ABSTRACT

“ESTUDIANTES REVOLTOSOS”: THE STRUGGLE FOR LA RAZA STUDIES AT FRESNO STATE COLLEGE

The Chicana/o Student Movement of the 1960s and 1970s in urban Southern

California has been extensively researched and documented, yet very little attention has

been given to the contributions of Chicanas/os in California’s rural Central Valley. The

Valley’s historically oppressive relationship between agribusiness and the Mexican-

origin population underscores the failure of Chicana/o education and the struggle to

create La Raza Studies at Fresno State College. As Valley schools sought to impose an

agribusiness agenda, the farmworkers’ struggle in the fields spilled over to Fresno State

as Chicanas/os—in their pursuit of equitable education—clashed with agriculture

students and campus conservatives. Through a collective effort, Black and Chicana/o

students successfully pressured the college to meet several of their demands, the most

significant of which was the creation of an Ethnic Studies department. However, they

faced an unrelenting and racist-fueled assault from campus and community conservatives

over the course of three college administrations. La Raza Studies was ultimately cut short

after one academic year when the entire faculty was terminated in the Spring of 1970. My

thesis examines the influence of the Valley’s grower class on Chicana/o education and

how Fresno State College’s authoritarian and retaliatory actions against La Raza Studies

were an extension of the community’s desire to reassert white dominance on campus.

Zacarías González III December 2020

“ESTUDIANTES REVOLTOSOS”: THE STRUGGLE FOR LA RAZA

STUDIES AT FRESNO STATE COLLEGE

by

Zacarías González III

A thesis

submitted in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts in History

in the College of Social Sciences

California State University, Fresno

December 2020

APPROVED

For the Department of History:

We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree. Zacarías González III

Thesis Author

William E. Skuban (Chair) History

Elvia Rodríguez History

Carlos Pérez Chicano and Latin American Studies

For the University Graduate Committee:

Dean, Division of Graduate Studies

AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION

OF MASTER’S THESIS

X I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its

entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that

the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and

provides proper acknowledgment of authorship.

Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be

obtained from me.

Signature of thesis author:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I need to thank my thesis committee for agreeing to be a part of this

endeavor under less than ideal circumstances. I want to express my sincere gratitude to

my Chair, Dr. William E. Skuban, for his encouragement and support, and for giving me

the opportunity to refute a disgruntled voice. I want to thank Dr. Carlos Pérez for

inspiring me to be a better student as an undergraduate, and for spending the time to help

me map my initial research efforts. I also thank Dr. Elvia Rodríguez for her detailed and

thought-provoking feedback.

A special thanks goes to Dr. Victor Torres who has been a mentor throughout my

time at Fresno State. Whenever I felt like I had no one to turn to on campus, he was there

to help. He gave me the opportunity to immerse myself in the Chicana/o Studies

department which helped me create, and be a part of, a strong network of Chicana/o and

Latina/o student activists on campus. I also want to acknowledge Professor Matt

Espinoza Watson for inspiring me as a young student in his Chicano Studies courses at

Fresno City College. He gave a 23-year-old full-time welder the motivation and

confidence to change career paths and transfer to Fresno State. His passion for the Ethnic

Studies was contagious, and for that I will always be grateful.

The History department was foreign to me, and I entered the program as an

outsider from Chicana/o Studies. But the friendships I made along the way are what truly

made this a worthwhile experience. I thank all of my amigas/os from CLASSA for their

continued support, and especially my “crew” from my graduate cohort whose friendship

proved to be invaluable.

To my family, thank you for your unwavering support and encouragement. My

parents—Nadia Volkov González and Zacarías González—took every opportunity to

teach me our family history, making sure I would never forget their humble backgrounds.

v v

I thank them for teaching me to be proud of my heritage and stressing the importance of

community. To my brother, James González, and my niece, Natalya González, thank you

for always being a source of joy and laughter. I love you all so much.

This thesis would not have been possible without the oral histories of my

community elders. My deepest gratitude to Lea Ybarra, Jorge García, Alex Saragoza,

Ernie Palomino, Rudy Gallardo, and my father Zacarías González. Thank you for sharing

your life experiences and giving me the encouragement to continue my work. Finally,

and most importantly, I want to thank my strongest source of inspiration, the Chicana/o

community. Countless community members aided me in my research. Not only do I stand

on the shoulders of all the Chicanas/os who paved the way before me, but their support

continues to lift me up so I can make the journey easier for those that come after me.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................... viii

INTRODUCTION: RACE AND THE MANIPULATION OF EDUCATION IN THE CENTRAL VALLEY ..................................................................................1

El Movimiento .........................................................................................................2

The Historiography: Rural Students in the Periphery ................................................6

Chicana/o Education and the Grower-Campesino Dynamic ......................................9

Organization .......................................................................................................... 15

CHAPTER 1: ASPIRING BEYOND THE FIELDS: INTENTIONAL SCHOOL FAILURE AND CHICANA/O STUDENT RESISTANCE ................................ 17

Failure by Design ................................................................................................... 18

Chicana/o Student Experiences in the Central Valley ............................................. 20

Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 26

CHAPTER 2: MORE THAN GRAPE-PICKERS: THE CHICANA/O STUDENT MOVEMENT AT FRESNO STATE COLLEGE ............................................... 27

Awakening ............................................................................................................. 27

Black and Brown Student Demands ....................................................................... 30

The Boycott ........................................................................................................... 34

The Experimental College and Birth of La Raza Studies ........................................ 43

Black and Brown Papers ........................................................................................ 46

Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 51

CHAPTER 3: GOING TO WAR WITH THE INSTITUTION: THE CREATION AND DESTRUCTION OF LA RAZA STUDIES .............................................. 52

The First Raza Studies Faculty and the Fight for Marvin X .................................... 53

The Falk Administration ........................................................................................ 58

The Baxter Administration ..................................................................................... 71

Page

vii vii

Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 75

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 77

EPILOGUE ................................................................................................................... 79

BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................... 81

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 1: National Farm Worker Association representative and founder of El Teatro Campesino, Luis Valdez, speaks at Fresno State College during the NFWA march to Sacramento. The Daily Collegian, 28 March 1966. ............. 28

Figure 2: Black and Chicana/o students march through the Fresno State College library, 1968. Fresno City College student, Raúl Pickett front left, Fresno State College graduate student, Guillermo Martínez, front right. Campus Yearbook 1969. ............................................................................................. 33

Figure 3: Grape boycott at Fresno State College, left, students from the Department of Agriculture (aggies) trying to give away free grapes, right. Campus Yearbook 1969. ............................................................................................. 37

Figure 4: Reies López Tijerina speaking at Fresno State College. Campus Yearbook 1969. ............................................................................................................. 49

Figure 5: Richard Keyes, Chairman of Black Studies, top left, Eliezer Risco-Lozada, Chairman of La Raza Studies, top middle. Campus Yearbook 1970. .............. 54

Figure 6: Anti-Falk and anti-Fikes sign, left. Campus Yearbook 1970. Anti-Falk and anti-Fikes political cartoon, right. La Voz de Aztlán, 16 February 1970. ......... 59

Figure 7: Fresno State College students shut down Shaw Avenue. Campus Yearbook 1970. ............................................................................................................. 67

Figure 8: Anti-Baxter illustrations. La Voz de Aztlán, 19 October 1970. ......................... 73

INTRODUCTION: RACE AND THE MANIPULATION OF EDUCATION IN THE CENTRAL VALLEY

I don’t want anyone at any moment to interpret the story I’m about to tell as something

that is only personal. Because I think that my life is related to my people. What happened

to me could have happened to hundreds of people in my country. I want to make this

clear, because I recognize that there have been people who have done much more than I

for the people, but who have died or who haven’t had the opportunity to be known.

-Domitila Barrios de Chungara, Let me Speak!

The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abrierta where the Third World grates against

the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two

worlds merging to form a third country—a border culture.

-Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera

For Chicanas/os, the Southwest borderlands between the United States and

Mexico have always been more than a physical barrier between nation-states.1

Transcending the emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual realms, it has been una herida

abrierta—an open wound—a symbolic reminder of historical trauma and oppression

endured by indigenous Americans and their descendants through the conquest and, at

times, systematic genocide on two continents. And, even though the history of

Chicanas/os in the United States has not always included a history of European invasion

and conquest, it has included an “educational” conquest. For over a century Chicana/o

education consisted of white-serving narratives such as the pernicious fantasy of

American—i.e. white—exceptionalism that told of brave and pious explorers, pilgrims,

1 The terms “Chicano” or “Chicana”—and their variants: Chicanx, Chican@, Xicano, Xicana,

Xicanx—have historically represented varied ideological, political, and ethnic identities as the Chicana/o

Movement and Chicana/o ideology evolved throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Because of

the gendered nature of the Spanish language, most Chicana/o scholars have shifted from the blanket use of

the masculine “Chicano” in favor of the more inclusive and gender-neutral variants. This thesis will use

Chicana/o—except when the singular, gendered term applies to an individual—to acknowledge the

presence of both Chicanas and Chicanos in the historical narrative and is reflective of the term’s use in this

time period. Further—for the purpose of this thesis—Chicana/o may be used to refer to the broader

Mexican American community, and Mexican American individuals who may not have personally used the

term as an identifier.

2 2

pioneers, and settlers; a so-called “objective history.” Americanizing-indoctrination,

cultural suppression, and school segregation were all hallmarks of Chicana/o education in

the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For Chicanas/os in California’s Central Valley,

educational outcomes were not only determined by the agribusiness dynamics between

campesinos and the powerful grower class but were themselves an essential cog in the

machinery of racial capitalism.2 However, in the 1960s, the Chicana/o Student

Movement at Fresno State College served to create an institutional point of departure that

challenged this dynamic and created an academic and community framework for

resistance.

El Movimiento

In the middle of the tumultuous twentieth century, the 1960s and early 1970s

represented a crucial moment of reckoning in the United States. The years immediately

following World War II were an eye-opening and sobering experience for many young

people of color. Black, Latino, and indigenous soldiers who proudly came home from

war returned to a country where their sacrifices meant little, and the members of their

own communities continued to be treated as second-class citizens. These experiences—

exacerbated by the War in Vietnam—disillusioned many youths to the “promise” of the

“American dream,” and laid the foundation for the social revolution of the 1960s. The

movements for civil rights, free speech, women’s liberation, Red Power, Black Power,

and Chicana/o Power appealed to, and inspired, those who did not believe the United

States was capable of changing the socioeconomic and sociopolitical conditions for

communities of color.

2 Campesino, in this context, is a Spanish term for “farm laborer.” “Agribusiness” is a term that

encompasses the process of farming and all agriculture-related commercial activities. Due to its all-

encompassing nature, it is also used here as a synonym for the large-scale industrial farming operations that

dominated the Central Valley’s agriculture industry.

3 3

Beginning as a multifaceted series of socioeconomic and sociopolitical actions for

self-determination, the Chicana/o Movement took place primarily in the American

Southwest—the borderlands. The Movement spanned the mid-twentieth century and

evolved to accommodate its growing militant youth, focusing on a wide array of

objectives and employing tactics ranging from non-violence, like the United Farm

Workers in California, to armed struggle, like La Alianza Federal de Mercedes in New

Mexico. By the 1960s, earlier incarnations of activism during the “Mexican American

generation,”—like the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the

American G.I. Forum—were seen as assimilationist by contrast and often perpetuated

internalized racism.3 Later groups like the Mexican American Political Association

(MAPA) served as a bridge between this ideological and generational gap. Despite their

various goals and strategies, they all had a common purpose: to redress the injustices

endured by the Mexican American people for more than a century.

What marked el Movimiento of the 1960s and 1970s as different from the

activism of previous decades was the significant shift in self-identity among Mexican

American youth. Inspired by such works as Anna Nieto-Gómez’s Somos Las Chicanas de

Aztlán, Corky Gonzáles’ I am Joaquín, and Luis Valdez’s “The Tale of La Raza,”

Mexican Americans who were once tapada/o seized a political identity and began to

embrace an indigenous past and homeland.4 Unlike the generation that preceded them,

Chicanas/os rejected what they saw as assimilationist ideology and the Eurocentric, racist

“fantasy heritage” that refuted indigenous ancestry and demanded white status through a

3 F. Arturo Rosales, Chicano!: The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, 95-

98; Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, 4th ed. (New York: Longman, 2000), 194-

195.

4 Tapada or tapado is Spanish for “covered,” but more accurately means “ignorant” or

“oblivious” in this context.

4 4

supposed Iberian lineage.5 By the late 1960s, accommodationist organizations like

LULAC and the G.I. Forum no longer appealed to Chicana/o youth.6 In a 1970 interview

with Newsweek, Hector P. García, founder of the American G.I. Forum, embodied

Chicanas/os’ growing aversion when he declared, “I resent the term ‘brown power.’ That

sounds as if we were a different race. We’re not. We’re white. We should be

Americans.”7 But Chicana/o students understood that no amount of assimilation or gente

de razón-esque thinking would ever make them fully “American” in the eyes of Anglo

society, and, instead, turned to national figures like Dolores Huerta, César Chávez, Reies

López Tijerina, and Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles.8

Taking cues from these various Chicana/o struggles and forming on the heels of

the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, the Chicana/o Student Movement began taking

shape in the mid-1960s on high school, college, and university campuses throughout the

Southwest. By 1968, with the help of the Educational Opportunities Program (EOP),

Chicanas/os saw their numbers significantly increase at institutions of higher education.

Between 1968 and 1971, some California colleges saw Chicana/o enrollment grow more

than 3,000 percent.9 This increase of Chicana/o presence on college campuses, coupled

with the national attention of the 1968 East L.A. walkouts, elevated Chicana/o demands

for educational reform and positioned Chicana/o students to organize effectively. By the

5 Carey McWilliams, North from Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking People of the United States,

(New York: Praeger, 1990) 43-48.

6 Acuña, Occupied America, 4th ed, 350, 360.

7 Hector P. Garcia, quoted in “Tio Taco Is Dead,” Newsweek, 29 June 1970.

8 Gente de razón is Spanish for “people of reason.” It was a white supremist term asserting

European ancestry that distinguished light-skinned elites from the gente sin razón, “people without reason;”

the darker-skinned “savage” or “uncivilized” population; Rafael Pérez-Torres, “Refiguring Aztlán,” Aztlán:

A Journal of Chicano Studies 22, no. 2 (1997): 22-23.

9 Personnel Management Association of Aztlán. “Mexican American [Chicano] Handbook of

Affirmative Action Programs for Employers and Employees and a Directory of Governmental-Industrial-

Educational-Community Agencies and Representatives,” Institute of Education Sciences, July 1973, 117-

130. Accessed November 5, 2019. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED082866.pdf.

5 5

time of the Denver Youth Conference in March 1969, and the Santa Barbara Conference

a month later, Chicanas/os at several college campuses had already begun drafting

proposals to implement Chicano Studies programs by the fall of that year. Each of the

aforementioned movements shared a common objective: the pursuit of equitable

educational opportunity. However, this pursuit was under constant assault, and nearly met

its demise at Fresno State College in 1970 when the La Raza Studies program fell victim

to arguably the most extreme and racist administrative retaliatory action that any such

program faced.

At no other time did the concerns of college students command the country’s

attention more than in the Spring of 1970 when President Richard Nixon authorized an

operation that would mobilize US armed forces to Cambodia, invading the country

through its shared border with South Vietnam. This announcement led to an eruption of

anti-war protests all over the United States and, in particular, on college campuses which

were already sites of strong opposition to the war in Indochina. On May 4, National

Guardsmen opened fire on unarmed student protesters at Kent State University in Ohio,

wounding nine and killing four. This tragedy sent shockwaves throughout the country,

marking the first time the United States government gunned down students on a college

campus. Eleven days after the Kent State shooting, news came from Jackson, Mississippi

that another fatal shooting on a college campus had occurred. Two Black students were

killed, and twelve others wounded, when police opened fire into a large crowd on the

historically Black campus of Jackson State in the early morning of May 15. Police

alleged that they saw sniper fire from an upper floor of the girl’s dormitory, but no

evidence was ever found to support their claim.10 According to the Federal Bureau of

10 U.S. President's Commission on Campus Unrest, The Report of the President’s Commission on

Campus Unrest: Including Special Reports: The Killings at Jackson State, the Kent State Tragedy, [Reprint

ed.], (New York: Arno Press, 1970), 432.

6 6

Investigation, “more than 400 bullets and shotgun pellets” had been fired by police into

and towards the girl’s dormitory where the students had gathered.11 Once the shooting

ceased, officers immediately picked up and disposed of all their empty shell casings from

the scene.12 These two incidents of violence were emblematic of the dire conditions

developing on college campuses across the nation, including at Fresno State.

At the end of the 1970 Spring semester—in the wake of the Kent State and

Jackson State shootings, and after just one year of its existence—Fresno State’s

administration terminated its entire Raza Studies faculty. The administration initially

claimed that the faculty was “not rehired” because they were unqualified, but later

admitted that it was to wrest control of the program away from the Chicana/o

community.13 That fall, the administration failed to uphold their publicly stated

commitment to hire a new faculty and, instead, cancelled the entire program. The events

that led to the creation and systematic destruction of La Raza Studies, plus Fresno State’s

position in the agribusiness-driven Central Valley, made it stand out from other

Chicana/o Studies programs. But accounts of Fresno State’s La Raza Studies collectively

takes up less than two pages in the existing historiography on the Chicana/o Student

Movement. One of the key objectives of this thesis is to address this gap in the historical

record.

The Historiography: Rural Students in the Periphery

The voluminous scholarship on the Chicana/o Student Movement aggressively

positions urban Southern California as the focal point, relegating the Central Valley—if

11Stephan Lesher, “Jackson State a Year After,” The New York Times, 21 March 1971.

