ALLA FALL 2023 

Business Meeting Agenda 

Saturday, November 18, 2023

Meeting Start time: 12:33Pm

1. Introductions and Adoption of Agenda

Current Board Members:

Leo Chavez, President (November 2022-2024

Jonathan Rosa – Past-President Elect

Gina Nunez – President-Elect (November 2022-2024)

Secretary-Treasurer: Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera

Members-at-large : Miguel Diaz-Barriga, Manuel Galaviz-Ceballos and Almita Miranda – 

Anthropology News Editors: Sergio Lemus and Dozandri Mendoza – 

Sara Castro Font – Grad Student Representative 

Lisa Cuellar and Venessa Castaneda – Communications coordinators

Welcome newly elected board member:

Secretary-Treasurer: Cecilia Vásquez, 2024-2026

Thank you to our outgoing board members for your service!

Secretary-Treasurer: Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera

Need to elect: President-elect 2024-26

ALLA Committees

• Distinguished career award committee [skips next year]
  • Mariluz Torres, Jonathan Rosa, Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera
• Graduate student paper prize committee 
  • Héctor Beltrán, Verónica Miranda, Vanessa Castañeda
• Junior faculty award 
  • Pat Zavella, Carlos Velez-Ibañez
  • Mariela Nuñez-Janes
• Program committee
  • Gina Nuñez, Carlos Martínez Cano
• Bylaws committee
  • Gina Nunez 
  • Liliana Luisa Milanes 
• Nuevas direcciones award
  • Miguel Díaz-Barriga, Margaret Dorsey, Lisa Cuéllar

Need book award committee for 2024.

Minutes Notes:

• Award plaques will be mailed, recipients will get checks in person for those that are in attendance.
• Report by Jonathan was approved and sent out to the list-serv

2. Approval of 2022 Annual Report (See attached) 

• Report was approved

3. Secretary-Treasurer’s Report: Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera

Membership Numbers

2023 Expenses

2023 Budget

Minutes Notes: 

• 28, 172.35 is in the reserves
• Budget for conference is $5,500
• Our revenue is only based on membership
• Our expenditures are exceeding revenue, and each meeting we are dipping into the reserves.
• A suggestion at the board meeting was to discuss the budget and account for what we can afford and should invest in. 
• We should also be expanding conversations on how we can expand our budget. Other revenue pipelines as a possibility
• Our membership continues to rise, and in the last few years it has increased significantly with graduate students
• In top categories we have seen increases, and pushing to continue graduate mentorship programming.

4. Annual Meeting Program Committee Report 

Gina Nunez

Minutes Notes:

• We had 41 ALLA sponsored events, posters, mentorship panels reviewed.

• We hope to see an upward rise in ALLA panels in future AAA conferences

• An ask to develop more ALLA workshops 

3. Anthropology News Update

Sergio Lemus and Dozandri Mendoza

Minutes Notes

• Emma Newman “Showing the Dead” the ethics of human remains in the borderlands is a piece we had published
• The editor for AM just stepped away, and there is uncertainty in the timeline for future pieces to be published at the time.

4. Graduate Student Mentorship Program 

Sara Castro Font

Minutes Notes:

• Sara is away on fieldwork, but the mentorship program was a huge success
• We want to continue to create programming that is of value to ALLA members

5. Bylaws update

Gina Nunez sdsu.edu

Liliana Luisa Milanes milianesl@wpunj.edu

Minutes Updates:

• No updates or changes

6. 2023 Awards 
7. Graduate Student Paper: 

Ámbar Reyes (winner)

Lupe Alberto Flores (Honorable Mention)

1. ALLA Distinguished Career Award

Ana Celia Zentella

Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez

1. ALLA Junior Scholar Outstanding Scholarship and Engagement Award 

Julie Torres

1. The Nuevas Direcciones award

No submissions this year.

Minutes Notes:

• Plaque and recognition of the work Jonathan accomplished as President
  • Thanking the communications team
  • Thanking the collaborators and the ALLA community
• Hector Beltran recognized Graduate Student Paper Recipients
  • Lupe Flores not in attendance to receive honorable mention.
  • Winner: Ambar Reyes 
• Leo Presented award to Julie Torres for Early Career
• Jonathan Presents award to Carlos Velez-Ibañez & Ana Celia Zentella 
  • Carlos was unable to attend, but his check and plaque will be mailed
    • He was nominated by Patricia Zavella
  • Ana Celia Zentella was present 
• The Nuevas Direcciones did not have any nominations: 
  • The purpose of the award is recognizing work that is not usually recognized by academia
  • We encourage people to nominate people for next year

6. AAA 2023 Meetings – Nov. 15-19, Toronto, Canada

7. Additional Business

• Question proposed from board meeting: Should we have every award every year rather than staggering

• Would be more expensive to give award annually.

• There is also a challenge of review committees having to read two years worth of book awards with the current system

• Suggestion to make the book awards annual,

• This year there were 40 books submitted for the team of three. Workload was challenging

• Suggestion to remove the monetary and keep the plaque

• Motion by Margaret Dorsey to make the book award annual and divide the award in half to fund it ($250)

• Second by Jonathan Rosa

• Passes by majority.

• Request for someone to be a a part of the ALLA By-laws Review team

• Manuel Galaviz-Cebellos is nominated and accepts

• Book Review Team

• Nominated: Vanessa Diaz, Hilario Lomeli, Rebeca Gamez, Lourdes Gutierrez Najera

• Graduate Student Award

• Nominated: Ambar, Lupe Flores, Miguel Diaz-Barriga (accepted)

• Early Career Award Team

• Nominated: Julie Torres, Almita Miranda

Comms Updates:

• Suggestion to have a staggered system for the team to smooth out onboarding.

• Lisa would like to stay on

• Comms would like to do more online programming for mentorship.

• The ALLA Google Archive usage and utility is low, and we would like to see more engagement across ALLA. 

• Writing accountability group has been successful and active.

• Interest in organizing more ALLA community virtual spaces for connections.

Please send in items.

• ALLA Google Group: alla-aaa@googlegroups.com

• Daiana Rivas-Tello volunteers to join comms team

Leo & Gina Update on Tampa AAA Meeting:

• Possibility to boycott the Tampa AAA meeting as many LGBTQ+ and Latinx members remain vulnerable in Florida
• There are also local orgs asking us to show up for the communities and engage in teach-ins and solidarity activism.
• The cost of not going is a $1000,000 loss for AAA
• Board is still meeting to make a decision as decorum was not made, so later today we will get update from Ramona Perez on outcome of the discussion during Presidential Address
• Gina heard in President’s meeting about the possibility of alternating conferences on virtual and in-person. Though AAA has concerns on finances.
• Proposal for ALLA to make recommendations to AAA Executive Board on future AAA locations that align with organizational values.

• Motion by: Margaret to have someone chair a committee to make suggestion to AAA for ALLA recommended sites.

• Motion Second by Gina

• All For: Majority

• • Volunteer Committee: Santiago Guerre (tentative if it conflict of interest), Natalie Martinez, and Margaret Dorsey