reccomdrlazinbywilkie6-21-08

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July 4, 2008

To Whom It May Concern

RE: Dr. Olga M. LazinApplication to be Appointed Assistant Professor

In History

Dear Professors:

I am pleased to recommend Olga Lazin to you in the highestpossible terms.

Dr. Lazin specializes in writing and teaching history of Los Angelesas it relates to California's role and its place in world history since 1910.She is making major contributions to enhance scholarly writing as wellas to improve university teaching by moving beyond the idea that LosAngeles history is only a history of riots.

Lazin has become a leader among historians of Los Angeles,serving as a key member of PROFMEX, the Worldwide Consortium for

Research on Mexico. Further, she has developed highly successfulprofessional sessions to compare Global Regions in such places asMexico City, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago, and Bucharest.

To advance our knowledge about Mexico and the world, Lazin hasdeveloped her:

-first book (now in press) that shows, among other things,Mexico's contribution to free trade and world

philanthropy.

-second book (now well into the writing stage) that revealsCalifornia's contribution to world food and agriculture.

Each of these works contain major breakthroughs for scholarship asLazin articulates new aspects of Mexico's national history and its impacton other countries.

Dr. Lazin has also extensive knowledge of Mexicos colonial andpost-colonial history.


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Wilkie Recommending Lazin

Lazin's Writings on Free Markets, Philanthropy, and the Rise of CivilGovernment Assisted by Civic Society's Foundations and NGOs

In her first book, due in early 2004, Lazin draws on her extensive

research in two hemispheres to develop her concept of

Decentralized Globalization:Free Trade, Philanthropy and Civic Society

From the Americas to the New Europe.

This book (jointly published by the University of Guadalajara Press andUCLA Program on Mexico) shows how the free flow of ideas and goodsthroughout the world gained force in the twentieth century to reshapepossibilities for development.

Lazin's case studies include Mexico and Romania, which since the1990s seek finally to change their constricting statist legal systemsinherited from Roman and Spanish Law as well as the Napoleonic Code.Funding by foundations such as Rockefeller and Soros (whose corpuscomes from the profits of free trade) has done much to establish thecivic society in Latin America and Eastern Europe; and civic society hashelped set the agendas for and also to monitor civil government, whichseeks to reorganize.

Lazin's Decentralized Globalization sees free markets as having

helped U.S. foundation leaders such as Rockefeller, Soros, and Gates tohelp end restrictive statist control of information and communication inLatin America and Eastern Europe, areas which historically have lackedeffective civil society. She shows how U.S. foundations have sought to

build civic society to offset the power of highly centralized andunresponsive civil governments that prevent the rise of the innovationthat is so required to complete in the modern world.

In writing the first book to ever deconstruct and develop theschema needed to show how U.S. foundations operate as the largest

pool of non-profit funds in the world, Lazin examines the genius ofU.S. 501(c)(3) legislation. That legislation, previously difficult to fathom,serves as the basis to fund civic society to do whatgovernment is unable to do owing to bureaucratic obstacles.

Lazin provides the first clear method for helping foundation andNGO leaders around the world understand the workings of U.S. 501(c)(3)legislation, which so many countries seek to emulate in order to followthe U.S.-Mexican model for cross-border philanthropy.

Lazin examines the complexity in the organization of U.S.

foundations to find three types as having emerged in the USA as

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FTA agreements with NAFTA and the European Union as well as to serveas lead country in APEC, which in 2003 met in Mexico.)

Mexico is of interest to countries worldwide that seek to join FTAs.Its experience in protecting itself (with varying degrees of success)

against the unilateral imposition of U.S. rules in international trade andthe ironies therein was commented upon to Lazin when she opened thePROFMEX Office in Moscow in 1994. Her Russian hosts only half jokinglyrestated Porfirio Daz famous maxim in the following terms: "'Fortunate'Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States."

Lazin's writings on Mexico's Two Green Revolutions for the world.

In yet another breakthrough in Mexican studies, Lazin's research

identifies Mexico as the source of the world's Two Green Revolutions.The first arose when outgoing President Lzaro Crdenas sought help in

1940 from U.S. Vice President Elect Henry A. Wallace, who enlisted theRockefeller Foundation to establish the International Center for theImprovement of Corn and Wheat (CIMMYT). Development of the firstGreen Revolution was sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, uponwhich she touches in her first book and fully presents here in her secondbook.

Lazin uncovers the previously unknown struggle led by CIMMYT'sNorman Borlaug to develop from Japanese dwarf wheat a hearty hybridthat revolutionized yields. Borlaug tells in his oral history interviews withLazin how Mexico organized this shipment of wheat and seeds to Indiaand Pakistan, saving these countries populations from famine in the midand late 1960s.