12 U.S. President's Commission on Campus Unrest, The Report of the President’s Commission on

Campus Unrest: Including Special Reports: The Killings at Jackson State, the Kent State Tragedy, [Reprint

ed.], (New York: Arno Press, 1970), 435.

13 Gerald P. Merrell, “Baxter: Differences on Function Cancel FSC La Raza Studies,” The Fresno

Bee, 10 September 1970.

7 7

not omitted completely—to the distant periphery of the narrative. References to Fresno

State’s La Raza Studies program—one of the first in the nation—are difficult to come by.

On the rare occasion that one is found, it is fleeting, leaving the reader with more

questions than answers and more confusion than clarity. In Rethinking the Chicano

Movement, Marc Simon Rodríguez paints a dichotomous picture of California’s

Chicana/o Student Movement that he splits between the “Bay Area” and “Southern

California.”14 Confusingly, he inserts two sentences on Fresno State’s Raza Studies

program within a section titled “Southern California Activism” where the reader is

inaccurately lead to believe that the program’s existence was the result of El Plan de

Santa Barbara.15 Likewise, Michael Soldatenko, in Chicano Studies: The Genesis of a

Discipline, includes a few brief sentences from the written reflection of Eliezer Risco-

Lozada’s experience as Fresno State’s first chairman of La Raza Studies.16 Perhaps

because Risco-Lozada did not fit into Soldatenko’s dichotomous empirical vs.

perspectivist analysis of Chicano Studies, Soldatenko misses an opportunity to

substantively explore the program’s demise with the aid of a crucial firsthand account.

In a marginally better effort, Carlos Muñoz Jr, in Youth, Identity, Power: The

Chicano Movement, allocates one short paragraph to Fresno State’s Raza Studies

program.17 However brief, Muñoz does accurately summarize the destruction of the

program, but does not provide a follow-up analysis of the destruction or attempt to

examine the implications it had on Fresno’s Chicana/o community. Until now, the most

14 Marc Simon Rodriguez, Rethinking the Chicano Movement, (New York, NY: Routledge, 2015)

103.

15 Rodriguez, Rethinking the Chicano Movement, 103.

16 Michael Soldatenko, Chicano Studies: The Genesis of a Discipline, (Tuscan: The University of

Arizona Press, 2009), 84.

17 Carlos Muñoz Jr., Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement, (New York: Verso, 1989),

159.

8 8

extensive Chicana/o scholarship on Fresno State’s La Raza Studies program was found in

Roldofo F. Acuña’s The Making of Chicana/o Studies: In the Trenches of Academe. In

the one and a half pages on Fresno State College, Acuña provides a contextual

understanding, albeit incomplete, of the campus’s political climate leading to the

administration’s war against its Ethnic Studies Department.18 Though Acuña’s effort is

more comprehensive than the others, he too passed on the opportunity to explore the

dynamics of the rural Central Valley which facilitated such extreme and hostile

administrative actions. Further, contributing to the urban-centric narrative, Richard

Griswold del Castillo, in Aztlán Reocupada: A Political and Cultural History Since 1945,

effectively characterizes the Chicana/o movement for education reform as an exclusive

concern of urban Chicanas/os.19 Del Castillo even refers to the Chicana/o Student

Movement as the “Chicano urban movement” without distinction, in effect erasing rural

Chicana/o students from the historical narrative.20

The story of Fresno State’s La Raza Studies—“the first in the state to declare

itself a department in the 1960s”—falls well within the scope of each author’s work, and

its destruction, as Acuña asserts, “sent ripples throughout the state.”21 Yet no historian

has attempted to examine how the dynamics of this rural region affected the development

of the Valley’s Chicana/o Student Movement. When Central Valley Chicanas/os are

included in the historical narrative, it almost exclusively comes by way of the United

Farm Workers (UFW). Even much of the historical coverage on the UFW, within the

18 Rodolfo F. Acuña, The Making of Chicana/o Studies: In the Trenches of Academe, (New

Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2011), 87-88.

19 Richard Griswold del Castillo, Aztlan Reocupada: A Political and Cultural History Since 1945:

The Influence of Mexico on Mexican American Society in Post War America, (México: Universidad

Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte, 1996) 49-50.

20 Del Castillo, Aztlán Reopupada, 51.

21 Acuña, The Making of Chicana/o Studies, 87-88.

9 9

context of the Chicana/o Student Movement, continues to be positioned in urban

Southern California.22 However, some Chicano historians have disagreed on the

significance of the rural labor movement in the Central Valley; a few even trivializing its

impact on the greater Movimiento. Muñoz goes so far as to assert that the farm workers’

struggle “was never an integral part of the Chicana/o movement.”23 Even though Acuña

takes the opposite stance, arguing that the contributions by Chávez and the UFW towards

the creation of the Chicana/o Movement “cannot be overestimated,” he too presents an

urban-centered perspective as general fact by suggesting that “few [Chicana/o youth]

worked in the fields.”24 Perhaps this was true for the urban Chicana/o reality, but this

misrepresents the reality of California’s rural Chicana/o population. Unfortunately, these

sentiments are partly responsible for the perpetual suppression and trivialization of

Central Valley Chicana/o student contributions to the Movement. It becomes clear, then,

that this perpetual neglect has created a glaring gap in the historical record. The fact that

the overwhelming majority of Chicana/o Student Movement history has been written by

Chicanas/os from urban backgrounds may help explain why the rural student experience

has been kept in the periphery. Simply put, these authors have centered their own

experiences to the extent that they dominate and suffocate the narrative of rural student

perspectives.

Chicana/o Education and the Grower-Campesino Dynamic

Cut off from the already limited resources available to Chicanas/os in the Bay

Area and Southern California, rural Chicanas/os in the Central Valley navigated

22 This, to an extent, is justified, as the fiscal impact of the boycott was executed with maximum

effectiveness at the major points of consumption, i.e. metropolitan areas. This is often done, however, at the

expense of suppressing the voices of farm workers/students who were at the epicenter of this struggle.

23 Muñoz Jr., Youth, Identity, Power, 7.

24 Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, 5th ed. (New York:

Pearson/Longman, 2004), 312; Acuña, The Making of Chicana/o Studies, 43.

10 10

education systems that were heavily influenced and, at times, directly governed by the

Valley’s powerful grower class.25 Understanding the grower-campesino dynamic

provides proper context to the development of Valley Chicana/o politization,

radicalization, and subsequent activism. The grower class—being part of California’s

largest industry—used its influence and political power to manipulate and exploit the

institutional structure of Valley schools for their financial benefit. The demand for readily

available cheap labor in the Central Valley was a key motivator in this process, and in the

post-World War II era it mainly came in the form of braceros, undocumented Mexicans,

and migrant Mexican Americans. These three co-ethnic communities were often pitted

against one another as Mexican Americans were conditioned by government officials and

the Mexican American intelligentsia to view the others through a nativist lens.26

After peaking in 1956, grower’s waning dependence on the Bracero Program, as

Acuña asserts, was due in part to “resentment of the Mexican Government, grievances of

the braceros, increased opposition by domestic labor, and, probably most important,

changes in agricultural labor-saving techniques and in the U.S. economy.”27 According

to researchers at Fresno State College in 1959, growers in Fresno County rarely made use

of the Bracero Program.28 Historian Matt García asserts that “Instead, growers became

25 The term “grower” is used to refer to farm owners, not the laborers who worked the fields. Its

use here is interchangeable with “farmer,” and unless stated otherwise, refers to the large-scale agribusiness

that dominated the Central Valley. The 1959 U.S. Census of Agriculture revealed that in California 6

percent of growers owned 75 percent of the farmland, and 7 percent of growers employed 75 percent of the

farm labor. These individuals wielded great political power and often sat on Valley school boards, having

direct control over the fate of Chicana/o students.

26 Lori A. Flores, Grounds for Dreaming: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the

California Farmworker Movement, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 4-6, 75-79; Acuña,

Occupied America, 4th ed, 304-306.

27 Aside from the growing shift towards machine harvesting for certain crops, the allure of

cheaper, more exploitable undocumented labor was yet another motivation for growers to move away from

braceros; Acuña, Occupied America, 4th ed, 289.

28 Matt García, From the Jaws of Victory, The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chávez and the

Farm Worker Movement, (University of California Press, 2012) 16.

11 11

dependent on what researchers referred to as ‘day-haul’ laborers: settled workers who

brought in local harvests and returned to their homes each day.”29 Chicana/o school

failure, then, became a reliable method to preserve a steady supply of labor for the

Valley’s labor-intensive crops. In 1971, a report from the United States Commission on

Civil Rights revealed that 9 percent of Chicana/o students in the Southwest had already

dropped out of school before the eighth grade, and, “[a]t the time of high school

graduation, only 60 percent of Chicanos [were] still in school.”30 Rural schools in the

Central Valley likely mirrored these averages, if not exceeded them.

Without equitable access to educational opportunities and resources, Chicanas/os

often faced the bleak reality of being relegated to cheap and exploitable labor.31 This

process is rooted in the broken promises of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.32 At

the conclusion of the Mexican American War, the United States disregarded its

obligation to enforce and protect the rights granted to Mexicans—in the newly seized

territories—under the treaty. These rights included United States citizenship, protections

for property, religion, and education. But Anglos, now on lands they believed were their

divine inheritance, had no intentions of honoring those rights, and, instead, often engaged

in mob violence and terrorism towards Mexicans.33 Even the gente de razón elites did

29 García, From the Jaws of Victory, 16.

30 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Mexican American Education Study, Report 2: The

Unfinished Education, Outcomes for Minorities in the Five Southwestern States, 1971, 10.

31 Richard R. Valencia, “The Plight of Chicano Students: An Overview of Schooling Conditions

and Outcomes,” in Chicano School Failure and Success: Past, Present, and Future, ed. Richard R.

Valencia (New York, NY: Routledge, 2011), 20.

32 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican American War on February 2,

1848. The treaty confirmed U.S. title to Texas and ceded the California and New Mexico territories, cutting

Mexico’s total size in half. It also, under Article IX, guaranteed Mexicans of the ceded territories rights of

citizens of the United States.

33 William D. Carrigan and Clive Webb, Forgotten Dead: Mob Violence against Mexicans in the

United States, 1848-1928, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 17-63.

12 12

not escape the implications of manifest destiny unscathed.34 Well past 1848, despite

Mexico officially abolishing slavery in 1829, farms and ranches in California continued

to be worked by what amounted to indigenous slave labor.35 Through the use of

vagrancy laws, Anglos and Mexican rancheros in California maintained indigenous

slavery for decades after the treaty.36 In the wake of the transcontinental railroad’s

completion in 1869, and from the decline of the mining industry, agribusiness demands

for exploitable labor began shifting towards Chinese immigrants.37 But much to the

economic dismay of California’s growers, the racist and xenophobic attitudes of white

Americans towards Chinese immigrants prompted the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

which forced growers to find new sources of cheap labor. Growers then shifted primarily

to Japanese labor until additional emigration from Japan was cut off by the Gentlemen’s

Agreement in 1907 and further restricted by the Immigration Act of 1924. This marked

the beginning of agribusiness’ reliance on Mexican-origin labor that would go on to

dominate California’s agricultural labor landscape of the twentieth century.38 Growers’

manipulation of Chicana/o education became key in this process.39 Richard R. Valencia

asserts that:

34 Alex M. Saragoza, “Recent Chicano Historiography,” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 19,

no. 1 (1988-89): 16-17.

35 María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, Indian Given: Racial Geographies across Mexico and the

United States, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), 122; Tomás Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines: The

Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 48,

141; Acuña, Occupied America, 4th ed, 153.

36 In the span of fifteen years, 1852 to 1867, nearly 4,000 indigenous Americans were bought and

sold by both Anglos and Mexican rancheros; Acuña, Occupied America, 4th ed, 153; Almaguer, Racial

Fault Lines, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 131, 133-140.

37 Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines, 168.

38 Flores, Grounds for Dreaming, 18; Acuña, Occupied America, 4th ed, 206.

39 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Migrant and Seasonal

Farmworker Powerlessness: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, 91st Cong., 1st and 2nd

sess., 1969, 1538.

13 13

During the post-1848 period, there were few school facilities for Chicano children.

Local and state political leaders’ lack of commitment to public schooling, racial

prejudice, and political differences among Whites and Chicanos accounted for this

practice… The establishment of segregated, inferior schools for Mexican-origin

children reflected this socially racialized arrangement of White dominance over

Chicanos… The increase in the Mexican-origin population and escalating

barrioization of Chicano communities led to the entrenchment of Chicano school

segregation throughout the Southwest from the 1930s to 1970s.40

In the same vein as Capt. Richard Pratt’s injunction to “kill the Indian, save the man,”

predominantly Mexican American schools projected racist stereotypes onto their

students, attempting to indoctrinate them with capitalistic values of the “American Way

of Life.”41 Deficit thinking, and white supremist paternalism, facilitated Central Valley

schools’ use of tactics such as segregation, tracking, and language suppression that

socioeconomically handicapped the Chicana/o community.

In the Southwest, school segregation cemented itself in the laws and school

policies early in the twentieth century.42 The “forced, and illegal, school segregation of

Chicano students throughout the five Southwestern states,” asserts Valencia, “…

constituted the setting in which school failure of Chicano students originated and

worsened.”43 The practice of tracking, which was purportedly based on the principle of

placing students on specific “tracks” according to their intellectual capabilities, was little

more than a pretense to further racially segregate students based on the racist assumptions

that certain students were inherently handicapped intellectually. Additionally, in an

attempt to “Americanize” Chicana/o students, schools implemented “no Spanish” rules

40 Richard R. Valencia, “Segregation, Desegregation, and Integration of Chicano Students,” in

Chicano School Failure and Success: Past, Present, and Future, ed. Richard R. Valencia (New York, NY:

Routledge, 2011), 42.

41 Valencia, The Plight of Chicano Students, 21; Alfredo Mirandé, The Chicano Experience: An

Alternative Perspective, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985) 97-100.

42 Valencia, The Plight of Chicano Students, 9.

43 Valencia, The Plight of Chicano Students, 9.

14 14

which were enforced through various forms of cruel punishment.44 Consequences for

speaking Spanish ranged from being charged money, isolation in locked rooms or closets,

and corporal punishment.45 These tactics did not disproportionately affect students of

color by accident. They were strategic and systematic tools used to exert white

dominance over communities of color, and in California’s Central Valley this meant

ensuring a steady supply of cheap labor for white-owned industry.46

Given the extensive scholarship on both the Farm Labor Movement and

Chicana/o Student Movement, why has such little attention been given to the relationship

between the two? Why has the existing literature on the Chicana/o Student Movement

underestimated the contributions of campesinos and their children in the Central Valley?

While the farmworker’s struggle and the Chicana/o student struggle are often seen as two

distinct social movements, I argue that the Chicana/o Student Movement—as it

developed in the Central Valley—was born out of the struggle in the fields and

characterized by how the grower class actively worked to sabotage Chicana/o education.

This marks the point of departure in which this thesis will fill part of this historical gap.

The Valley’s Chicana/o Student Movement was informed by the greater personal

experiences of racism and oppression endured by Chicanas/os at the hands of the grower

class. This experience followed students into the classroom and onto the Fresno State

College campus, where they were met by the same contempt and hostility that deemed

them unworthy of a life beyond the fields. The racist harassment and termination of the

entire Raza Studies faculty in 1970—by acting president Karl L. Falk—is a prime

example of how this dynamic permeated Fresno’s white community while guiding the

44 Zacarías R. González II, interview by author, 20 July 2019; Valencia, The Plight of Chicano

Students, 9.

45 Zacarías R. González II, interview by author, 20 July 2019; Valencia, The Plight of Chicano

Students, 9.

46 Muñoz Jr., Youth, Identity, Power, 21.

15 15

administrative hand of Fresno State College. For Chicana/o youth in California’s Central

Valley, the Farm Labor Movement and the Chicana/o Student Movement were not

mutually exclusive.

Organization

Chapter 1 will use oral histories and written administrative accounts to examine

the Chicana/o student experience in the rural and agribusiness context of California’s

Central Valley. Chicana/o education—school policies, practices, and quality—in the

Central Valley was fashioned to serve the economic interests of the grower. In the

incessant pursuit of cheap labor, growers—who often sat on Valley school boards—used

their influence and political power to handicap the education of the Valley’s Mexican-

origin population. Though not always blatantly presented as grower-initiated,

reprehensible school practices were condoned and normalized by deficit thinking,

revealing entrenched racism emanating from the grower-campesino dynamic. The oral

histories provide insight to how Valley Chicanas/os entered college after having

navigated migration, farm labor, and hostile school systems in their youth.

Chapter 2 will examine the Chicana/o Student Movement at Fresno State College

leading to the creation of its La Raza Studies program. Chicanas/os organized themselves

around campus and community issues that were deeply personal, namely la causa, and

were not simply championing the UFW cause, but that of their community.47 Often

provoked by students from the Agriculture department, Chicanas/os faced the same racist

attitudes from those who wished to reassert white dominance on campus. They organized

with Black students to demand a more inclusive and representative education that

included programs for culturally relevant curriculum.

47 La causa refers to the Farm Labor Movement—or Farmworkers’ Movement—and translates to

“the cause.”

16 16

Chapter 3 will examine the first year of Ethnic Studies at Fresno State College.

The Ethnic Studies Department spent the Fall of 1969 fending off attacks on their pursuit

of self-determination, and spent the Spring of 1970 fighting for their academic survival as

the administration of acting President Karl Falk led a campaign to purge the campus of

“radicals.” Black and Chicana/o students and faculty allied closely with each other as

they were attacked on multiple fronts by conservative factions within the college and

Fresno’s white community. A series of administrative transitions resulted in the

appointment of two strong-arm Presidents, giving way to the polarizing purges of

“radical” faculty and instigating campus unrest. The “law and order” administration of

acting President Karl L. Falk exacerbated campus turmoil when it terminated the Ethnic

Studies faculty shortly after the Kent State and Jackson State shootings. Finally, Dr.

