A curated selection of articles that provides insights into the TWLF strike. This collection offers a wide range of perspectives on the origins, impact, and enduring legacy of TWLF, highlighting its significant role in shaping discussions on Ethnic Studies, social justice, and educational reform.
This article commemorates the 150th Anniversary of the UC Regents' approval to allow women to be admitted into the UC system on equal standing with men. In doing so, the article looks at the matriarchs of the Ethnic Studies department, especially those who were involved in the 1969 TWLF Strike at UC Berkeley. This article covers oral histories from LaNada War Jack, Victoria Wong, Lea Ybarra, Evangelina Michel Genera, Clementina Duron, Estella Quintanilla, Maria Elena Ramirez, and Theresa Loya Asturias.
“This historical case study of the 1960s student strikes at San Francisco State College and The University of California, Berkeley determines what reforms related to multicultural engagement were sought by the protestors and the methods used to achieve these goals. Strikers at each school were seeking the creation of ethnic studies academic programs. Findings suggest that with support from community leaders and faculty, student strikes can remain peaceful and result less frequently in violence.”
“The history of the creation of academic ethnic studies departments in the 1960s often focuses on relationships between popular social movements and activists on campuses of research universities. This history often neglects the emergence of ethnic studies programs at community colleges serving working-class students. Community colleges were the public institutions of higher education that enrolled (and still enroll) the greatest number of working-class students (of color). There are more than one hundred community colleges across California, which serve as the primary entry point to higher education for Latinas/os. This article presents a history of battles over ethnic studies at the College of San Mateo in California in order to explore the dialectic of reform and revolution as it unfolded there. Postwar liberalism created new opportunities and offered new promises by opening up new spaces for Latinas/os and other students of color. Yet these transformations also laid the groundwork for frustration because of both structural and ideological limitations in these institutions. Frustrations with Cold War liberalism played an important role at the College of San Mateo in promoting a greater embrace of revolutionary politics among students of color from working-class backgrounds. The struggle at San Mateo also illuminates an often forgotten dimension of the Chicana/o movement—its affinities for inter-ethnic anti-racist coalitional work. In contrast to Southern California and other locations in the West and Southwest, in the Bay Area cultural nationalism rarely became the ideological touchstone for Latina/o radicalism. Chicanas/os in Northern California often lived, worked, and organized alongside Latinas/os from Central America, thereby contributing to a more expansive political identification. La Raza Unida Party in Northern California, for instance, defined Raza as anyone with roots in Latin America, while San Francisco State University implemented a Department of Raza Studies instead of Chicana/o Studies. At the same time, a distinctly Third Worldist discourse shaped Latina/o politics, born of the interconnections that existed between various communities of color in the region. While a regional movement of Third World students existed in the Bay Area that included Berkeley, San Francisco State, San Jose State, Laney Community College, and a host of inner-city high schools, this essay places the College of San Mateo at the center of the story.”
“Introducing a process model of power and institutional change, I argue that actors may seek power by creating, supporting, or modifying institutions. Lacking unilateral authority to enact new institutions, actors can leverage symbolic resources into coercive resources, which may require making concessions to multiple logics and stakeholders. The emergent organizations and institutions are then subject to adjustment to stakeholder and regulator expectations. The argument is illustrated in a case study of the 1968 Third World Strike at San Francisco State College, where the college president strove to increase his authority so he could prevail in a dispute with student activists.”
“This essay reflects on five decades of growth of the nation’s first Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University (SFSU AAS), focusing on its primary commitment to community empowerment and critical “community service learning” (CSL) and also highlighting past and present struggles, challenges, and innovations. This collectively written analysis summarizes SFSU AAS departmental approaches to CSL and community-based participatory research and highlights two case studies: (1) refugees from Burma community health needs research and advocacy in Oakland and (2) the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network. We conclude by describing how we are applying our model and building support for critical CSL and argue that AAS and ethnic studies must reclaim CSL from the dominant “charity-based” model or risk losing our social justice orientation and commitment to empowerment and self-determination for our communities.”
"The article discusses the significance of the U.S. ethnic studies with a focus on the Third World. It mentions the presence of transnationalism in ethnic studies. It mentions the debate between scholars Emory Elliot and Winfried Fluck regarding ethnic studies. It further mentions the coalitional group Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) and several ethnic-specific student groups including the Black Student Union (BSU) and the Mexican American Students Confederation (MASC)."
In her Ph.D. dissertation, Professor Ziza Delgado analyzes the historical foundation and theoretical framework of the 1969 Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) movement, which resulted in the creation of an Ethnic Studies Department at UC Berkeley. She examines the TWLF as a campaign for self-determination that introduced politically relevant curriculum and pedagogy at UC Berkeley. The new course context was more than just culturally relevant: the study of Native Americans, Chicano/Latinos, Asian Americans and African Americans added a new study of the life, experiences, and culture of communities previously omitted from course curriculum. However, her definition of politically relevant includes the elements of culturally relevant and goes a step further, arguing that a strong radical political framework influenced every aspect of the newly formed field of ethnic studies and black studies. Review dissertation