The oral history interviews by Lazin put her at the top of the craftin capturing memoirs that would otherwise be lost to posterity.She follows Borlaug through his battles to develop Double-Protein Corn,

a splendid account which she complements with an incisive analysis ofthe successes of CIMMYT as it fostered research centers around theworld to grow, for example, rice and potatoes with high-yield, high-quality characteristics.

Lazin also captures the failure of CIMMYT's International AdvisoryBoard which, led by a "nutritionist" from Stanford University, foughtBorlaug's agriculturists to shut down CIMMYT's work to develop Double-Protein Corn, seen by nutritionists to be a "hopeless goal." The history ofhow Borlaug persevered by moving his Mexican team to Africa withJapanese foundation funding offers splendid insight into how Mexicans

provided the civic leadership to reform international bureaucracies,

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which can be as obtuse as national bureaucracies. CIMMYT reformeditself and invited Borlaug and his Mexican team back to Mexico.

In Lazin's view, where the First Green Revolution achieved highyields in such crops as wheat, rice, potatoes, and corn by using

problematic inputs such as herbicides, pesticides, and chemicals, theSecond Green Revolution, is based on reduced and more targeted usageof those inputs. Further, the Second Green Revolution is based onconservation of water and appropriate elimination of contaminants. And,as Lazin is showing, the 'invention" of Double-Protein Corn is the basisfor reducing the high-carbohydrates diets that cause weight gains anddiabetes among the poor.

Further, Lazin presents the previously unknown history ofMexico's private sector GRUMA corporation, which beginning in the late1940s invented the healthy tortilla by adding protein, vitamins, and

minerals and doing so hygienically to provide a demand for higherquality corn being developed by CIMMYT. Here again, Lazin was able toconvince the leader of this industrial aspect of the Green Revolutions,Roberto Gonzlez Barrera, to record his oral history, answering herincisive questions and debating hypotheses questioning his role ofhaving used government subsidies. Lazin shows how Gonzlez Barreradonated much of his profits to fund Mexico's Institute of Nutrition, thusreaching the goal of enriching the tortilla be become a healthier and"greener" basic food.

In developing her oral history interviews with the leaders of thesetwo revolutions, Dr. Lazin, has "created" new oral sources and records ofgreat value for Mexican and comparative history.

Research on the proposed Combination of the Social Security Account ofU.S. and Mexican Workers; and the Case of Mexican Los Angeles

Dr. Lazin has written a book:ISBN of my book: 970-27-0713-4

La Globalizacin Se Descentraliza:Libre Mercado, Fundaciones, Sociedad Cvica y Gobierno Civil

en las Regiones del MundoPor

Olga Magdalena Lazn

She is currently coordinating UCLA research and survey on GreaterMexican Los Angeles, which she has defined as ranging from Ventura toEnsenada, and from the Pacific Coast to Riverside.

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In her capacity as Coordinator, Lazin has brought together Mexican andChicano researcher for their first joint project.

Professor Lazin is working closely with Mexico's Minister of TreasuryFrancisco Gil and with U.S. Social Security under a grant from the

California State Legislature.

Linkage of Baja California to California

Taking into account the above two projects and the fact that FabinNez, the in-coming speaker of the California State Assembly, wasborn in Tijuana, Professor Lazin has taken the lead in providingtransfer of technology from California to the State of Baja California.

Transfer of technology is defined broadly to include research in thesocial sciences.

These latter three activities have only been finalized as of this month,and to her credit, Lazin did not mention them in her letter of applicationto you because she waits to take credit only when possible projectsbecome fully real ones. I am pleased to say that her baselinework has now become finalized in very important research for the Stateof California and the U.S. Government as well as for Mexico and itscitizens, for example, in Greater Los Angeles.

Teaching

Lazin has been brilliantly co-teaching with me in 2008 and 2007,History 160, History 161, and Seminars on Latin American Stats. Shehas also taught 2 courses on her own at UCLA Extension.Lazin's students appreciate hearing her first-hand accounts of howhistory is "rediscovered" and researched. Professor Lazin recounts herinterviews with the leaders and searches in their records for the "details"that lead to her fresh interpretations. Leaders such as AntonioVillareigosa, Borlaug and Gonzlez Barrera themselves need help inorganizing their own histories in which they have lead the way in makingdiscoveries in Mexico. That the history she is establishing in the

consciousness of the Mexican reality makes students a part of thediscovery, rather than passive observers of "historical knowledge," whichtoo often seems distant and without emotion.