Norman Baxter, selected to succeed Falk in the summer of 1970, cancelled the entire

Raza Studies program in the Fall of 1970.

Following the conclusion is a brief “Epilogue” that presents my personal

assessment of the current relationship between Fresno State’s Chicana/o and Latin

American Studies department (CLAS) and the local Chicana/o community. This

assessment is informed by my experience as an undergraduate in CLAS, and by my

experience as a youth and community organizer in the Chicana/o community.

CHAPTER 1: ASPIRING BEYOND THE FIELDS: INTENTIONAL SCHOOL FAILURE AND CHICANA/O STUDENT RESISTANCE

We are conscious of the historical significance of our Pilgrimage. It is clearly evident that

our path travels through a valley well known to all Mexican farm workers. We know all

these towns of Delano, Madera, Fresno, Modesto, Stockton and Sacramento because

along this very same road, in this very same valley, the Mexican race has sacrificed itself

for the last hundred years. Our sweat and our blood have fallen on this land to make other

men rich. This pilgrimage is a witness to the suffering we have seen for generations.

-Luis Valdez, El Plan de Delano

My high school diploma was a farce. When my friends and I graduated, we were ill-

equipped to function in society, except at the bottom, even though the system said we

were educated. Maybe they knew what they were doing, preparing us for the trash heap

of society, where we would have to work long hours for low wages. They never realized

how much they had actually educated me by teaching the necessity of resistance and the

dignity of defiance. I was on my way to becoming a revolutionary.

-Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide

Agribusiness dominated the agricultural landscape of California’s Central Valley.

By the turn of the twentieth century, this growing consolidation of small family

operations “created an endless need for farm labor.”48 To help satisfy their demands, and

safeguard a source of future labor, Valley growers had an undeniable vested interest in

Chicana/o school failure. On top of widespread deplorable school practices occurring

throughout the Southwest, the grower-campesino dynamic in rural farming communities

was particularly notorious for determining Chicana/o school outcomes. Speaking in front

of the United States Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor in 1969, Hector P. García

explained how growers controlled the school boards in rural Texas and had intentionally

48 U.S. President, Economic Report of the President. Transmitted to the Congress January 1966

Together with the Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., 1966, H. Doc.

348, serial 12742, 133; Washington, DC.; Joshua Paddison, “1866-1920: Rapid Population Growth, Large-

Scale Agriculture, and Integration into the United States,” Calisphere: University of California, 2011,

https://calisphere.org/exhibitions/essay/5/population-growth/; Vicki L. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery

Lives: Mexican women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950.

(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987) 48; Acuña, Occupied America, 4th ed, 313.

18 18

set up schools to, “keep… Mexicans as agricultural workers.”49 While Chicanas/os

throughout the Southwest—in both rural and urban settings—navigated hostile school

environments designed for their failure, this strategy had a very specific objective in the

Central Valley; namely, to funnel Chicanas/os into the fields as quickly as possible.

Failure by Design

Dennis H. Mangers’ 1970 account of his administrative experience as principal of

Earlimart Elementary serves as an invaluable case study of the multifaceted racism that

undermined Chicana/o education in the Central Valley. His experience in the small rural

town of Earlimart, California highlights how the power dynamics between grower and

campesino—coupled with existing pernicious school practices—manifested in Valley

schools. When Mangers arrived in Earlimart in 1968 he was “stunned” by the stark

socioeconomic disparity.50 He quickly understood how and why this disparity was not

only tolerated, but actively maintained. After only a few days, it “became clear that the

power rested firmly in the hands of the grower class, power that [he] was to see abused in

endless ways.”51 Mangers quickly began presenting changes to the school board that

would improve conditions for the school of around 1,000 students—85 percent of which

were non-white—but he was routinely met with hostile and racist-fueled resistance.52

Attempting to provide free school lunches, Mangers presented the school board

with suggestions from a state consultant, utilizing low-cost “surplus commodities” like

49 U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Migrant and Seasonal

Farmworker Powerlessness: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, 91st Cong., 1st and 2nd

sess., 1969, 1538.

50 Dennis H. Mangers, “Education in the Grapes of Wrath: A Narrative with an Unhappy

Ending,” The Education Digest 36, no. 6 (February 1971): 16, condensed from “The National Elementary

Principal,” (November 1970): 34-40.

51 Mangers, “Education in the Grapes of Wrath,” 16.

52 Mangers, “Education in the Grapes of Wrath,” 16.

19 19

rice and beans to prepare more familiar “Mexican-style” meals.53 However, in response

to this proposal, a school board member had a different suggestion: “If these damn

Mexican kids are too good for American food, then ship the little bastards back to

Tiajuana [sic].”54 Seeing the students as mere pests that needed removal, the board

member’s dehumanizing and racist remark reflected the attitudes of other Valley

officials. In a perverse response to Mangers’ request for preschool and “English as a

second language” clinics, the chairman of the Earlimart school board—and local

grower—Wayne O. Turnipseed, warned Mangers that his meddling disrupted the

established order:

Look, you've got to understand that we've built this Valley to what it is and we've

gotten to where we are because there's always been cheap labor around. When you

come in talking about raising the educational vista of the Mexican American and

helping him to aspire beyond the fields, and curing the dropout problem, you're

talking about jeopardizing our economic survival. What do you expect that we'll

just lie down and let you reformers come in here and wreck everything for us?55

Valley growers, and other beneficiaries of this oppressive power structure, made no

attempts to hide their intentions or corrupt nature of their governance. The chairman’s

arrogance to willingly admit that he was opposed to Chicana/o students aspiring “beyond

the fields,” opposed to “curing the dropout problem,” and was not going to allow people

like Mangers to “wreck everything,” exemplifies the extent of institutionalized racism in

Valley schools. The grower class had become so accustomed to exerting their will over

the Valley’s most vulnerable that the chairman was comfortable enough to casually

acknowledge that he governed according to the interests of Valley agribusiness. The

message was clear, the grape-pickers ought to know their place and the grower class

intended to keep them there.

53 Mangers, “Education in the Grapes of Wrath,” 18.

54 Mangers, “Education in the Grapes of Wrath,” 18.

55 Mangers, “Education in the Grapes of Wrath,” 16-17.

20 20

Chicana/o Student Experiences in the Central Valley

To further explain the nature of Chicana/o education in the Central Valley, it is

necessary to examine the personal experiences of Valley Chicana/o students. The oral

histories of Zacarías R. González II, Lea Ybarra, and Alex Saragoza provide Chicana/o

student perspectives representing the rural experience. Having navigated migration, child

labor, and racist Valley schools, their stories allow us to understand the fine line between

Chicana/o school failure and success. Though they each excelled academically, and

completed college after high school, their successes were never guaranteed as new

barriers were continuously placed before them and their peers.

Zacarías R. González II was born in 1951 in McAllen, Texas where he and his

parents lived in an Airstream trailer. He was the youngest of four living children, his

younger twin brothers having both died shortly after birth. His father, Zacarías González

Sr., oversaw braceros for the area’s largest citrus grower. His mother, Amalia Ruiz

González, worked in canneries and packing houses, frequently traveling with groups of

women to other states for work. He came to California in 1962 on a Trailways bus to live

with his mother and brother who arrived a year earlier. Once off the bus, he took a taxi

from Fresno to Parlier where he got his first up-close look at the Central Valley’s largest

industry. Curious as to what he was seeing along the road, he asked the driver what kind

of trees they were passing, to which the driver responded, “those aren’t trees, they’re

vines. Get used to them because you’re going to be working out there.”56 Not sure of

what the driver meant, he pushed the words to the back of his mind.

His new home was a small trailer with no running water or electricity in La

Colonia, a Chicana/o labor camp just west of the incorporated Parlier.57 He felt more at

56 Zacarías R. González II, interview by author, 20 July 2019.

57 Larry Trujillo, "Race, Class, Labor, and Community: A Local History of Capitalist

Development." Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 4, no. 3 (1981): 571-96. Accessed 6 December 2019.

www.jstor.org/stable/40240877.

21 21

home once he found out the other Chicano kids—who at first wanted to beat him up for

being dressed like a vaquero when he arrived—all had Texas roots. Their parents were

Tejanos who arrived in California during the 1940s and 1950s in search of work, making

Parlier a Texas enclave.58 It was a period of substantial Mexican American migration

from Texas to California, in large part due to the mechanization of cotton harvesting that

forced families to find work elsewhere.59 After about four months in Parlier, González

moved to Sanger, California—another Texas enclave—where his mother had found a

new job in the Bayly Jean Factory. For the González family, conditions were slightly

better in Sanger. They lived in a small house in la chancla—a poor Chicano barrio—

where González and his siblings worked the fields each summer and gave their earnings

to their mother.

Shortly after enrolling in Sanger’s Lincoln Elementary, González learned the

consequences of cultural expression. He was called into the office and abruptly spanked

by the principal for speaking Spanish. Initially, he could not understand why he was

being punished for simply speaking. “I saw that a lot of the kids weren’t speaking

Spanish,” recalled González, “only the ones that just migrated from Texas were speaking

Spanish. Then I understood why.”60 It was a sharp departure from his experience in

Texas where all his teachers were Mexicanas and he spoke Spanish without consequence.

Besides the use of corporal punishment, he recalled that the school also locked students

in closets to enforce their “no-Spanish rule.” This racist policy was used throughout the

Southwest to force assimilation on Chicana/o students.61 González was cautious to not

58 Trujillo, "Race, Class, Labor, and Community,” 584-85.

59 Acuña, Occupied America, 4th ed, 225-226, 339; Bill Ganzel, “Cotton Harvesting,” Living

History Farm, 2007. https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/machines_15.html; Zacarías R.

González II, interview by author, 20 July 2019; Lea Ybarra, interview by author, 15 June 2019.

60 Zacarías R. González II, interview by author, 20 July 2019.

61 Valencia, The Plight of Chicano Students, 9; Acuña, Occupied America, 4th ed, 412.

22 22

be caught speaking Spanish in ear-shot of school faculty and staff after that initial

incident, but continued speaking it on the playground with his peers, demonstrating

everyday forms of Chicana/o student resistance.

Lea Ybarra also experienced racism within the Sanger school system. Born in

1947 in Donna, Texas, Ybarra’s family migrated to the Central Valley shortly after her

birth. Her family traveled through the Valley as migrant workers, living in farm labor

camps until they settled in Sanger when the children reached school age.62 Upon

enrolling in Sanger’s Wilson Elementary, the school’s principal threw Ybarra’s previous

report card back at her mother when he refused to believe that a Mexican child had

achieved high academic marks.63 As she advanced through middle school and high

school, Ybarra continued to encounter educators with indifferent or hostile attitudes

towards Chicanas/os. Ybarra recalled her civics teacher at Sanger High who seated

students by grades—A’s in front and F’s in the back:

Well I always got the highest grade in the class, so I was always in the front. The

poor Chicano kids, the guys… were always in the back. And they would even joke

about it, they’d say ‘oh, well I guess I know where I’m going to sit,’ and they’d

laugh and we’d all laugh… Talk about the self-concept and the self-esteem, none of

them went on to college… because that was not what they had been programmed to

do by this teacher doing those kinds of things.64

These hostile classroom environments created high levels of stress and feelings of

inferiority among students, severely lowering Chicana/o class participation.65

When Chicanas/os exceled in the classroom, racist teachers would often degrade

them in front of their peers and use improvised punishments to reassert their self-

perceived superiority. Ybarra had a personal confrontation with the same civics teacher

62 Lea Ybarra, interview by author, 15 June 2019.

63 Lea Ybarra, interview by author, 15 June 2019.

64 Lea Ybarra, interview by author, 15 June 2019.

65 Valencia, The Plight of Chicano Students, 26.

23 23

who seated students by grade. She recalled him rolling a bookshelf to the front of class

near her desk, at which point he proceeded to knock several books to the floor before

telling her to “pick them up.”66 After repeatedly refusing to pick up the books that he

intentionally knocked over, he told her, “you know what, even the mighty fall.”67 It was

clear to Ybarra that he had no interest in her academic future, or that of her peers: “Here’s

a teacher who’s supposed to inspire you, or at least be fair, and he’s trying to demean you

in front of the class because heaven forbid you as a Mexican got better grades than the

white, or the other kids in the class.”68 The fragility of academic success for Chicanas/os

is often exemplified by these student-teacher interactions that show indifferent educators

who displayed contempt—rather than empathy— for their students.

Alex Saragoza recalled a relatively more supportive school experience, but he too

faced institutional barriers. Saragoza was born in 1947 in Madera, California to Mexican

immigrant parents, and worked the fields with his family until the age of seventeen. He

recalled having several teachers that nurtured his potential and encouraged him to go to

college. However, Saragoza was repeatedly placed into remedial courses in middle

school and high school despite his high academic marks.69 In fact, Chicanas/os in

California—regardless of their academic capabilities—were routinely placed into

vocational classes, or classes for the intellectually disabled; the latter often being

automatic placement for Spanish-speaking children.70

González’s experience at Sanger High School also reflected the consequences of

deficit thinking. Like Saragoza, he found himself placed in remedial courses his freshman

66 Lea Ybarra, interview by author, 15 June 2019.

67 Lea Ybarra, interview by author, 15 June 2019.

68 Lea Ybarra, interview by author, 15 June 2019.

69 Alex Saragoza, interview by author, 9 September 2019.

70 Flores, Grounds for Dreaming, 178; Valencia, The Plight of Chicano Students, 15.

24 24

year even though he achieved high marks and was an honor roll student throughout

middle school. Unbeknownst to González and Saragoza at the time, they were victims of

the tracking system. Fortunately, they both were able to return to regular instruction after

challenging their placements.71 Most other Chicanas/os, however, were not so lucky.

The implications of keeping a particular segment of the student population in slower

paced classes—in this case Mexican Americans—is that by the time they finished high

school, if they finished at all, they had been deprived of the necessary skills to transition

into higher education. This was compounded by the prevalent practice of school faculty

and administrators actively deterring Chicanas/os from pursuing college after high

school. While Saragoza received some encouragement to pursue higher education, that

was an uncommon experience for most Chicanas/os. González believed that the career-

counseling sessions during his senior year in 1970 likely destroyed the potential success

of many of his Chicana/o peers. During his session—despite excelling in school—

González recalled his counselor telling him, “you’re not college material, but you would

make a good mechanic.”72 Not even Chicanas/os who were placed in the so-called “A

Track” could avoid being intentionally steered towards manual labor, significantly

contributing to low Chicana/o matriculation rates into college.

The summer between his junior and senior years at Sanger High was the first time

González kept any of the money he made from working in the fields. His mother allowed

him to keep a couple of checks to purchase new clothes. This also marked the last time he

worked as a farm laborer. One day that summer—as he arrived to work—an older

campesino stopped him and told him to leave, saying “I don’t want to see you come back

71 Alex Saragoza, interview by author, 9 September 2019.; Zacarías R. González II, interview by

author, 20 July 2019.

72 Zacarías R. González II, interview by author, 20 July 2019.

25 25

here again.”73 González emotionally recalled the man telling him to stay in school and

go to college while he still had the chance, or else his fate would be the same as theirs; a

lifetime of backbreaking labor in the sun for little pay.74 This campesino showed more

compassion and concern for González’s future than any of his teachers ever had, as he

could not recall a single person at Sanger High who encouraged him to pursue a college

education.

Similarly, Ybarra’s attempt to acquire an application to Fresno State—from the

same civics teacher that attempted to publicly humiliate her—was met with, “I’m not

going to give you one because even though you get A’s in high school, you’re going to

get C’s and D’s in college.”75 These racist projections of “not being college material”

were an extension of the institutionalized racist practices that Dennis Mangers

encountered in Earlimart. As evidenced from the appalling remark made by Earlimart’s

School Board Chairman, this was consciously carried out by design to keep Mexican

Americans from aspiring beyond the fields. The system had not just written Chicanas/os

off but had cut them down at the knees, with high school counselors acting as a failsafe

by denying college applications to those that excelled in spite of the intentional barriers.

Fortunately, Ybarra still applied and was accepted to Fresno State after her Japanese

friend gave her the application she received. For González, his pathway to college came

after Chicano representatives from the Educational Opportunity Program arrived at his

school. Andrew Benitez, Vicente Guerrero, and Arcario Viveros met with González and

helped him successfully enroll at UC Santa Cruz on an EOP scholarship.

For those who made it to college, the decision to leave one’s family for

educational opportunities was always difficult, often creating deep feelings of guilt or

73 Zacarías R. González II, interview by author, 20 July 2019.

74 Zacarías R. González II, interview by author, 20 July 2019.

75 Lea Ybarra, interview by author, 15 June 2019.

26 26

conflict from a sense of familial responsibility. During his first quarter at UC Santa Cruz,

Gonzalez’s mother fell ill, so he walked away from his scholarship and returned home to

care for her. He enrolled in Fresno City College, later transferring, and graduating from

Fresno State. Alex Saragoza, when nearing graduation at Fresno State, recalled feeling a

deep sense of guilt applying and being accepted to Harvard for graduate school. He

nearly passed on the opportunity in order to stay in Madera and continue helping his

parents financially. However, emotionally Saragoza recalled that their strong

encouragement and support gave him the reassurance to know he was making the right

decision, and to which he expressed his eternal gratitude. These were common struggles

for Chicana/o students whose families relied on their financial contributions—adding to

the emotional and psychological stress involved with being a first-generation college

student.

