UCLA finally has a Chicana and Chicano studies department after
more than a decade of struggle and effort. The César E.
Chávez Center in Interdisciplinary Chicana/o Studies was first
created in 1993 after students and faculty members engaged in a
hunger strike.
Since then, the center has moved slowly toward
departmentalization and the greater recognition and resources
associated with that official status. Now it is ready to
blossom.
One of the major issues which slowed the final approval of the
department was related to its name: Many wanted to honor César
Chávez by including his name in the department’s
official title.
While honoring Chávez’s legacy is a worthwhile idea,
a departmental name is not the way to do it. It would be equally
inappropriate to have the Pete Wilson Department of Political
Science or the Silvio Berlusconi Department of Italian.
But the naming issue aside, the department is poised to become
one of the premier academic units in the country. The chance to
offer graduate degrees in Chicana/o studies will attract top minds
from across the nation and the world. Los Angeles is a paradigm of
21st century diversity and evolving globalism. There is no better
place than this city (UCLA in particular) to explore and further
Chicana/o studies, including the study of immigration, health care,
education and culture.