December 14, 2004

Dear Members of the Executive Board,

The Committee on Minority Issues in Anthropology is please to present this annual report that outlines our accomplishments for 2004 and our goals for 2005. As is true for the entire AAA this has been a difficult year for the CMIA because of the impact of the strike and budgetary constraints. The CMIA held three telephone conferences this year, one to decide the winner of the minority dissertation fellowship, another to retool the application for the fellowship, and a third to replace our annual business meeting since a majority of our members could not make the Atlanta meeting.

Because the UNITE strikers were mainly minoritized workers, and because the plight of such workers in the US is increasingly difficult, the CMIA was both heartened and concerned by the AAAs reaction to the Hilton strike. While CMIA appreciates the executive board's respect of the decision by a majority of anthropologists not to cross the picket lines, we recommend a review of the decision-making process within AAA. We encourage the executive board to further examine its policies towards holding future annual meetings at unionized and non-unionized hotels.

The executive board might also take special notice of our attempts to identify a long-range goal (see item 3 under plans for 2004). We look forward to dialoging with the executive board about a future emphasis for our committee.

This is my last year as the chair and a member of the CMIA. I am pleased to announce that Carla Guerron-Montero was chosen by the committee to be our new chair. Finally, I would also like to express our committee's deep appreciation of the work of Kathleen Terry-Sharp and Melissa Coates. They are truly superb administrators and friends.

Our best wishes,

Miguel Díaz-Barriga, Chair
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore PA 19081
610-328-8108
mdiazba1@swarthmore.edu

Stated Tasks, 2004

In our 2003 annual report we established the following goals for 2004:

1. Organizing invited sessions at the AAA meetings in San Francisco.

2. Administering and awarding the Minority Dissertation Fellowship.

3. Completing our survey on the graduate student experience.

4. Maintaining a dialogue with Karen Nakamura and the long-range planning committee about the definitions and plans for diversity and increasing the numbers and presence off minoritized anthropologists.

5. Explore ways, perhaps through a comprehensive mentoring plan, to help graduate students from minoritized groups.

Completed Tasks, 2004

We managed to accomplish these goals and more.

1. For the meetings in San Francisco we organized two panels, one on funding issues for minority scholars and another on activist research. The CMIA/NASA invited panel, "Advocacy and Scholarship in Minoritized Communities: Engaging Activism and Academia," was held in Atlanta.

2.We selected a winner of the Minority Dissertation Fellowship. This year's recipient is Lisa Anderson-Levy. Svati Shah and Damien Thompson were the honorable mentions. There were 17 qualified applicants.

3. Miguel Diaz-Barriga and his research team at Swarthmore College published the survey on the mentoring and the graduate school experience in "Anthropology News" as well as posted their findings on the AAA web site.

4. We continued working with Karen Nakamura to reach a final version of the language on diversity for the long-range planning report. In specific objective V the executive board adopted language proposed by the CMIA.

The AAA will increase the presence of minoritized anthropologists, diversify the discipline, foster the understanding of diversity, and promote the equitable treatment of all anthropologists.

A. The AAA will increase the impact and presence of minoritized anthropologists by supporting and fostering programs that bring more minorities into the Association and discipline and through creating awareness of the issues facing minoritized groups in the United States.

B. The AAA will promote a broader understanding of diversity and will diversify the Association and discipline in practice, research, training, and outreach. We understand diversity to include socially constructed categories of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, disability, class, language, nationality, national origin, and religion. 5. We continued our emphasis on mentoring by co-sponsoring with ALLA a mentoring workshop at the AAAs annual meetings.

In addition to these activities we also accomplished the following:

1. Committee members Vilma Santiago-Irizary and Miguel Diaz-Barriga co-organized a panel with a group of biological anthropologists as part of the AAA Race Initiative. A summary of the panel was published in "Anthropology News."

2. The Committee held a special phone meeting to reevaluate and rework the application for the Minority Dissertation Fellowship.

3. Explored with Kathleen Terry-Sharp and the AAA possibilities for increasing the endowment for the Minority Dissertation Fellowship.

Abandoned Tasks

We did not have to abandon any of our tasks.

Remaining Issues

1. We have continued discussion of the Minority Dissertation Fellowship including eligibility and ways to increase the number of applicants.

2. The CMIA hope to continue participating in the Public Education Initiative on Race.

Budget Issues

As was true for last year the CMIA has been frustrated by budget issues, including:

1. The funding and expansion of the Minority Dissertation Award.

2. The funding of a reception at the AAA meetings. The CMIA reception at the annual meetings served as a good tool for bringing members of minoritized groups together.

3. A lack of funds for organizing events, such as our past attempts to organize a conference on Native Americans and Anthropology.

Plans for 2005

For 2005 we have the following goals:

1. Organize 2 invited sessions for the 2005 AAAs. We are currently planning to resubmit our funding panel and to organize a panel on diversity within archeology.

2. Administer the Minority Dissertation Fellowship, including selecting a recipient.

3. Develop a long-range plan of action based on one of the following possibilities----increasing the endowment of the minority dissertation award, mentoring of minoritized students, or hiring of minoritized faculty. Our goal is to focus our energies over the next couple of years while strengthening our work with sections such as ABA, ALLA, etc.

4. Monitor the AAA's reaction to the Hilton strike.

General Issues

The CMIA accomplished a number of goals and worked with a variety of sections and initiatives within the AAAs. We look forward to conducting our normal duties, such as administering the dissertation award, while continuing our collaborations. In addition, we are also in the process of identifying a long-term project in order to focus the activities of our committee. Finally, as was true last year, we have been hampered in our attempts to gain funding for more minority fellowships and conferences, and to make our presence known more widely at the annual meetings through reception events.