Conclusion

As the administrative experience of Mangers demonstrates, even the reformative

efforts of compassionate educators were rendered useless by corrupt and racist

educational systems that brazenly acknowledged their adherence to an agribusiness

agenda. Growers sought out seats on Valley school boards, and, by their own admission,

orchestrated and maintained a system of Chicana/o school failure to fuel their industry.

The student experiences of González, Ybarra, and Saragoza not only illustrate

institutionalized racist school policies and practices, but also reveal how some educators

were actively complicit in the sabotage of Chicana/o education. Unfortunately, those who

were lucky enough to successfully transition from high school to college found little

relief in higher education.

CHAPTER 2: MORE THAN GRAPE-PICKERS: THE CHICANA/O STUDENT MOVEMENT AT FRESNO STATE COLLEGE

The walls of the educational system must come down. Education should not be a

privilege so the children of those who have money can study.

-Che Guevara, 1959

Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help

our children and our people rediscover their identity and thereby increase their self

respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs only to the people

who prepare for it today.

-Malcolm X, 1964

Beginning in 1911, “Fresno State Normal School” embraced an agrarian focus

and “served a middle-class clientele committed to preserving the vested interests

dominant in their community.”76 By the 1960s, Fresno State College had established

itself as one of the top agricultural schools in the country and developed an identity and

reputation reflecting the interests of local agribusiness. Thus, the sons and daughters of

Central Valley growers were naturally attracted to the college “where agriculture was

king on and off the campus.”77 However, as the children of campesinos began to

increase in number at Fresno State, so too did the conflicts on campus that reflected the

Valley’s labor struggle.

Awakening

As a freshman at Fresno State, Lea Ybarra remembered her moment of political

awakening when in 1966 the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) came through

76 William B. Secrest and Lanny Larson, California State University, Fresno: A Century of

Excellence, 1911-2011, (St. Louis: California State University, Fresno Reedy Press, 2011) 4; Kenneth A.

Seib, The Slow Death of Fresno State: A California Campus Under Reagan and Brown, (Palo Alto, CA:

Ramparts Press, 1979) 16.

77 Secrest and Larson, California State University, Fresno, 136.

28 28

Fresno during their march to Sacramento.78 César Chávez spoke at Fresno’s Azteca

Theater on March 24, with NFWA member and founder of El Teatro Campesino, Luis

Valdez, speaking at Fresno State the next day. Valdez was met by a mostly hostile crowd

as he explained the farmworker’s plight in the Central Valley. As he spoke, agriculture

students (aggies) repeatedly unplugged his microphone, yelling for him to “go back to

Mexico,” and threatening to throw him in the school’s fountain.79 But their racist

attempts to intimidate Valdez only encouraged the politization of the Chicana/o youth in

attendance.

Figure 1: National Farm Worker Association representative and founder of El Teatro

Campesino, Luis Valdez, speaks at Fresno State College during the NFWA march to

Sacramento. The Daily Collegian, 28 March 1966.

78 The National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) and the Agricultural Workers Organizing

Committee (AWOC)—a predominantly Filipino organization—merged in the late summer of 1966 to form

the United Farm Workers (UFW).

79 Gene Zimmerman, “Delano Strike Speakers Tell of March Symbolizing ‘Hardships’,” The

Daily Collegian, 28 March 1966; Dick Wiesler, “Applause, Jeers Answer Valdez,” The Daily Collegian, 28

March 1966.

29 29

Ybarra stated that she was tapada at this time and recalled a conversation with a

friend in class just before the rally: “I said, ‘you know, I don’t understand why

[farmworkers] think they can get higher wages without an education,’… and this

gabacha sitting behind me laughed, like to agree with me… and the minute she laughed I

thought, ‘okay, something is wrong with my thinking’.”80 Seeing her white peer’s

reaction, hearing the messages by NFWA speakers, and witnessing the aggie displays of

intimidation made Ybarra critically analyze and rethink her ideology. “He really focused

on the students,” recalled Ybarra of Chávez, “[he] said, ‘You have a responsibility to

make sure that you contribute to your community,’… that really started, I think, our own

political activism.”81

Jorge García agreed that most Chicanas/os at Fresno State were tapado: “we

were,” he recalled, “but what was interesting is that once you start finding each other, and

you’re talking with each other, then the perspective starts to change.”82 García was the

son of Mexican immigrant small farmers in Dinuba, California and transferred to Fresno

State in 1966. According to García, these moments of political awakening prompted

Chicanas/os to seek out one another and question the state of Chicana/o enrollment at

Fresno State College. They approached the Dean of Students, W. Donald Albright, for

assistance in acquiring the enrollment numbers. Although Albright was not prepared to

provide an exact figure, he gave them permission to look through the school’s IBM

registration cards. “There was no federal privacy act,” recalled García, “so we dug in and

we found 65 Spanish-surnames.”83 Looking for Spanish-surnames was likely a more

80 In the United States, gabacho or gabacha is a term sometimes used by Chicanas/os to refer to

white Americans; Lea Ybarra, interview by author, 21 October 2019.

81 “Chicano History Revisited Fresno County- Dr Lea Ybarra,” YouTube video, 12:09, “Chicano

History Revisited,” 20 June 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apy3bmikM6M.

82 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

83 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

30 30

accurate assessment of Chicana/o enrollment since, according to García, the fraternities—

who were predominately white—would coordinate to mark a particular box of the IBM

card’s ethnic survey, inflating that demographic’s enrollment numbers for the semester.84

García reasoned that 65 was more-or-less an accurate figure because for every non-

Chicana/o with a Spanish-surname, there was likely a Chicana/o without one. Increasing

Chicana/o enrollment, then, became a central focus in order to effectively advocate for

Chicana/o students needs. At this time, there was a program being formed in order to do

just that. Launched in the Fall of 1967, Project 17—as the program was then known—

initially enrolled seventeen Black and Chicana/o students at Fresno State College. It was

designed to increase the number of students of color and provide much needed financial

assistance. By the fall of 1968, the program added 75 more students into the college and

was officially recognized as the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP).85

Black and Brown Student Demands

Chicanas/os began organizing open forum meetings in order to address and

articulate the issues they believed required immediate attention. Among the most pressing

issues were the significant disparities in support from the Financial Aid Office, the

Associated Student Fund’s refusal to recognize or fund Chicana/o student organizations,

and the low-enrollment of Chicanas/os when compared to the Valley’s demographics.

Chicana/o students also recognized that they were not alone in their struggle because

Black students at Fresno State faced nearly identical problems in regard to the lack of

support, representation, and the issue of racial harassment on campus. They concluded

that it would be in their best interest to form a Black and Brown student coalition to issue

84 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

85 California State University, Fresno, “EOP History,” Fresno State,

http://www.fresnostate.edu/studentaffairs/eop/documents/EOP%20History.pdf

31 31

a unified list of demands. After discussing the two group’s most pressing needs, they

issued a list of demands to the administration in May of 1968. Through back-and-forth

communications with President Fredrick W. Ness, with little progress, the list was refined

to the following by September:

1. That the Educational Opportunity Program be expanded to 400 students for

the academic year 1969-70. 2. Full academic support for EOP students for all their academic life. 3. That there be a public commitment from the administration to guarantee full

financing for EOP students during their academic life. 4. That Blacks and Chicanos have complete control of one edition of the

Collegian every two weeks. 5. That guaranteed financing of the La Raza and Black Studies chairs be

provided. 6. That the director of EOP be made a member of the Council of Deans. 7. That a minority admissions officer be provided with the power of existing

admissions officer (Russel Mitchell) to judge the admissions status of

minority students. 8. That Fresno State College officially be in support of the grape boycott. 9. An immediate investigation of the Financial Aids Office be made and that the

investigation committee be partially made up of Black and Chicano students

and faculty. 10. A reaffirmation of the commitment to hire a Black security officer be made. 11. That harassment by FSC security officers of Black and Chicano students be

stopped immediately.86

President Ness’ slow response to these demands may have been partially due to the

ongoing and escalating divide among FSC faculty and administrators. At the very same

time Black and Brown students were demanding these changes, conservatives within the

college—with the aid of Republican state politicians—were applying pressure on Ness to

terminate an English professor by the name of Robert Mezey for giving a liberal opinion

on the use of marijuana.87 Perhaps due to a brief respite after refusing to retain Mezey,

86 SDS Paper I: Chicano and Black Students Demands and Rationale, 1969, box 2, Campus

Unrest – Ethnic Minorities: Chicano Students, 1969-1970 and undated, University Archives: Campus

Unrest, Special Collections Research Center, California State University, Fresno.

87 Seib, The Slow Death of Fresno State, 27-44.

32 32

the administration approved some of the student demands by December of 68’, including

the chair position for La Raza and committing to hire a Chicano administrator.88

However, Black and Chicana/o students did not see a formal response from President

Ness until April 7, 1969, nearly a full year after the demands were initially declared. In

his reply, Ness took a diplomatic approach that showed a willingness to cooperate, but it

was largely viewed as “unacceptable” by students.89 While the demands did not elicit an

immediate or satisfying administrative response, they publicly broadcasted the message

that Black and Brown students were no longer going to sit idly by.

While Black and Brown students understood the power of being united on

campus, they were met with challenges in the community. In part because of the rhetoric

of the War on Poverty—which pitted communities of color against each other, viewing

one another as competition for government funds—and anti-Blackness within the

Mexican American community, students often struggled to maintain a position of

solidarity in the face of community opposition. In response to Black and Chicana/o

student marches at Fresno State, a prominent local Mexican radio broadcaster went on the

air and proclaimed, “too bad we’re not in Mexico, because the Mexican government

knows what to do with estudiantes revoltosos.”90 Important voices within their own

community were effectively calling for the student demonstrators to be gunned down by

the government as they were on October 2, 1968 in Tlatelolco, Mexico. As unnerving as

this was, Chicana/o students had to ignore these distractions in order to keep pressure on

the administration to adhere to their demands.

88 “Senate airs 12 Chicano demands; most are OKd,” The Daily Collegian, 3 December 1968.

89 “Ness Makes Reply to Student Demands,” The Daily Collegian, 8 April 1969.

90 Estudiantes revoltosos translates to “rebellious students” in Spanish; Jorge García, interview by

author, 16 October 2019.

33 33

Figure 2: Black and Chicana/o students march through the Fresno State College library,

1968. Fresno City College student, Raúl Pickett front left, Fresno State College graduate

student, Guillermo Martínez, front right. Campus Yearbook 1969.

One issue of immediate concern was the library’s reluctance to acquire literature

for a La Raza book section. Chicanas/os first notified the librarian, Dr. Henry Madden, of

their desire in July of 1968 to which he gave an entire gamut of excuses as to why he

either could not, or had not, acquired said literature. Chicanas/os even provided Madden

with a bibliography of specific materials they wanted, making the process much easier for

him. His excuses ranged from being “impossible to differentiate books by minority

authors,” to claiming the requested books and literature had been ordered but had yet to

arrive.91 The latter may have been acceptable had it not been his excuse for months on

end. In airing the Chicanas/os’ grievance to The Daily Collegian, graduate student

Guillermo Martínez stated that in nine months’ time, and countless broken promises later,

Madden had only acquired five magazines.92

91 “Chicanos demand La Raza book section,” The Daily Collegian, 5 December 1968.

92 Guillermo Martínez, letter to the editor, The Daily Collegian, 18 March 1969.

34 34

Chicanas/os were fed up with being cooperative and seeing no results after giving

Madden more than ample opportunity to make good on his promises. It was clear to them

that Madden was in no hurry to keep his word—if he ever had any intention of doing so

at all—and was content with stalling and feigning cooperation. In order to get results,

they would need to give Madden an incentive. At first this took the form of mildly

disruptive acts such as rearranging and misplacing books all over the library.93 To

pressure Madden further, Chicanas/os routinely checked out the max number of books in

large groups and immediately returned them to increase the workload on library staff.94

Madden finally purchased the requested materials only after Chicanas/os knocked over

book shelves and told him that they would be back each week to do the same until the

materials arrived.

The Boycott

The United Farm Workers’ grape boycott was more than a rallying point for

Chicana/o students. To those in the Central Valley, la causa was intimately personal as

many Chicanas/os at Fresno State had either worked the fields themselves or came from

farmworker families. The struggle in the fields became an inseparable component to the

Chicana/o struggle on campus. On September 18, 1968 presidential candidate Richard

Nixon held a rally in Fresno where he spoke out against the table grape boycott. A large

group of Chicanas/os were present—many of them students—and booed Nixon from the

audience while shouting pro-UFW chants. Fresno’s conservative community was

apparently so outraged and threatened by these boos that on October 1 Fresno Police

Chief Henry R. Morton identified nine of the protesters as Fresno State College students,

93 Bev Kennedy, “Library action on Chicano demands to be reviewed,” The Daily Collegian, 24

March 1969.

94 Kennedy, “Library action on Chicano demands to be reviewed,” 24 March 1969.

35 35

putting them all on the police watch list.95 The corresponding police report remarked

that some of the students had “Communistic affiliations,” and were a “disrupting

influence on campus.”96 It was found that Fresno PD used confidential student

information leaked by someone within Fresno State’s administration. Responding to this

news, President Ness called the information leak “a breach of college policy,” but refused

to disclose who was involved.97 On October 4, the ad hoc committee for Student Justice

confronted Dean of Students, W. Donald Albright, with a list of grievances after it was

discovered that Kenneth Lewis, Fresno State’s Financial Aid Director, and his assistant,

Alan Cano, were the ones responsible for the leak.98 This confirmed Black and

Chicana/o student allegations—reflected in the student demands—that the role of the

Financial Aid Office was being subverted by a culture of racism emanating from the top.

Striking while the iron was hot, Lea Ybarra, President of the Mexican American

Student Association (MASA), read a statement in front of the Academic Senate

condemning the Financial Aid Office for its history of racist and retaliatory practices that

maliciously misinformed and denied Blacks and Chicanas/os fair access to financial aid

resources.99 Chicanas/os then held another open forum meeting and demanded Lewis’

immediate removal, making clear that they had no confidence the Financial Aid Office

could carry out its duties with integrity.100 Unfortunately—and to no surprise to Black

and Chicana/o students—Lewis faced no consequences as the consideration of his

95 “9 FSC Students on Police Watch List,” The Daily Collegian, 1 October 1968.

96 “FSC Aide Tells How Police Got Student Data,” The Fresno Bee, 3 October 1968.

97 “FSC Aide Tells How Police Got Student Data,” The Fresno Bee, 3 October 1968.

98 “Ad Hoc Committee to ‘Confront’ Albright,” The Daily Collegian, 3 October 1968; “FSC Aide

Tells How Police Got Student Data,” The Fresno Bee, 3 October 1968.

99 “Chicanos Demand the Firing of Lewis,” The Daily Collegian, 11 October 1968; “Minority

Group Asks FSC Official Ouster,” The Fresno Bee, 11 October 1968.

100 “Chicanos Demand the Firing of Lewis,” The Daily Collegian, 11 October 1968.

36 36

removal was shuffled away by academic bureaucracy.101 This entire incident resulted

from the conservative backlash to Chicana/o students who voiced their support for the

UFW grape boycott. This instance of arbitrary and unfounded criminalization

exemplified the broad and open hostility towards Chicana/o students at Fresno State.

As the open forums became more frequent, faculty and students from the

conservative departments of Agriculture, Business Administration, and Physical

Education, heightened efforts to disrupt Black and Chicana/o student activism. Following

the example of Kenneth Lewis, many from these departments began acting as informants

to the administration and Fresno PD, with some instigating campus violence.102 The

most visible pushback came from Fresno State’s aggies—the sons and daughters of

Valley growers—who responded to support for la causa with intense resistance.

On November 13, 1968 a senator from the school of agriculture introduced a

resolution calling for the Student Senate “to go on record in opposition to the boycott of

California’s grapes and grape products.”103 The Senate passed the resolution on a 15-11

vote, at which point MASA members shut down the meeting with an organized

demonstration in the Senate chambers. Lea Ybarra, Jorge García, Steve Santos, and

others accused the Senate of ignoring the plight of farmworkers.104 Countering the aggie

argument peddled to the Student Senate—that small farms were being hurt by the UFW

boycott—García, son of Chicano small farmers, asserted that “the small farmer was in

101 “Minority Group Asks FSC Official Ouster,” The Fresno Bee, 11 October 1968.

102 Kenneth A. Seib, The Slow Death of Fresno State: A California Campus Under Reagan and

Brown, (Palo Alto, CA: Ramparts Press, 1979) 97.

103 Phyllis Martin, “Student Senate opposes boycott; Chicanos balk,” The Daily Collegian, 14

November 1968.

104 Martin, “Student Senate opposes boycott; Chicanos balk,” 14 November 1968.

37 37

trouble long before the union. The farm worker wants coverage by the Wagner Act.”105

In a stunning display of arrogance and white privilege, ag student and son of Delano

grape growers, Steve Pavich, used his simple-minded logic to absolve growers of any

responsibility. He declared, “the strike is fictitious. It’s not our fault the farm workers are

at the bottom of the ladder. If they aren’t happy, why do they keep working?”106 Whether

by choice or extreme ignorance, Pavich seemingly lacked the capacity to comprehend

why growers—who dictated pay and working conditions—were being accused of

exploiting farmworkers.

Figure 3: Grape boycott at Fresno State College, left, students from the Department of

Agriculture (aggies) trying to give away free grapes, right. Campus Yearbook 1969.

105 The Wagner Act protected urban workers’ right to strike, protest, and unionize; Jorge García,

interview by author, 16 October 2019; Martin, “Student Senate opposes boycott; Chicanos balk,” 14

November 1968.