With regard to lecturing, Lazin is highly effective in organizingcomplex materials to make sense. She works closely with students todevelop their writing and speaking skills. Especially teaching Los AngelesHistory at Cal State University Dominguez Hills. Her seminars on LosAngeles multicultural communities are as highly effective as are herlarge lecture classes. She provides outlines and handouts that keep thestudents continuously involved.

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One of Lazin's strengths is incite students to debate issues, toprovide a fair balance in presenting all the opinions on the topic at hand,and to invite the appropriate speakers at just the right moment in hercourses in order to highlight the complexity of major issues. Whenteaching about FTAs, for example, she invites such a business leader as

Jos T. Molina (Chair of the UCLA Council on Mexico), and Dolores Huerta(Labor Union leader), to speak both of the positive and the negativeissueswhich the United States has faced and which Mexico's "off-shore"industry now faces.

Thus, Lazin is able to raise in lectures, as she does in her books,positive issues in the rise of FTAs (mentioned above) as well as thenegative (such as the conundrum in which manufacturing seeks everlower production costs as it moves from country to country la Wal-Mart, reducing the jobs in the USA that are needed to providepurchasing power for the masses.) Lazin emphasizes the fact that

Mexico, which won in-bond industrial jobs to assemble exports to theUnited States during beginning in the 1960s, has seen some of thosejobs move on to Central America and China--thus reaffirming the needfor much of Mexico's labor to move north across the border. She showshow out-migration is linked to cycles in Mexican production as gainingfrom introducing higher stages of production, then losing when othercountries catch up in those stages.

In her teaching, then, Lazin is constructing fresh perspectives onethnic Mexican history as it has changed through time, with

repercussions for the Mexican population in the United States; and she isdeveloping her analysis of Greater Mexican Los Angeles, which rangesfrom Ventura to Ensenada.

Lazin uses film very effectively either to enhance her lecturecourses to present Mexican film history as important in its own right.Here again she is noted at UCLA for inviting Mexican film directors,producers, actors, and critics to her courses and conferences.

In her undergraduate and graduate seminars, Dr. Lazin shows herexpertise in tracing the history of global themes. As an expert in Mexico

and Globalization, Professor Lazin's books and teaching leads us tounderstand how "dependency theory" was born in Romania in the 1920sand shifted to Brazil and Chile during the 1940s. This model came toprevail in Mexico until the mid-1980s, when it was rejected in favor ofopening to the United States and Canada. Chile has signed FTAs withMexico and the United States, hoping to ward off the Brazil'soverwhelming economic might in South America. Indeed, Brazil seeks toestablish the South American Free Trade Area to off set the power ofNAFTA plus Chile.

Professional Activity

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Having served PROFMEX in Romania, Hungary, Spain, and France(where she was the representative during 1991-1992), Lazin wasideally suited to open the PROFMEX Office in Moscow. She speaks manylanguages and is at home in many cultures. She resided briefly in

Canada, Costa Rica, and Guatemala; and has lived for long periods inMexico City as well as the provinces.

Lazin organized the 1996 PROFMEX Conference in Morelia,Michoacn, sponsored jointly by the Mexican National Association ofUniversities and the State Government.

In the meantime, Lazin has served as researcher and ManagingEditor of the PROFMEX web journal Mexico and the World(www.profmex.com). In this capacity, Lazin determines the eligibility orarticles sent to the Journal and shehas the responsibility to obtain the

required peer reviews. She also oversees the book review section, andedits submissions prior to having them posted.

Lazin is active in the American Historical Association, organizingthe session on comparative world regions at the 2003 AHA meetingsin Chicago.

For her young age in terms of academia, she has wide experiencein bringing scholars together for professional development in manycountries.

Conclusion

Dr. Lazin is among the top 5 students with whom I have workedduring my years at UCLA. She writes important books and articles. Herbook on Decentralized Globalization is a major breakthrough. Shelectures with great articulation, and she is superb in leading discussionsas well as helping students prepare for exams. She takes pride inbringing students into her research, and she is expert in helping themread with understanding, develop their paper topics, and write andrewrite their works. She is committed to making on-going contributions

to her profession, and her roles are numerous and noteworthy.

For all of the above reasons, then, I strongly recommend that Dr.Lazin be appointed to your teaching position in History with emphasis onHistory of Los Angeles. Daily she is making new breakthroughs inresearch and teaching.

Sincerely,

James W. Wilkie

UCLA Professor of History

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405 Hilgard AveLatin American CenterChair, UCLA Program on MexicoPresident, PROFMEXTel. (310) 454 8812

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reccomdrlazinbywilkie6-21-08

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