mexican American Series Editor for the University of Texas Press. He served on several editorial committees for book series, including the Critical Documents of Latin American and Latino Art, (Houston) the A Ver Series on Latino Artists (UCLA), and Ventana Abrieto (Spain). He is a member of the Board of the SI Archives of American Art.

Cardenas established and owned Galería sin Fronteras, Inc.- a commercial gallery in Austin, Texas featuring the works of Chicano/Latino artists. He is an avid collector of Latino art and he has established the largest private collection of Latino art in the world. He is President of Enterprises Sin Fronteras, LLC (property development co.)

In 1994 he founded and served as Executive Producer of Latino USA, a half-hour weekly radio program produced at the University of Texas at Austin and distributed nationally by National Public Radio.

In addition to his professional and artistic activities, Cárdenas has provided testimony before the US Congress and state legislative bodies since 1970 and has served as an expert witness in several critical and landmark cases, including the US Supreme Court landmark decision, Plyler v. Doe (1982).

A member of the original Task Force that produced Willful Neglect (1994) Cárdenas served on the Smithsonian Institution’s Oversight Committee for Latino Issues that lead to the report; Toward a Shared Vision (1997). Cardenas served as Chair of the Latino Center Board, one of three national boards of the Smithsonian Institution. More recently he served on the Board for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

In 1997 he completed tenure as First Vice President of the Board of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), and he served on MALDEF Boards from 1994 to 2017. Cárdenas was also one of six people appointed to the Advisory Committee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholars Program, a $1.5-billion minority scholarship initiative established by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dr. Cardenas was appointed by President Bush in 2001 to serve as a member of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships and in 2009 he was appointed by President Bush to serve on the National Museum of the American Latino Commission.

He served on the Board of Directors for many organizations, including of Arts Midwest (Minn, MN) Self Help Graphics (LA, CA) Mexic Arte, Austin, TX, The Texas Fine Arts Association, Austin, TX, the Austin Museum of Art, the National Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation (Albq, NM) The Indiana Historical Society (South Bend, IN) the Indiana Arts Commission, the South Bend Heritage Foundation (South Bend) and the Friends of the Snite Museum (Notre Dame). He is currently a member of the Board of Directors, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX and El Museo del Barrio, New York and Voces Advisory Council – UTA College of Communications.

The Life and Experience in the U.S./Mexico Borderlands has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.