106 Martin, “Student Senate opposes boycott; Chicanos balk,” 14 November 1968.

38 38

The day after the Senate vote, around sixty protesters, mostly Chicana/o, marched

through campus singing and chanting “Viva la huelga,” “Don’t buy grapes,” and

“Chicano Power!”107 They were met by Dean Albright upon arriving at the library’s

entrance where he implored them not to cause any disruption inside. Refusing to be

silenced, the group pushed past him and occupied the first two floors of the library before

later regrouping in front of the Student Union. Unfortunately, the passage of the aggies’

anti-boycott resolution was not satisfying enough. After the Chicana/o rally had

disbanded, aggies brought crates of non-union grapes from viticulture to the campus

quad, attempting to distribute them for free to further antagonize Chicanas/os.108 After

having little success giving the grapes away, aggies began throwing them at passing

Chicanas/os and nearly caused a melee after MASA students dumped the pallets of

grapes to the ground.109 Bruce Bronzen, ASB President, later vetoed the anti-boycott

resolution in fear that it would continue to increase tensions on campus. While the veto

was in the Chicanas/os’ favor, it was mostly political maneuvering by Bronzen, as he

maintained that the Senate was well within its right to vote on such a resolution should it

want to. He felt that the volatility of the current campus climate made such a vote ill-

advised at that particular time.110

The grape altercation was just one of many, as incidents with aggies were

frequent, often including both verbal and non-verbal threats of physical violence. While

Black and Brown students at other campuses dealt with armed police, Black and Brown

students at Fresno State also dealt with armed white students. Incidents with rifle-

107 Dennis McCall, “Senate opens Pandora’s box,” The Daily Collegian, 15 November 1968.

108 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

109 Rudy Gallardo, Unpublished Manuscript, “The Fresno State Chicano Movement & The

Educational Opportunities Program,” 2019, 6; Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

110 McCall, “Senate opens Pandora’s box,” 15 November 1968.

39 39

carrying aggies on campus prompted Chicanas/os to pull lead pipes up from the

flowerbeds for protection.111 Fortunately, no one was badly injured from these incidents,

but Fresno State’s laissez-faire attitude did little to protect Black and Chicana/o students

against the threat of these “wannabe-cowboys.” The college effectively condoned white

terrorism when they disgracefully entertained the School of Agriculture’s excuse that

“packs of feral dogs” legitimized the need of ag students to wield firearms on campus

grounds.112 “Yeah, we [knew] who the feral dogs [were],” exclaimed García, “us!”113

The aftermath of the grape incident prompted Chicanas/os to crash a Student

Candidate Night forum and present a series of demands for better representation. With

their demands published on the front page of The Collegian, President Ness agreed to

meet with Chicana/o students and hear their grievances. Guillermo Martínez and Jorge

García were chosen to be the MASA representatives for the meeting. Several long-

awaited victories came to fruition as they were finally able to pressure Ness to act on

previous demands. Ness agreed to replace the Financial Aid Director, appoint a

Chicana/o as assistant Dean, and would make an effort to diversify the student

government. Making good on his word, Ness hired Roberto Rubalcava as administrative

assistant to Dean Albright in February of 1969.114 Rubalcava was a San Jose State

graduate who, along with fellow San Jose State grad, Luis Valdez, travelled to Cuba in

defiance of the US travel ban and attended Fidel Castro’s address on July 26, 1964 in

Santiago de Cuba.115 They both subsequently came under the scrutiny of the United

111 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

112 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

113 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

114 “Mexican-American Administrator Hired,” The Daily Collegian, 26 February 1969.

115 Luis Valdez, “Venceremos!: Mexican-American Statement on Travel to Cuba,” in Aztlán: An

Anthology of Mexican American Literature, ed. Luis Valdez and Stan Steiner (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,

Inc., 1972), 214-215.

40 40

States House Committee on Un-American Activities.116 Together, Rubalcava and

Valdez produced what Chicana/o historians have collectively acknowledged as being the

first piece of “radical” Chicana/o literature, which they wrote based on their observations

of the Cuban Revolution.117 Rubalcava’s presence on campus gave Chicanas/os a much-

needed ally in the administration.

Shortly after Rubalcava’s appointment, Chicanas/os requested the development of

a Chicana/o Political Education course that would focus on efforts to strengthen EOP. As

evidenced by the Black and Chicana/o coalition demands, the Educational Opportunity

Program was of primary concern. It was the most crucial point of entry into college for

Black and Chicana/o students, and they determined that securing its future was

paramount. Jorge García and Rudy Gallardo wrote the class description once they

convinced Rubalcava to teach the course. Offered through the Experimental College as

“Exploration and Experimentation in Minority Legislation,” they incorporated trips to the

state capital in Sacramento so students could edify themselves on government procedure

and participate in the legislative process.118

These Tuesday trips to the capital were intended for Chicanas/os to meet with

elected officials, advocate for more student group funding, and increase opportunities for

better access to institutions of higher education through the expansion of EOP. “There

was resistance on the campus,” García remembered, “faculty and administrators were

opposed to this, they said ‘because we’re going to lower the quality of students’.”119

116 U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Un-American Activities, Violations

of State Department Travel Regulations and Pro-Castro Propaganda Activities in the United States:

Hearings before the Committee on Un-American Activities, 88th Cong., 1st sess., 1965.

117 George Mariscal, Brown Eyed Children of the Sun: Lessons from the Chicano Movement,

1965-1975, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005) 109-110; Muñoz Jr., Youth, Identity,

Power, 52.

118 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

119 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

41 41

Gallardo, García, and Lea Ybarra were some of the students involved in organizing the

capital visits, taking up collections for food and gas, and finding someone with a working

car. After arriving at the capital, and being told that their legislator was in a hearing, they

nearly turned back home but were stopped by a Quaker couple who instructed them to

tell a page to inform the congressman that his constituents were there to speak to him.

This Quaker couple gave them the political mentoring needed in order to navigate the

capital and advocate for their causes.120

Rudy Gallardo became a frequent visitor to state senator George Deukmejian.121

Gallardo continuously pressed the senator to expand EOP and on multiple occasions was

thrown out of his office. He recalled Deukmejian declaring that he would not “support

funding of any type to the radical element.”122 The outlook seemed bleak as few

legislators were willing to hear them out. Even the sole Chicano assemblyman, Alex P.

García—who claimed to be “the spokesman for the millions of raza” in California—

refused to support line-item funding for EOP in fear of not getting re-elected.123

Eventually, the Ways and Means Committee heard testimony from students across the

state on the issue. Gallardo was one of the student speakers selected to make the case in

favor of the program. He doubted himself and felt that he was the least prepared for such

a task. But Gallardo found his voice at the podium and addressed the room full of

120 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

121 George Deukmejian was a Republican State Senator who later succeeded Jerry Brown as

Governor of California. He was elected Governor with the significant aid and influence from Valley

agribusiness. His administration was clearly beholden to the agriculture industry and immediately waged

anti-UFW campaigns, exemplifying the political power of the Valley’s grower class with their ability to

buy state elections at the highest level; Acuña, Occupied America, 4th ed, 438.

122 Rudy Gallardo, Unpublished Manuscript, “The Fresno State Chicano Movement & The

Educational Opportunities Program,” 2019, 8.

123 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

42 42

legislators on the vital need for equitable access to college, leading to a vote that

extended EOP funding.

Chicanas/os continued their work even when school was not in session, not

allowing the summer break to end their lobbying efforts. The course extended into the

summer as “Minority Problems,” where Black and Chicana/o students planned a trip to

Washington DC. Rubalcava described the students’ persistence to make legislators act on

EOP as “a real Third World Liberation Front.”124 It must be noted that although the

number of Spanish-surname students increased through the efforts to strengthen and

expand the Educational Opportunity Program, not all Mexican American students were

supportive of the movement. As Jorge García recalled, during boycotts, fasts, marches, or

similar events, Chicanas/os were frequently scoffed at by conservative—or “white-

washed”—Mexican Americans; usually from the departments of business or

economics.125 Of all the Chicanas/os on campus, only about one-third were actively

involved.126

With the recent vote in favor of extending EOP funding, Chicana/o student

leaders on campus realized they needed to create a more supportive environment for the

next semester’s EOP students. “We said ‘look, there’s a College of Agriculture… there’s

a College of Business. Well the business here is agribusiness. There’s two whole colleges

dedicated to agribusiness!’,” recalled García, “Where is the part of the institution that is

for the grape-pickers, the campesinos? It’s not here. We said, ‘that’s what we want to

create’.”127 This was the initial push for more relevant curriculum as Chicanas/os began

looking to existing departments to teach courses that had a Chicana/o or Mexican focus.

124 “EOP Representatives Seek Monies for Washington Trip,” The Daily Collegian, 7 July 1969.

125 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

126 Lea Ybarra, interview by author, 15 June 2019.

127 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

43 43

They approached multiple departments and proposed Chicano History, Chicano Art,

Mexican/Chicano Music, and other courses with similar emphasis but were turned away

each time hearing, “there is no such thing.”128 It was a clear indication of whom the

college favored and what was considered worthy of scholarly pursuit.

The Experimental College and Birth of La Raza Studies

The Experimental College created the initial opportunity for Ethnic Studies

courses. It was launched in the Spring of 1967 under the direct supervision of the

Experimental College Committee and provided a space for faculty and students to test

“experimental” courses. The first Chicana/o course, "X131 ‘La Raza’: A Search for

Contemporary Mexican-American Culture," was listed on the Experimental College

Bulletin of 1967-68.129 It was offered as a stand-alone class in the Spring of 68’ and

taught by Chicano playwright, activist, and founder of El Teatro Campesino, Luis

Valdez.130 Early feedback on the Experimental College gave California State College

administrators optimism that they had found a means of curbing campus unrest. In July

1968, Director of the Experimental College, Richard Toscan, prepared a report for the

California State College Board of Trustees in which he asserted the experimental course

“Total Theater” had “prevented further escalation of a student protest movement and has

even reduced it to a level of minimal significance.”131 Toscan emphasized that the

course was “student-initiated,” and had “significantly decreased the tensions of protesting

128 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

129 Bulletin of the Experimental College of Fresno State College, Spring 1968, box 1,

Experimental College Bulletin, Spring, 1968 – 17, 1975, University Archives: Experimental College,

Special Collections Research Center, California State University, Fresno.

130 Bulletin of the Experimental College.

131 An Evaluation of the Experimental College by the Academic Policy and Planning Committee,

March 1970, box 1, Experimental College Correspondence, 1966, 1968 – 73, 1979, University Archives:

Experimental College, Special Collections Research Center, California State University, Fresno.

44 44

students.”132 While this may have been true at the time of his report, the administration

became increasingly complacent. There was a false sense of security that the Third World

Liberation Front strikes at San Francisco State could not happen in the heart of the

conservative Central Valley.133 However, internal administrative correspondence

revealed that preventing incidents similar to San Francisco State was of primary concern

as campus unrest in Fresno only continued to intensify.

The Experimental College was also targeted by Valley growers. In a brazen

display of power and influence over Fresno State administrators, an experimental course

was proposed in the Spring of 1969 by the Dean of Agriculture, Lloyd Dowler. However,

the course, “Farm Labor Problems as Viewed by the Grower,” was rejected by the

Experimental College Committee on several grounds. The chairman of the committee,

Dr. Earl D. Lyon, wrote a memorandum to President Ness on March 24, 1969 revealing

Dean Dowler’s confession that he was acting at the behest of Valley growers. Dr. Lyon’s

memorandum gave the following blistering rebuke:

The course proposed on behalf of the administration involved a radical change in

academic policy… to wit, that an administration should correct bias in one

controversial course (if bias there be) by instituting a course deliberately biased in

an opposing direction…. As administrators we juxtapose people. We do not

juxtapose courses in patterns of deliberately composed and officially sponsored bias

and then search out instructors wretched enough to teach them, undermining the

professional commitment to scholarship without which there is no college.134

The attempt to create curriculum at the behest of Valley agribusiness—the intended

purpose of which would have served little more than self-aggrandizing and anti-

132An Evaluation of the Experimental College.

133 The Third World Liberation Front was a coalition formed by students of color from several

ethnic backgrounds at San Francisco State. They demanded representation and equitable education as they

held large demonstrations on campus in 1968 through 1969. The demonstrations were met with police

violence and an authoritarian response by new San Francisco State president, S.I. Hayakawa.

134 Experimental College Committee Memorandum, “Farm Labor Problems as Viewed by the

Grower,” March 1969, box 1, Experimental College Correspondence, 1966, 1968 – 73, 1979, University

Archives: Experimental College, Special Collections Research Center, California State University, Fresno.

45 45

Chicana/o propaganda—begs the question as to what other administrative decisions were

orchestrated by Valley agribusiness coercion. This push to reinforce a pro-grower

narrative was taking place just as student efforts to establish Chicano Studies programs

were coming to fruition.

In April of 1969, Chicanas/os held a three-day conference at the University of

California, Santa Barbara. The majority were Chicana/o students, faculty, and

administrators from southern California.135 Also in attendance were Fresno State

graduate students, Jorge García and Guillermo Martínez, newly hired chairman of Raza

Studies, Eliezer Risco-Lozada, and Director of EOP, Katia Panas.136 The conference

aimed to flesh out a blueprint for Chicana/o student activism, education, and organizing,

focusing on the creation and implementation of Chicano Studies programs. UC Santa

Barbara’s Chicano Studies proposal was a major component of the resulting document,

El Plan de Santa Barbara, serving as a model for other colleges and universities to

follow. Carlos Muñoz, in a comparative analysis of various proposals, hailed UC Santa

Barbara’s proposal as being “the most ambitious… in terms of scope and structure.”137

However, even before the Santa Barbara Conference, Chicanas/os at several colleges and

universities—including at Fresno State—had already begun drafting their proposals for

Chicano Studies programs that were slated to begin instruction in the Fall of 1969.138

Like San Fernando Valley State College, Fresno’s proposal and curriculum were

largely set by the time the Santa Barbara Conference took place. With Risco taking the

lead, García, Martínez, and Panas were the regulars at the weekly proposal meetings,

135 Acuña, The Making of Chicana/o Studies, 59.

136 Muñoz Jr., Youth, Identity, Power, 159; Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.;

Jorge García, e-mail message to author, 12 February 2020.

137 Muñoz Jr., Youth, Identity, Power, 133.

138 Acuña, The Making of Chicana/o Studies, 59; Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October

2019.

46 46

with others, such as Luis Valdez, also contributing to the process.139 It made the same

“ambitious” demands as UC Santa Barbara’s, while also having offered Raza Studies

courses through the Experimental College since the Spring of 1968. The proposal called

for the creation of a “La Raza Center” to meet the needs of Chicana/o students and the

community which would house student programs, a study center, cultural center, have a

research component, publications component, college-community relations component—

with urban and rural-change programs—and act as a “home base.”140 The proposal

defined the program’s purpose as not only serving the needs of its students, but also those

of the Chicana/o community.

Black and Brown Papers

On Cinco de Mayo (May 5) 1969, the first “ethnic supplement” to The Daily

Collegian—La Pluma Morena—was published, meeting one of the Black and Chicana/o

student demands.141 They would have control of the student paper once a week,

alternating weeks with Uhuru, the Black student paper. The first issue of La Pluma

Morena was a grito, firmly placing the Chicana/o struggle at Fresno State within the

greater framework of el Movimiento. Published in the first issue were a contextual history

of the battle of Puebla, Corky González’s introspective poem I am Joaquin, El Plan

Espiritual de Aztlán, Luis Valdez’s The Tale of La Raza, and arguments in support of the

UFW’s grape boycott. Defining itself as a space for critical Chicana/o discourse, the issue

stressed the importance for continued solidarity between Black and Chicana/o students

139 Jorge García, e-mail message to author, 12 February 2020.

140 Draft Proposal for La Raza Studies Program at Fresno State College, 1969, (15).

141 The Chicana/o student paper, La Pluma Morena, changed its name to Chicano Liberation in

the Fall of 1969. It operated under this title for several editions until it was changed for final time to La Voz

de Aztlán in December 1969. The name has remained to this day.

47 47

moving forward and criticized student apathy and complacency for slowing progress.142

The inaugural issue also kicked off “La Semana de la Raza Bronce,” showcasing cultural

performances and prominent Chicano speakers. Among those to speak on campus were

three of the “Four Horsemen of the Chicano Movement,” Reies López Tijerina, Rodolpho

“Corky” Gonzáles, and César Chávez. Tijerina—founder and president of La Alanzia

Federal de Mercedes in New Mexico—gave a scathing speech on the Anglo “double

standard” of militant action. In the same form as Malcolm X’s “Black Revolution”

speech, he attacked the hypocrisy of the Anglo, citing the white man’s hunger for

violence all over the world while the same white man simultaneously condemns Blacks

and Chicanas/os for resisting his oppression.143

Heated discussion of the ethnic addition to the paper continued to circulate for

months, stirring vehement backlash and debate through opinion pieces and letters to the

editor after the announcement. The day after the first Chicana/o publication, May 6, an

editorial diatribe exclaimed that “the decision of the Board of Publications last Friday to

give one edition per week of The Daily Collegian to not one, but two, minority group

factions has got to be the apex of foolhardy decision-making,” likening the board’s

decision to caving into terrorist threats and calling into question the qualifications of the

Black and Chicana/o editors.144 On May 13, a letter to the editor written by Senior Class

Senator, Sherman Lee Pompey, attacked the journalistic substance of La Pluma Morena’s

first issue, stating “If Monday’s supplement is an example of what we can expect once a

week from the Collegian next year, then it has a long way to go to promote better

understanding. The best article in the paper was not written by a Chicano or Black, but by

142 John F. Ramirez, “Chicano Editorial” La Pluma Morena, 5 May 1969.

143 “Tijerina Speech Hits ‘Double Standard’” The Daily Collegian, 6 May 1969.

144 “The Issue: ‘A free press’” The Daily Collegian, 6 May 1969.

48 48

a Spanish head of the history department.”145 The arrogance in which Pompey gave his

disapproving evaluation is astounding. Black and Chicana/o students were not seeking

his, or anyone else’s, white approval or validation. However, opposition was not limited

to editorials. In a desperate attempt to cancel the Black and Chicana/o student paper, five

student Senators filed a petition claiming that the ethnic supplements were a slippery

slope that would lead to every student group wanting their own publication in The Daily

Collegian.146

Controversy surrounding the student newspapers continued into the 1969-70

academic year. California State College Chancellor Glenn Dumke, in a report issued in

August 1969, urged that measures be taken to apply tighter controls on student papers,

suggesting that publication boards be created “to guard against misuse of the principle of

freedom of the press.”147 The Daily Collegian, which already had its own board of

publications, reported that it was “known that the trustees did not look favorably upon the

board last year when it voted to suspend one issue of the Daily Collegian and replace it

with a newspaper published by Black and Chicano students.”148 Echoing the

unapproving voices from the student body, the Chancellor and trustees took issue with

non-white students having their own editions of the paper. Dumke’s report argued that

the main source of concern was that student papers were practicing “biased political

reporting, and lack of balance in subject matter,” citing “full pages or issues devoted in

large part to minority groups” as evidence.149

145 Sherman Lee Pompey, letter to the editor, The Daily Collegian, 13 May 1969.

146 “Senate is faced with paper’s fate” The Daily Collegian, 7 May 1969.

147 “Dumke asks stronger control over papers” The Daily Collegian, 18 September 1969.

148 “Dumke asks stronger control over papers” The Daily Collegian, 18 September 1969.

149 “Dumke asks stronger control over papers” The Daily Collegian, 18 September 1969.

49 49

Figure 4: Reies López Tijerina speaking at Fresno State College. Campus Yearbook

1969.

The attacks on the Black and Chicana/o publications continued to intensify in Fall

1969. Two letters to the editor on October 23, and a letter in rebuttal on October 30,

showcase the racially charged atmosphere and fragility of peace on campus. The first

October 23 letter lamented the “pitiable and pathetic rubbish published in the Daily

Collegian under the title of Chicano Liberation.”150 The author, Elliot T. Dennis, so

perturbed from the lack of “hard-hitting journalism” that he so desperately desired,

exclaimed “Nowhere in the pitiful thing can I ever find out about campus activities!

Nowhere in it do I ever see any advertisements… Nowhere can I ever see anything but

grist from the Chicano propaganda mills! Is this what students want out of their paper? I

seriously doubt it!”151 The second letter, by Bruce Castle, produced this diatribe:

150 Elliott T. Dennis, letter to the editor, The Daily Collegian, 23 October 1969.

151 Elliott T. Dennis, letter to the editor, The Daily Collegian, 23 October 1969.

50 50

How is it that a university the size of Fresno State has two second rate

newspapers?... Why do the Chicanos and Negroes have such a large say in the

Collegian when other minorities do not?... The purpose of the newspaper, in my

humble opinion, is to inform!... it should also be a timely source of factual material

that has a bearing on the academic community… On those days when we are

“blessed” with Chicano or Black propaganda, the paper sinks to a lower level yet.

The predictability of the Collegian’s content, particularly on Chicano day, makes

the paper suitable for little more than lining the garbage can.152

Castle, in lockstep with the others, attempted to legitimize his anger and frustration by

feigning concern for the representation of minorities. Critics of the Black and Chicana/o

papers did poor jobs masking the intent behind their attacks. These two racist opinion

pieces prompted Nathan Heard, a Black lecturer in the English department, to write a

response the following week. Heard did not hold back in his rebuttal:

The Collegian does serve the interest of many, and every white person on this

campus had better realize that it’s very much in their best interests—and the interest

of this nation-state—to hear what others besides whites are saying. This country is

being warned everyday, here and abroad, that the WHITE MAN SYNDROME is an

anachronism… It’s about time Uncle Sam took heed. A judgement day is coming,

baby…. Do your kind of people think that they will remain on the top of the world

because of their atomic power? Well, dig this, chumps: THE ULTIMATE POWER

IS PEOPLE…. If Dennis and Castle think that the black and brown editions of the

paper are irrelevant to them, imagine how irrelevant this entire social structure has

been to non-white people. Whites like them have taken the black man’s mind and

the Chicanoe’s [sic] lands, and then have the goddam NERVE to get angry when

these two ask to be given a smigen [sic] of them back, or least to share in the booty

that white thievery gained…. Warning: Be careful WHITE MAN, that world whose

hands you’ve cut off may wind up kicking you in the ass!153

Heard’s response, and others like it in Uhuru and La Voz de Aztlán, were consistently

used by their detractors as ammunition to portray them as violent threats to the campus

and community. However, this exchange is an important example of the continued

efforts—futile or not—of the non-white campus community to communicate the very real

consequences of continued denial of basic human equity.

152 Bruce Castle, letter to the editor, The Daily Collegian, 23 October 1969.

153 Nathan Heard, commentary, The Daily Collegian, 30 October 1969.

51 51

Black and Chicana/o students and professors fully utilized their platform with

their editions of the student paper. With these campus media outlets, they were able to

put their struggles on full display while publicly calling out and responding to rumors and

accusations of conspiracy and insurrection. With articulate, methodical, powerful, and

sound rebuttals, they challenged the pernicious narratives that Ethnic Studies professors

were unqualified to teach at the college.

Conclusion

As evidenced by the student coalition demands, Chicanas/os were determined to

make the deeply personal farmworkers’ struggle a central focus of their activism on

campus. La causa ignited and informed their political awakening, mobilizing them to

confront anti-boycott opposition whether it was from a Presidential candidate, or on

campus from the children of Valley growers. In the face of racist criminalization and

college-condoned intimidation, Chicanas/os were undeterred. They successfully

pressured the college to hire a Chicano administrator, lobbied to extend EOP funding,

secured a Chicana/o edition to the student paper, and began developing a curriculum and

program for the sons and daughters of the Valley’s “grape-pickers.”

The Spring of 1969 laid the groundwork to usher in La Raza Studies at Fresno

State College. With the hiring of Eliezer Risco-Lozada as chair, the program was able to

begin drafting its proposal and carve a clear and decisive path forward. The Santa

Barbara Conference in April consolidated the various Chicana/o student organizations

into one unified body, MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán/Chicano

Student Movement of Aztlán), making communication and organizing between campuses

easier. The addition of the La Voz de Aztlán provided an official Chicana/o media outlet

to voice demands, grievances, and organize students campus-wide. The next step was to

find professors to teach in the La Raza Studies program for the upcoming Fall semester.

CHAPTER 3: GOING TO WAR WITH THE INSTITUTION: THE CREATION AND DESTRUCTION OF LA RAZA STUDIES

Decolonization means, in its most essential sense, the struggle for self-definition,

personally and historically. As Frantz Fanon says, ‘When the native plunges the knife

into the settler, he kills two people, the settler and his myth of superiority and he kills the

myth of the native, as defined by the settler.’ The process of self-definition is an attempt

to kill the myth without having to kill the settler.

-Draft Proposal for La Raza Studies Program at Fresno State College, 1969

While working as the editor of La Raza newspaper in East Los Angeles, Eliezer

Risco-Lozada received a phone call asking him to be a “consultant” to the planning of a

Raza Studies program at Fresno State College.154 Unaware that this would turn into a

fulltime chairman position, he agreed and travelled up to Fresno, California. Risco, a

“militant Cuban,” arrived at Fresno State already having a long history of community

organizing in the Central Valley and East LA.155 He worked with the United Farm

Workers’ newspaper, El Malcriado, before being pushed out of the Union due to César

Chávez’s paranoia of potential Communist influence. He then moved to East LA and co-

founded the Chicana/o newspaper La Raza in 1967.156 In the aftermath of the 1968 East

LA walkouts, Risco was one of the thirteen individuals identified and accused of

organizing the student demonstrations. The thirteen were indicted for conspiracy to

154 “Chicano History Revisited Fresno County- Rev Eleazar Risco,” YouTube video, 12:47,

“Chicano History Revisited,” 20 June 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2esM8kLpiTE

155 Mario T. García and Sal Castro, Blowout!: Sal Castro and the Chicano Struggle for

Educational Justice, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 144.

156 Eliezer Risco and another union member, Ida Cousino, were removed from the UFW after

attending an event held at the office of a journalist for the Communist Party. Their supposed “dual

loyalties” ended several years with the Union. César Chávez vehemently defended the UFW from

accusations of Communist influence and was quick to act in order to silence potential critics. No evidence

ever surfaced of Risco having Communist ties, but red baiting was one of the tactics Chávez used to

remove those that questioned his decisions. His paranoia of a possible coup led to multiple purges within

the Union. These purges also prompted Luis Valdez and El Teatro to leave the UFW in 1967; García, From

the Jaws of Victory, 217; Miriam Pawel, The Crusades of Cesar Chávez: A Biography, (Bloomsbury Press:

New York, NY, 2014) 151-153; Rodriguez, Rethinking the Chicano Movement, 28, 43.

53 53

disturb the peace and faced sixty-six years in prison before Chicano attorneys in 1970—

including Oscar Zeta Acosta—successfully showed that the charges were in violation of

their First Amendment rights.157 Once Risco arrived in Fresno, he and Luis Valdez were

the two main candidates being considered for the position, with Risco becoming

chairman of La Raza Studies in February, 1969. Risco taught three courses in the Spring

of 1969 to find out “in the social area, the philosophy area, and in the practical area, what

is it that the students themselves thought was important,” helping provide what would

become the framework for the curricular element of the program’s draft proposal.158

The First Raza Studies Faculty and the Fight for Marvin X

La Raza Studies’ first faculty was hired through a five-member committee

consisting of EOP Director, Katia Panas, two members of Fresno State’s faculty, and

MEChA representatives Jorge García and Guillermo Martínez. The committee’s

objective was to establish a program with a diverse perspective. “One thing we believed,

when we were setting up La Raza Studies, was that you couldn’t take just one line of

thought,” asserted Risco, “…When we formed [the] staff for La Raza Studies, we wanted

to have a cross section of people from different backgrounds; urban, rural, small farm,

farm labor, first generation, second generation and so forth.”159 After interviewing

throughout the summer, only two faculty positions remained unfilled. García, feeling as if

they had interviewed every Chicana/o in the Central Valley with a masters degree,

worried that they would not find the last two candidates in time. García recalled his

frustration interviewing numerous candidates with Spanish degrees: “I don’t know how

157 Rodriguez, Rethinking the Chicano Movement, 67; García and Castro, Blowout!, 231.

158 “Chicano History Revisited Fresno County- Rev Eleazar Risco,” YouTube video, 12:47,

“Chicano History Revisited,” 20 June 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2esM8kLpiTE.

159 Eliezer Risco, “Before Universidad de Aztlán: Ethnic Studies at Fresno State College,” In

Parameters of Institutional Change: Chicano Experiences in Education, ed. Southwest Network,

(Hayward: Southwest Network, 1974), 43.

54 54

many times we heard ‘The best thing that happened was the Spanish conquest which

brought civilization and religion to the Americas.’ We said, ‘get out of here. Next’.”160

But the process of encountering so many undesirable applicants allowed them to hone-in

on the qualities they desired, helping them to shape the program’s ideology moving

forward. With the program’s inaugural semester set to start in a few weeks, Katia Panas

suggested that García and Martínez step down from the committee and apply for the

positions themselves. After talking it over—and finding replacements for the committee

from MEChA—García and Martínez were hired to round out the faculty.

Figure 5: Richard Keyes, Chairman of Black Studies, top left, Eliezer Risco-Lozada,

Chairman of La Raza Studies, top middle. Campus Yearbook 1970.

160 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

55 55

The new Ethnic Studies Department housed La Raza Studies, Black Studies, and

American Indian Studies. La Raza Studies commenced in the Fall of 1969 with sixteen

courses, expanding to twenty-nine the following semester. In its draft proposal, Risco

encapsulated the emerging Chicano Studies programs’ collective objective: “The process

of self-definition is an attempt to kill the myth without having to kill the settler.”161 In

essence, Raza Studies was the Chicana/o attempt to provide a peaceful alternative to

violent revolution and provide a space for the currents of change sweeping across the

nation. However, Ethnic Studies’ inaugural semester was embroiled by the controversy

surrounding the hiring of the Black Muslim professor, Marvin X. In many ways, Fresno

State’s botched handling of this case—a watershed moment for the campus—tightened

the bonds of solidarity between Blacks and Chicanas/os. A local product of West

Fresno’s Edison High School, Marvin X was a talented young poet and playwright who

was brought on to teach three courses in Black Studies. The entire Ethnic Studies

department supported his appointment to the faculty. Nevertheless, his presence at Fresno

State College was met with hostility and paranoia. Before his appointment was officially

approved, the administration halted the process citing his indictment for refusing the draft

as a disqualifying factor. Black and Raza Studies, however, asserted that the multitude of

excuses given over the short span of two months was merely a smokescreen to prevent

another Black professor from being hired.162

This incident came to a head in late September 1969 when President Ness—along

with the Executive Vice President, Harold Walker, the Dean of Arts and Sciences, Dale

Burtner, the Director of Ethnic Studies, Richard Keyes, and professor in La Raza Studies,

Jorge García—traveled to Los Angeles to meet Chancellor Glenn Dumke and discuss

161 Draft Proposal for La Raza Studies Program at Fresno State College, 1969, 1.

162 Ricardo Duran, Full Front-Page Article, Chicano Liberation, 20 October 1969.

56 56

Marvin X’s future at Fresno State College.163 From the onset of the meeting, Dumke

asserted that Marvin X was not to be allowed to teach at Fresno State because of his

indictment for refusing to respond to the draft. However, the revealing debate that ensued

exposed the deep-seated prejudice and xenophobia gripping California’s campuses and

that underlined the push to remove Marvin X:

Dumke stated to the group that he received numerous complaints from Fresnans

that “don’t want him to teach because he is a Black Muslim and a separatist,”

contradicting the administration’s publicly stated position. “Chancellor,” said

Burtner, “the university system is full of Mormons. They have definite ideas on the

separation of races.” Dumke snapped “the trustees have a policy on Black

Muslims, not Mormons.” “Chancellor,” said Dumke’s legal counsel in an attempt

to reign him in, “you’re violating this man’s civil rights. You’re saying because of

that religion you-,” Dumke cut him off, “you were brought into this meeting to back

me. Either you back me or get out.” Dumke revealed that his job was on the line if

Marvin X was allowed to teach and ordered Ness—who had submitted his

resignation two weeks prior to this meeting—to take care of it. Ness and Walker

both turned to Burtner, “you’re the Dean, you can stop the appointment.” “We

have no academic reason not to hire him,” explained Burtner, “In fact, he’s

qualified, and that’s all I need to know… I have no grounds to stop it.” Not getting

the cooperation he expected, Dumke gave the group an ultimatum. “Okay, I’ve told

you what the situation is. You go back to Fresno and resolve this, or I’ll impeach

you [pointed to Ness], you [pointed to Walker], you [pointed to Burtner], and all

that [Ethnic Studies] department.”164

Upon returning to Fresno, the Ethnic Studies faculty remained determined to rally allies.

Through EOP Director Katia Panas, they reached out to Board of Trustees member Philip

Conley for support. Conley, one of the only liberal voices on the Board, was of no help.

When asked to support Ethnic Studies regarding Marvin X, Conley said, “I’m old and

tired. You guys are right, but I’m just not up for the fight anymore.”165 Not only were

163 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

164 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019; Seib, The Slow Death of Fresno State,

45.

165 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

57 57

they fending off the campus administration, but they were now feeling the pressure of the

Chancellor’s office bearing down on them.

The next week, from the safety of his office, President Ness caved to Dumke’s

threats and instructed the community relations director to deliver his statement denying

the appointment of Marvin X. Ness made the decision in spite of both the President’s and

Chancellor’s legal counsel determining that no legal basis existed to justify the action. It

was poorly received by the campus community and immediately fueled speculation that

Ness—once considered a reasonable and progressive President—was being coerced by

the Chancellor. No longer having the capacity to handle the pressures of Dumke’s

authoritarianism, Ness abruptly quit on October 7, 1969, two months before his

resignation would have taken effect. La Raza Studies professor, Ricardo Duran, penned a

statement representing the collective position of the Ethnic Studies Department that

condemned Ness and Dumke for their lack of integrity. Reprimanding the decision’s

accusation that Marvin X was not qualified to teach, Duran declared:

We students and faculty of the Ethnic Studies Department were not looking for

instructors with “the usually expected qualifications.” Those instructors are the

main reason for educational failure generally and the basic reason for the

educational alienation of minority groups from the educational experience. It has

been these instructors with the “usually expected qualifications” which have

brought the minorities to the present level of educational attainment — a miserable

nothing! It is these same instructors that have made the general curriculum for all

students so meaningless today, let alone have any relevancy to the culturally

different, economically deprived, and totally oppressed minorities…. We do not

want the same old garbage that passes for “educators.” We want what’s relevant

today for us…. We must be able to have self-determination and departmental

autonomy in hiring and firing as all departments should…. We can no longer let

inconsiderate white puppet administrators lie to our faces and run things for us.166

Duran captured the dilemma Ethnic Studies departments faced across the nation. These

fledgling programs were experimental in nature as faculties created curriculum for

166 Ricardo Duran, Full Front-Page Article, Chicano Liberation, 20 October 1969.

58 58

courses that had no blueprint and did not exist prior. Further, Ethnic Studies programs

were founded on the principle that communities of color needed relevant educations and

educators that reflected their heritage and lived experiences. However, the reality was

that there were few Black and Chicana/o PhDs in the late 1960s, resulting in most Ethnic

Studies faculties holding bachelor’s or master’s degrees. To Duran’s point, the non-

Anglo PhDs that did exist were problematic as they had assimilated into the Eurocentric

educational system, further justifying the necessity for Ethnic Studies departments to

have the autonomy to hire based on the needs of their communities. Colleges and

universities, however, used the excuse of inadequate qualifications to harass and attack

the academic credentials of Black and Chicana/o faculty teaching in Ethnic Studies.

The Falk Administration

The Marvin X incident became a stain on President Ness’ legacy as he left the

campus more polarized than he found it. Making matters worse, the Fresno community’s

fervor around Marvin X ushered in a McCarthyism-like era for Fresno State College. The

Board of Trustees’ appointment of Dr. Karl L. Falk as acting president on October 28,

1969, sent the college into a new stage of turmoil. Falk—who earned his doctorate degree

in Nazi Germany—had retired from Fresno State in 1968 and was viewed by campus

conservatives as a major step in the right direction.167 When accepting the appointment,

Falk claimed to have no intention of making any major changes as acting president.

Unfortunately, this could not have been further from the truth. Falk was preparing to

wage a war against perceived “radicals” that would jar the campus and deepen its divide

along racial lines.168

167 Seib, The Slow Death of Fresno State, 50.

168 Gerald P. Merrell, “Trustees name retired F.S.C. prof to interim post,” The Daily Collegian,

29 October 1969.

59 59

Figure 6: Anti-Falk and anti-Fikes sign, left. Campus Yearbook 1970. Anti-Falk and anti-

Fikes political cartoon, right. La Voz de Aztlán, 16 February 1970.

The unholy trinity of the departments of Agriculture, Business Administration,

and Physical Education saw an ally in the new acting President, forming the core of

Falk’s inner circle on campus. These three traditionally conservative disciplines were the

perfect tools to sow discontent within the traditionally conservative Fresno community,

and vice versa as they acted as conduits of white community outrage. Each of these

departments had grown accustomed to leveraging their community relationships to exert

pressure on those who jeopardized their agenda, and Falk provided the perfect

opportunity to do just that.169 In front of the Fresno Rotary Club, Falk informed the

audience that he was setting his sights on Fresno State’s radical element. Falk claimed he

was not concerned with campus liberals, but was taking the radicals seriously, stating

169 Seib, The Slow Death of Fresno State, 28.

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“they don’t want social reform, they want revolution, and the endless demonstrations and

protests are part of the program.”170

Five days after taking office, Falk replaced the Dean of Arts and Sciences, Dr.

Dale Burtner, and Executive Vice President, Dr. Harold Walker. Burtner had been a

steadfast ally to Ethnic Studies throughout the Marvin X case, and Walker—a Quaker—

was considered to be a reasonable administrator. Replacing Burtner and H. Walker were

Phillip Walker and Dr. James Fikes, respectively. Fikes and P. Walker were both staunch

conservatives who, with Doris Falk—Karl Falk’s wife—were behind the “Fikes-Walker-

Falk Petition” that called for Robert Mezey’s termination.171 President Falk then

stripped Dean of Students, Dr. W. Donald Albright, of 80 percent of his authority at the

beginning of Spring 1970, consolidating that administrative power with new Executive

Vice President, James Fikes.172 Turning his sights towards the Experimental College

and its Director, Dr. Richard Toscan, Falk then issued a series of directives in February

that rendered the Experimental College ineffective and granted himself final authority on

all Experimental courses. After Toscan and the Experimental College Committee—its

governing body—refused to accept what they considered an abuse of power, he directed

Academic Vice President, Dr. Norman Baxter, to cancel the entire program and relieve

Toscan of his position.173 Finally, the Falk administration terminated assistant to the

Financial Aids Director, Adan Juarez, the Black and Chicano assistants to the Dean of

170 Esther Gabriel, “President Hits Campus Radicals,” The Daily Collegian, 25 November 1969.

171 Seib, The Slow Death of Fresno State, 38.

172 Gerald P. Merrell, “Dr. Albright relieved of ’75 to 80 per cent of authority,’ he says,” The

Daily Collegian, 6 January 1970.

173 Beverly Kennedy, “Toscan Offers EC Version of Cancellation,” The Daily Collegian, 5

February 1970; Seib, The Slow Death of Fresno State, 61-62.

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Students, Felton Burns and Roberto Rubalcava, and denied former EOP Director Katia

Panas’ request “to remain at the college as a bilingual instructor.”174

Burns, responding to his and Rubalcava’s terminations in January, feared that this

was just a preliminary step in Falk’s plan “to eliminate minority programs on the Fresno

State College campus.”175 Richard Keyes, Chairman of Ethnic Studies, added to this

charge by stating that the programs being targeted by the Falk administration were only

those that supported Ethnic Studies and its students.176 Chicanas/os could see the walls

closing in around them: “The present administration has declared war on the Mexican

American students… It will not rest until it has driven us from the campus.”177 By May,

Falk showed no signs of slowing his purge, recalibrating his administrative crosshairs

onto Black Studies and La Raza Studies as campus unrest intensified.

May 1970 not only marked a flashpoint for college and university campuses

across the United States, but it also marked the height of campus turmoil and

administrative abuse of power at Fresno State College. The month’s events leading to

Falk’s May 19 decision to not “rehire” the Ethnic Studies faculty contextualize the

significance of the moment. In what should have been handled with care and proper

consideration, was wantonly executed, sending the campus into a state of preventable

chaos. On May 6—a day after the fatal shooting at Kent State—California Governor

Ronald Reagan ordered the state’s entire college and university system closed for four

days, citing “highly emotional conditions.”178 That same day at Fresno State, shortly

after Reagan’s announcement, roughly 1,500 students marched from an anti-ROTC rally

174 Seib, The Slow Death of Fresno State, 64.

175 “Burns Removed,” The California Advocate, 23 January 1970.

176 “Falk Charged with Plot to Destroy Minority Programs,” The California Advocate, 23 January

1970.

177 “Three Years at Fresno State,” La Voz de Aztlán, 16 February 1970.

178 “Reagan Orders All State Campuses Closed 4 Days” The Fresno Bee, 6 May 1970.

62 62

in the free speech area to the Air Science building. After having surrounded the building

and burning an effigy representing President Nixon and the National Guard, a large melee

broke out as student athletes physically engaged demonstrators. Physical Education

department chairman, Cecil Coleman—part of Falk’s loyal inner-circle—had organized

the athletes into “protective squads” to guard the building prior to the demonstration,

effectively green lighting his students to engage in violence.179 After receiving word of

the altercation, Fresno PD dispatched around one hundred officers to the campus, but

luckily students dispersed before police intervened.180 The following week, protests

continued at Fresno State, though in decreased numbers, until news came of the Jackson

State shooting that took the lives of two Black students on May 15. Given the tragic

outcomes after martial forces killed a total of six students within two weeks, college

administrations would have been wise to ease tensions on their campuses. However,

Fresno State’s President and Executive Vice President took a different approach,

choosing instead to fan the flames with “law and order” rhetoric.

On May 17, The Los Angeles Times published an interview with Dr. Karl Falk and

Dr. James Fikes in the wake of these two fatal shootings. The interview sought to get the

administration’s perspective on the pressures brewing at Fresno State College. Falk,

likening his position to a warden in charge of a prison, felt that his administration bore

little responsibility for campus conditions worsening under his watch.181 He described

his faculty and student detractors as having a “Marxist-militant influence, almost

Maoist,” and said they reminded him of the Nazis just before they took over Germany.182

179 Seib, The Slow Death of Fresno State, 96.

180 “Protest: Uneasiness lingers as students return to class” The Daily Collegian, 11 May 1970

181 Greenwood, Noel, “Tensions Rise Under Firm Hand of Fresno State’s Acting Head,” The Los

Angeles Times, 17 May 1970.

182 Greenwood, Noel, “Tensions Rise Under Firm Hand of Fresno State’s Acting Head,” The Los

Angeles Times, 17 May 1970.

63 63

This was far and away from the “even keel” leadership he first advertised when taking

over as acting president.183 Fikes was even more loose and reckless with his comments.

He suggested that the administration was ready and willing to meet violence with

violence, stating: “If that [violence] is the only alternative, then so be it… When this kind

of thing occurs, we’re going to react with whatever it takes.”184 Hardly comments to be

taken lightly from a clearly erratic and hyper-paranoid individual who previously locked

himself in the president’s office in fear of Black students occupying the administration

building, and who warned Black and Chicana/o students that he carried a gun.185 The LA

Times also reported that Falk believed “just one violent encounter would be enough for

students and faculty ‘to get the message’.”186 Beyond the interview being a deeply

disturbing display of authoritarian rhetoric, Falk’s and Fikes’ inflammatory comments

came just days after the deaths of six college students. If anyone was looking to Fresno

State’s administration to bring some semblance of calm or peace to the campus in the

midst of this national tragedy, they were looking in the wrong place.

In an attempt to open lines of communication, the Fresno Urban Coalition (FUC)

held a public forum on May 18 to discuss Fresno State’s Educational Opportunity

Program.187 The FUC had been trying to facilitate a meeting with Falk for the past

month with little success, as Falk refused to meet or even set a date for the meeting. The

forum that eventually did take place consisted of Richard Keyes, Eliezer Risco, Karl

183 Gerald P. Merrell, “Trustees name retired F.S.C. prof to interim post,” The Daily Collegian,

29 October 1969.

184 Greenwood, Noel, “Tensions Rise Under Firm Hand of Fresno State’s Acting Head,” The Los

Angeles Times, 17 May 1970; Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

185 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

186 Greenwood, Noel, “Tensions Rise Under Firm Hand of Fresno State’s Acting Head,” The Los

Angeles Times, 17 May 1970.

187 The Fresno Urban Coalition was formed by members of Fresno’s Black community to address

inequality in West Fresno and Downtown Fresno. The FUC also focused on redevelopment to improve

housing in these disadvantaged areas.

64 64

Falk, and James Fikes. The crowd of about 800—mostly Fresno State students and

faculty—listened as Falk and Fikes repeatedly denied accusations that they were planning

the demise of EOP and the Ethnic Studies Department.188 In fact, Falk declared that

EOP and Ethnic Studies would be alive and well at Fresno State in the fall semester.

Students and faculty from those programs, however, had little faith in Falk’s pledge that

they would continue. Up to that point, they had no reason to believe he would make good

on his promises after his brazen takeover of the campus. Falk continued to make the case

that he had no malicious agenda to suppress Ethnic Studies but charged them with what

he considered unacademic practices. He stated that Fresno State was not a place to be

“providing indoctrination,” and claimed that “community action, organization, and

development of minority political power may be important in achieving minority aims,

but they can’t be achieved on the campus at the expense of academic curriculum.”189 In

predictable fashion, Falk attacked the academic legitimacy of Ethnic Studies, calling into

question classroom methods. “Chicanos are interested in organizing farm workers and

obtaining justice in this valley,” responded Risco, “If it can’t be done academically, then

there is a false consciousness and twisted sense of academic integrity.”190 Airing

frustrations from both sides did little to resolve the issues. But one thing was becoming

very clear, Black and Chicana/o students were fed up with the constant rumors that the

one part of the college they could call their own was about to be eliminated.

The next day, Falk addressed a memorandum to student body President, Douglas

Broten. In it, Falk conveyed gushing praise to the student body for “keeping the campus

open and free from violence,” commending them for what he believed was the true

example of “academic freedom.” Later that day, in what can only be described as

188 “Falk denies effort to oust minorities,” The Fresno Bee, 19 May 1970.

189 “Falk denies effort to oust minorities,” The Fresno Bee, 19 May 1970.

190 “Falk denies effort to oust minorities,” The Fresno Bee, 19 May 1970.

65 65

tragicomedy, Falk announced that the administration was not going to rehire eight of the

twelve Ethnic Studies faculty—what amounted to two-thirds of the campus’s Black and

Brown professors. The four faculty that were offered another year of employment were

Mrs. Chris Bessard, Sherley Williams, Gene Orro, and Jorge García. García was the only

faculty member from La Raza asked to return. The administration claimed that the

“action was taken on the approval of the current Ethnic Studies faculty,” even though no

such approval was made.191 In fact, the administration’s decision was made in spite of

the faculty’s recommendation that all eight be rehired. Indeed, given the number of

corroborative reports made by various faculty and administers, Falk had made up his

mind long before the public announcement of his decision. This would also help explain

his continual reluctance to cooperate with the Fresno Urban Coalition. Having been

rumored to happen for months, and repeatedly denied at the public forum the previous

day, the decision was not received well.

That night, two students firebombed the computer center, destroying the newly

leased IBM computer, over 900 student projects, and numerous admissions records; the

damage of which was estimated at one million dollars.192 Tensions were running high

the following morning as police patrolled the campus, responding to reports of potential

bombs, broken equipment, windows, glass doors, pulled fire alarms, and torn bulletin

boards.193 Black and Chicana/o students, feeling that their academic futures were under

direct assault by the administration and its conservative conspirators, armed themselves

191 “Walker only recommends 4 be rehired,” The Daily Collegian, 20 May 1970.

192 Seib, The Slow Death of Fresno State, 100.

193 “Falk declares FSC in state of emergency,” The Daily Collegian, May 21, 1970; Fresno State

College Police Radio Log, May 20, 1970, box 2, Campus Unrest 1969-1970 folder 2 of 3, University

Archives: Campus Unrest, Special Collections Research Center, California State University, Fresno.

66 66

with bats, chains, and pipes for protection.194 Falk declared a state of emergency in an

attempt to gain control of the volatile situation he created. At that time more than 2,000

students had gathered at a rally in the Free Speech area, including Black and Chicana/o

students from Fresno City College. A member of the Associated Student Body

announced the state of emergency to the crowd and urged them to disperse before police

intervened.195 Luckily, no incidents involving the police took place and violence was

limited to a few small scuffles.

Student demonstrations continued May 21. More than 800 students marched from

the Free Speech area to the corporation yard to confront President Falk, pulling fire

alarms and encouraging students to join along the way. Surrounding the administrators

were roughly 120 police officers who had been stationed in the corporation building since

the state of emergency was announced.196 The students demanded a meeting with Falk,

which he begrudgingly agreed to after refusing to meet with more than six individuals at

once and threatening to call off the meeting unless the crowd disbursed.197 Falk told the

group of six he had no intention of reversing the decision that terminated the eight faculty

from Ethnic Studies, spurring the crowd to march back though campus and onto Shaw

Avenue, blocking traffic and yelling “strike!” and “shut it down!”198 On the other side

of campus, aggies armed with hard hats, pipes, shovels, tire irons, crowbars, and clubs

received no scrutiny from officers as they “guarded” the Ag Science building and had

194 Fresno State College Police Radio Log, May 20, 1970, box 2, Campus Unrest 1969-1970

folder 2 of 3, University Archives: Campus Unrest, Special Collections Research Center, California State

University, Fresno.

195 Ray Steele Jr., “Data Center Loss $1 Million,” The Fresno Bee, 20 May 1970.

196 Ray Steele Jr., “FSC Tension Build as Students Meet with Falk,” The Fresno Bee, 21 May

1970.

197 “Falk says Ethnic Studies decision is irreversible,” The Daily Collegian, 22 May 1970.

198 “Falk says Ethnic Studies decision is irreversible,” The Daily Collegian, 22 May 1970.

67 67

tense standoffs with student protesters.199 Back on Shaw Avenue, students stopped

traffic on both sides of the street, nearly being ran over on several occasions by angry and

disapproving motorists who intentionally drove through the crowd.200 Police arrested 47

individuals, 31 of which were suspended by the administration for “illegal assembly”

under the state of emergency.201 Aside from a few fires started in the Psychology and

Social Science buildings on May 22, the campus had cooled down.

Figure 7: Fresno State College students shut down Shaw Avenue. Campus Yearbook

1970.

Trying to capitalize on this turbulent time, Republican state legislators took the

opportunity to criminalize students receiving state financial aid and to gut the Educational

Opportunity Program. Led by Republican assemblyman Victor V. Veysey, the state

199 Fresno State College Police Radio Log, May 21, 1970, box 2, Campus Unrest 1969-1970

folder 2 of 3, University Archives: Campus Unrest, Special Collections Research Center, California State

University, Fresno; Hal McWilliams, “College turmoil eases,” Fresno Guide, 25 May 1970.

200 Hal McWilliams, “College turmoil eases,” Fresno Guide, 25 May 1970.

201 George L. Baker, “Students Are Released on $1,100 Bail,” The Fresno Bee, 23 May 1970.

68 68

assembly supported an investigation of Fresno State College “to determine whether

disadvantaged students receiving state support were involved.”202 Veysey insinuated

that EOP would be eliminated “if funds are going to campus disrupters,” and declared he

would “not under any circumstances, or in any manner, show any leniency with the

hardcore militants whose only purpose is to destroy California’s outstanding colleges and

universities.”203 Though Republicans and other conservatives publicly voiced their

abhorrence for campus protests sweeping the nation, their actions showed how prepared

they were to opportunistically benefit from the moment. Tensions were also high between

students, as some white students on campus could be heard saying “burn Baker hall,”

“niggers will be niggers,” and “the South is right considering these people less than

human.”204 The atmosphere of racism and intolerance that had been created by Karl Falk

had boiled over.

Just prior to the May 19 announcement, Academic Vice President, Norman

Baxter, called Jorge García to make him an offer. Baxter said that after asking around, he

was told that García was “the least objectionable faculty member,” from La Raza

Studies.205 After what García facetiously called the “ringing endorsement” from Baxter,

he met with the terminated members of Raza Studies to discuss how they should move

forward. It was decided that they would stay united in their stance. García went back to

Baxter and told him he would take the job “under one condition, that [he] could hire back

everybody that they let off.”206 The administration, of course, had no intention of

allowing that to happen, and refused García’s terms. The three Black Studies professors

202 “Probe of aid to students in FSC unrest is bared,” The Fresno Bee, 30 May 1970.

203 “Probe of aid to students in FSC unrest is bared,” The Fresno Bee, 30 May 1970.

204 Baker Hall was the black and Chicana/o dormitory and housed the offices of the Ethnic

Studies faculty; Dale Ortman, Letter to the Editor, The Daily Collegian, 22 May 1970.

205 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

206 Jorge García, interview by author, 16 October 2019.

69 69

to be rehired had originally held a similar stance, but they soon chose to accept the

positions after it was decided amongst Black Studies that they should keep the program

going despite the terminations.207

During the California State College Board of Trustees meeting on May 27, 1970,

approximately 20 Black and Chicana/o students from San Francisco State and Fresno

State sat-in and asked to address the Board. Chancellor Dumke refused the students’

request and, instead, directed Vernon Ouellette—Chairman of the Investigation

Committee—to meet with them. While Ouellette spoke to the students outside, the Board

of Trustees requested that an investigation be conducted on the problems associated with

the Ethnic Studies programs at San Francisco State and Fresno State. Ouellette completed

the 38-page report on July 7, 1970, culminating a three-day investigation including over

50 interviews of administrators, faculty, students, and community members. It

acknowledged that tensions surrounding Fresno State’s Ethnic Studies department had

festered for years and centered on the “infighting between two very strong faculty

groups.”208 The two groups were undoubtedly—for lack of better terms—campus

conservatives and liberals. Revealing one of the go-to attacks that the conservative

faction perpetually used to assault Ethnic Studies, the report stated:

The La Raza Studies program was alleged to be academically weak. In an attempt

to gain some insight into the academics of the program, both faculty and students

were questioned. Several students reported that they had been required to do far

more outside reading and research in order to meet class requirements than in any

other department. It was impossible in the time allotted to make an in-depth study

of regular classroom activity, testing, and faculty capability, which would allow the

team to reach a conclusion concerning the academic level of the program.209

207 “3 plan to return to Ethnic Studies,” Fresno Guide, 3 June 1970.

208 The California State Colleges Office of the Chancellor, Investigation of Problems Associated

with the Ethnic Studies Program at Fresno State College, Vernon A. Ouellette. 1970, 3.

209 Office of the Chancellor, Investigation, 11.

70 70

The investigation ultimately determined that the actions taken by the administration were

careless, and the resulting unrest on campus was foreseeable and preventable. However,

they stopped short of placing the blame of the situation on Falk and his administration.

They stated that they did not have adequate time to determine the qualifications of the

Ethnic Studies’ faculty, but, from the interviews they conducted, were “impressed with

the sincerity and commitment that all [Ethnic Studies faculty] had to the program and

with the articulateness and intelligence with which they presented their various

positions.”210 The investigation also presented a crucial acknowledgement of the

disruptive role that Valley agribusiness played on campus and in the community in regard

to Ethnic Studies:

One other factor that should be mentioned in the way of background is the agri-

business complex of the San Joaquin Valley. This group, representing the large

growers in the San Joaquin Valley, resented the social activism of the La Raza

Program and Black Studies Program, since the social goals of the agriculturalists

are apparently quite different from the social goals of the Chicano students and the

Black students in the college programs. This has been a constant source of irritation

and is an important factor today.211

Despite this on-record acknowledgement, the investigation payed no attention to this

dynamic in its final conclusion. The Investigation Committee came to the judgement that

“the non-reappointment of the faculty members concerned was the only solution

available,” effectively exonerating the Falk administration of any ill-intent or

wrongdoing.212 The judgement contradicted their previously stated conclusion that in

order to “avoid continuing conflict… a vigorous effort should be made to either retain or

210 Office of the Chancellor, Investigation, 24.

211 Office of the Chancellor, Investigation, 4.

212 The California State Colleges Office of the Chancellor, 24.

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appoint faculty to La Raza Studies Program.”213 The administration made no serious

attempts to do either.

The report appeared impartial on the surface, but its conclusions were at odds

with its own findings. It conceded that the Ethnic Studies faculty was more than

competent to teach and that retaining them would have quelled much of the ongoing

controversy. And yet, it sided with Falk’s decision to not reappoint on the rationale that

too much damage had been done to reconcile the situation. By examining the previous

actions and statements made by Falk, Baxter, Dumke, and their supporters, it becomes

reasonable to conclude that the investigation was little more than an illusion of

impartiality and integrity through a token gesture of good faith. The administration was

able to eliminate the Raza Studies faculty through a bureaucratic execution, allowing

them to appear as if their hands were clean in the matter. The liberals, radicals, and

troublemakers were finally out, and the administration could now attempt to reshape the

La Raza Studies program as they saw fit.

The Baxter Administration

One week after the report, the Board of Trustees found a permanent replacement

for acting President, Karl Falk. Dr. Norman Baxter was appointed President of Fresno

State College on July 14, 1970. Any hopes of Baxter bringing some semblance of

stability immediately disappeared on September 8 when his administration announced the

cancellation of the entire Raza Studies program over “deep philosophic differences” with

the Chicana/o community.214 The college failed to hire a new faculty in the months

preceding the announcement even though La Mesa Directiva—an organization of

213 The California State Colleges Office of the Chancellor, 8.

214 Ray Steele Jr., “FSC Cancels La Raza Studies,” The Fresno Bee, 8 September 1970; Gerald P.

Merrell, “Baxter: Differences on Function Cancel FSC La Raza Studies,” The Fresno Bee, 10 September

1970.

72 72

students and community members—recommended several candidates. While the

administration claimed the candidates were unqualified, the reality, however, was that the

termination of the Raza Studies faculty was seen as an assault on the Chicana/o

community, prompting a silent boycott of the college.215 “It became evident that the

administration wasn’t going to yield,” recalled Risco, “It was either their way or no way.

We decided that to yield to them on those terms was to give up everything; so we decided

it was either our way or no way.”216 It was the unspoken consensus that the Chicana/o

community would remain united in the face of this hostility and qualified Chicana/o

professors would refuse all offers from FSC. They were not going to allow Baxter to

restructure La Raza Studies through a white man’s lens which would effectively strip the

program of its created purpose.

Attempting to mold a new and submissive faculty, Fresno State reached out to

numerous Chicanas/os that were thought to be controllable, but each refused the

positions.217 “Dr. Baxter’s action has not only worsened the Chicano community

relations,” stated La Mesa representatives, “but pushed them to an extremely explosive

level.”218 La Mesa and the community were upholding Raza Studies’ commitment to

self-determination: the “process of involving the whole community in the endeavor to set

their own priorities, the concrete and public dimension of their felt needs, and the

development of programmatic answers to the question of how to fulfill those needs.”219

215 Eliezer Risco, “Before Universidad de Aztlán: Ethnic Studies at Fresno State College,” In

Parameters of Institutional Change: Chicano Experiences in Education, ed. Southwest Network,

(Hayward: Southwest Network, 1974), 43.

216 Risco, Parameters of Institutional Change, 42.

217 Ray Steele Jr., “La Raza---Months of Confusion,” The Fresno Bee, 13 September 1970

218 Gerald P. Merrell, “Chicano Student Hit La Raza Cancellation,” The Fresno Bee, 9 September

1970

219 Draft Proposal for La Raza Studies Program at Fresno State College, 1969, 1.

73 73

In response to the cancellation, Chicanas/os organized a peaceful community protest of

the Fall semester registration on September 12, 1970.

Figure 8: Anti-Baxter illustrations. La Voz de Aztlán, 19 October 1970.

Virginia Sanchez and Steve Santos led the group of over one hundred community

demonstrators as they departed from the Admissions building and walked to the Men’s

Gymnasium, gathering in front of its doors to block registration. Many of the protesters—

like Teresa Pérez and Dolly Arredondo—were mothers with their children. “The

community became so upset that we came out to support the faculty,” remembered Pérez,

“a lot of the other women that had been involved came… and we brought our kids.”220

The supportive turnout represented the intimate relationship between the Chicana/o

community and the La Raza Studies program. The loss of the faculty meant the loss of

220 “Chicano History Revisited Fresno County- Dr Teresa Pérez,” YouTube video, 12:51,

“Chicano History Revisited,” 19 June 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RnuGMIJsKE&t=677s.

74 74

the community’s connection to the campus. Aggies could be seen all around the protest,

creating a tense atmosphere. The demonstration remained peaceful until campus police

pushed through the crowd and forced the gym doors open, prompting a group of young

Chicanos armed with clubs to rush the area. In a moment of desperation, the frustration of

the past eighteen months culminated in an unfortunate flash of violence. Eight students

were injured, effectively ending the protest and jeopardizing the integrity of the cause.

Ernie Palomino was hired in the Fall of 1970 in an attempt to pacify protesting

Chicanas/os and was the only professor teaching Raza courses that semester.221 While

he alone could not replace the lost program, Palomino—an innovative artist who painted

Fresno’s first Chicana/o mural—provided crucial support to Chicana/o students for the

next two semesters. After a year of consistent pressure by the Chicana/o community, the

program was fully reinstated in the Fall of 1971. Alex Saragoza was then hired to be La

Raza Studies’ new director and faced the challenging task of forming a new faculty. He

was in graduate school at Harvard University when he received the job offer from

President Baxter but was unaware of what transpired with the original faculty until he

called home and asked around. Saragoza felt that the importance of the short-lived

“Risco-era” was the ideology they established: “Eliezer, and the people that surrounded

him, came with a concept of La Raza Studies as it had begun to develop in the Bay Area

which was to look at the struggle of Chicanos within the context of a much larger

struggle… that was oriented toward the concept of the Third World.”222 For Saragoza,

the departure from a more nationalistic approach was highly significant. There was still

much resentment from the Chicana/o community, however, and Saragoza felt that he

needed to prove himself in order to gain the community’s trust. Chicana/o students from

221 Ernie Palomino, interview by author, 29 July 2019.

222 Alex Saragoza, interview by author, 9 September 2019.

75 75

MEChA were highly involved in the hiring process, creating a criteria to find candidates

with a social justice framework by asking questions like, “do you believe in

revolution?”223 Among the first new faculty were Lea Ybarra, Ernie Martínez, and

Teresa Pérez.

While the original faculty drew its strength from its diverse backgrounds, the new

faculty were almost exclusively from the Central Valley. Given the circumstances, this

proved to be an asset and aided the program in restoring the community’s confidence in

the new hires. Ybarra, Martínez, Pérez, and Saragoza were all crucial pieces as they were

each raised in the Valley and could utilize their established connections in their

respective communities.224 Ybarra was from Sanger, Martínez and Pérez were from

Fresno, and Saragoza was from Madera. Together, with others like Ernie Palomino, Hugo

Morales, and with the assistance of EOP Director Manuel Pérez, they formed a strong

group that focused on reestablishing La Raza Studies’ presence at Fresno State and in the

Central Valley’s Chicana/o community. Though the new faculty had to launch the

program once again, the first era of La Raza Studies planted the seeds for the second to

cultivate, easing some of the challenges of their journey forward and leaving a lasting

memory of Chicana/o resistance.

Conclusion

The first era of La Raza Studies at Fresno State College spanned only one

academic year. Fresno State’s continual failure to equitably serve all segments of its

community had bred a campus environment that reproduced the oppressive power

223 “Chicano History Revisited Fresno County- Dr Teresa Pérez,” YouTube video, 12:51,

“Chicano History Revisited,” 19 June 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RnuGMIJsKE&t=677s;

Lea Ybarra, interview by author, 26 September 2019.

224 Alex Saragoza, interview by author, 9 September 2019.

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dynamics of the Central Valley. Jose Luis Barraza, one of the young protesters who acted

in desperation, reflected on what the program meant to him: “I believed the purpose of

what Raza Studies stood for. I believed what the Raza faculty stood for. They believed in

unity, they believed in carnalismo, they believed in a movement that could change our

community for the better.”225 As brief as it was, the first era of La Raza Studies inspired

Valley Chicanas/os and provided the affirmation needed to continue the pursuit of

community justice through equitable education.

225 “Chicano History Revisited Fresno County- Mr Jose Luis Baraza,” YouTube video, 7:41,

“Chicano History Revisited,” 20 June 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShVXPs_vBXQ.

CONCLUSION

It is not enough to say that Chicanas/os encountered institutionalized racism in

Central Valley schools. The power and influence of Valley agribusiness embedded a

level of brazen arrogance deep within the systems of education. Unafraid to be

transparent about corrupt practices, school boards and educators freely expressed where

they believed their Mexican-origin students belonged; in the fields and devoid of any

academic ambition. Given this reality, Chicana/o education in the Central Valley was

quite literally a rigged system. The stories of Chicanas/os who came from these situations

and “made it,” are not examples of what could have been accomplished if a student just

worked hard enough. They demonstrate the precariousness of their experiences and the

perniciousness of designed academic failure.

California’s rural Central Valley posed a unique and seemingly insurmountable

challenge for the creation of a Chicana/o Studies program. The Chicana/o Student

Movement at Fresno State College demonstrated that the Farm Labor Movement was

inseparable to the Chicano Student Movement’s pursuit of educational equity in the

Central Valley, refuting the claims of many Chicana/o historians. Far beyond simply

reflecting the history of the Valley’s labor struggle, this thesis illustrates that the events at

Fresno State were an extension of that struggle as the children of both grower and

campesino shifted the arena from the fields to the campus. While the urban student

experience has been extensively documented, the rural student experience can no longer

remain in the periphery.

The struggle for La Raza Studies at Fresno State College was in many ways a

struggle over its objective. Fresno State’s administration clearly indicated that they

envisioned a Raza Studies program mirroring their definition of acceptable scholarship;

one that was devoid of any community component or emphasis. The inherent ideology of

78 78

La Raza Studies, however, rejected a notion of academic assimilation that would render it

indistinguishable from the rest of the academy. Instead, the faculty and students

attempted to implement community-centered instruction that reflected the program’s

founding principles. While the administration’s assault on Ethnic Studies over the hiring

of Marvin X defined the broader narrative, it was emblematic of La Raza Studies’

struggle for academic survival. The original faculty left behind a legacy of spirited

determination and an unyielding commitment to prioritizing the interests of the Chicana/o

community over their own careers. Indeed, this ambition ultimately led to their

terminations, but anything less would have certainly retarded future attempts to develop a

meaningful program. They viewed their hardline resistance as a necessary measure to

protect the integrity of their struggle. A more traditional or gradualist approach—like that

of Ralph Guzmán at Cal State LA—would have likely drawn little attention from the

administration, but would have sacrificed the program’s founding concept of self-

determination. In the end, the founding faculty closed the program’s first chapter on their

own terms, with agency.

EPILOGUE

As the push to implement Ethnic Studies programs gains traction in the state of

California—including a current Assembly Bill to make Ethnic Studies a requirement for

the California State University system—I believe that it is imperative to not lose sight of

the core principles these programs were founded on. The Chicana/o community was the

foundational bedrock of Chicana/o Studies, and it was created in order to serve the

community’s needs. Early Chicana/o faculties feared that—in the pursuit of

professionalization—Chicana/o educators would begin to prioritize career advancement

at the expense of disassociating themselves from the community, and, in effect, transform

their departments into a self-serving apparatus.

These fears, unfortunately, seem to have manifested in Fresno State’s Chicana/o

and Latin American Studies (CLAS) department—formerly La Raza Studies. This was

prominently displayed at the “50-year Anniversary of Ethnic Studies” celebration in

October of 2019. It was an amazing opportunity to celebrate and honor those faculty and

students who paved the way for future students of color. However, not a single original

faculty member from La Raza Studies—or any faculty from the 1971 rebuild—was

present on the panel. In fact, one of the most instrumental former faculty members, and

arguably the most prominent and ground-breaking Chicana scholar from the Central

Valley, Dr. Lea Ybarra, was not even extended an invitation to the event. Instead, she

became aware of the celebration through seeing a social media post the week before, as

did most other founding faculty. In speaking with various elders and activist leaders in

the Chicana/o community, this alienation by the department has not gone unnoticed.

This is further exemplified by some of the full-time faculty who have claimed that

the act of merely speaking with students from the confines of their offices amounts to

“community work” because, they have argued, “students are members of the

80 80

community.” It is beyond unfortunate that CLAS faculty are so disconnected that they

cannot even articulate a cogent description of community engagement. When they are

able to articulate that engagement, it usually only comes by way of rhetoric, not through

example.

Not only have they voiced a position of indifference, they have actively taken

steps to limit student-community engagement on a curricular level. Within the last year

the CLAS department gutted its community service-learning course. Despite arguments

in opposition, they reduced the long-held requirement of 90 service hours down to 15

hours, effectively rendering the course useless. This was a crucial bridge to connect

Chicana/o students with community organizations and provide them with the opportunity

to build authentic community relationships. I find this decision extremely disheartening,

and, in fact, insulting to the community’s intelligence.

I strongly encourage the department to critically, and introspectively, re-evaluate

its purpose. I believe an honest and public conversation—free of defensiveness—needs to

be had where the faculty takes responsibility for its absence from the community and

where they present a plan to reengage it that demonstrates a willingness to be held

accountable. The Central Valley’s Chicana/o community would be well served to have a

real connection once again with the Fresno State Chicana/o Studies department.

Despite this assessment, I remain optimistic. My experience working in the local

Chicana/o community has shown me first-hand how many amazing young people are

championing social justice causes at the ground level. These inspiring youth are leading

by example, not rhetoric. Their relentless advocacy and lobbying on issues such as the

school-to-prison pipeline, reproductive justice, culturally relevant curriculum, and mental

health, gives me confidence that the future of the community is in good hands.

C/S

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