Op.Ed. Ventura County Star

I received a holiday card this year with a special surprise from Sylvia Mendez. It was a U.S. Postal Service stamp commemorating the precedent-setting Mendez et al. v. Westminster School District of Orange County et al. (1946). As a graduate student in the early 1990s, I had the privilege of interviewing Sylvia and her mother, Felicitas, in their Fullerton home. Felicitas and her husband, Gonzalo, were the lead plaintiffs in a suit challenging their children's segregation in "Mexican schools."

The case demonstrated that systematic discrimination in the United States was not limited to African-Americans in the South but also targeted blacks, Asian Americans and Chicanos throughout the Southwest.

The Mendez decision held that separate-but-equal practices violated the constitutional rights of Chicano schoolchildren. Thurgood Marshall, lawyer for the NAACP and future U.S. Supreme Court justice, filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Mendez plaintiffs. The following year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision, but school boards throughout the state resisted desegregation remedies for decades.

In 1954, when Marshall successfully challenged the separate-but-equal doctrine as it applied to African-American children in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education, he cited the Mendez ruling.

Studying the Mendez case led me to wonder about historically high dropout rates among Chicanos. Over the years, I've asked Chicano parents, grandparents and great-grandparents throughout Ventura County about their schooling. The elders I spoke with described Mexican schools in Ventura, Santa Paula and Fillmore that were both separate from, and unequal to, those attended by white children.

And where budgets precluded the creation of Mexican schools, districts established segregated spaces within the schools. At the Woodrow Wilson School in Oxnard, for example, officials physically separated students of African, Asian and Mexican ancestry from their white peers, both in the classrooms and the playground. One person I interviewed said that Chicano children often relieved themselves behind trees because the nearest restroom was on the side of the playground designated for white students.

The same senior citizens also recalled the corporal punishment meted out to children who spoke Spanish at school. One Fullerton College counselor lamented the tight-lipped confusion he and his classmates endured. Unable to answer his teachers in English, and prohibited from speaking Spanish, he mostly remained silent while attending a Mexican school in Orange County. Chicano students who survived elementary and middle school were often tracked away from college preparatory courses and toward vocational and home economic classes.

Alienated and marginalized, 50 percent of Chicano youths dropped out — some contend they were pushed out — and then had to overcome educational handicaps to compete in the job market.

Southern California school districts weren't always quick to implement school desegregation. Before the Mendez and Brown decisions, Oxnard built neighborhood elementary schools (Juanita and Ramona) yards away from each other to prevent Chicano children of La Colonia from venturing outside their barrio for their education. In 1974, almost three decades after Mendez, U.S. District Court Judge Harry Pregerson used, in Debbie and Doreen Soria et al., Plaintiffs, v. Oxnard School District Board of Trustees, school board minutes from 1934 to show the "explicit intent to racially segregate its elementary school students." He ordered the Oxnard School District to implement a desegregation plan.

Desegregation was usually slow when it came at all, and recent studies show that American communities — and schools — are resegregating rapidly. The Mendez case reminds us that the problems of social equity now facing our children may be complex, but they're not wholly unprecedented. Income based on the education that persons received in previous generations now plays a large role in determining what neighborhoods their progeny live and where they send or do not send their children to school. This is the new face of segregation. If there is one thing that history reminds us it is that the struggle for social justice continues. Thank you for the stamp, Sylvia Mendez.

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Ventura County Star

An Invading Army: A Civil Gang Injunction in A Southern California Chicana/o Community

During my six years of probationary status as an assistant professor at California State University Channel Islands, I learned that self promotion is an important attribute in advancing one’s career in academe. With this in mind, I announce that my latest peer-reviewed journal publication in Latino Studies is now out. The essay explores the dramatic institution of a civil gang injunction in the city of Oxnard. To obtain a free copy visit:

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/lst/journal/v5/n4/index.html

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Dolores Huerta at Oxnard College

Yesterday Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, spoke at Oxnard College. In her presentation, Dolores Huerta spoke of the early achievements of the UFW in fighting for the provision of drinking water and sanitation facilities in the fields that workers labored, eliminating the use of the backbreaking short-handle hoe, improving the overall working environment for farm workers, and securing union contracts with agricultural employers.

In carrying on the legacy of the Community Service Organization that trained Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and many others, the Dolores Huerta Foundation trains and hires community organizers to carry on the struggle for social justice. Throughout her talk, Dolores Huerta urged the audience of college and high school students, faculty, staff, and administrators to become active in their communities to struggle for positive social change near and far.

Here is the URL to the local newspaper report on the event: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/nov/29/power-is-in-us-labor-leader-says-in-oxnard-talk/

Smithsonian Institution Advisory Board member Vicki L. Ruiz

University of California at Irvine professor of History and interim Dean of the Humanities, Vick L. Ruiz (http://www.humanities.uci.edu/history/faculty/ruiz/) has been elected to the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian Institution. Among the Smithsonian’s many initiatives, Professor Ruiz seeks to promote the Bracero History Project, in consortium with George Mason University, the Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas at El Paso, and the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University.

Indeed, during the spring of 2008 students, faculty, and staff at California State University Channel Islands will be conducting workshops and collecting oral histories to contribute to the Bracero History Project. A traveling exhibit is an aspect of the Bracero History Project to further document, exhibit, and share the multifaceted history the
Bracero Program. In April of 2008, CSUCI will incorporate the study of Bracero Program into its week-long celebration of the life of Cesar Chavez. (http://www.csuci.edu/news/releases/Events_Planned_to_Celebrate_Legacy_of_César_Chávez.htm)

Currently, I am documenting the history of Cesar Chavez’s organizing as director of the Community Service Organization in Ventura County from 1958 to late 1959. During this time Cesar Chavez and the Chicana/o community of Ventura County fought the displacement of domestic workers by the agricultural industry’s ever increasing use of braceros. Indeed, this struggle and momentary victory inspired Cesar Chavez to resign from the CSO to create the United Farm Workers Union in Delano, California.

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Chicana/o Studies Tenure-Track Opening at California State University Channel Islands

Tenure-Track Chicana/o Studies Recruitment
California State University Channel Islands
Open Date: 10/7/07
Review Begins: 11/2/07
Open until filled

Position Description / Responsibilities : CSUCI seeks applicants at the Assistant, Associate or Full Professor level to implement the Bachelor of Arts program in Chicana/o Studies, scheduled to open in the fall of 2008. Associate/Full Professor Required Qualifications: A Ph.D., Ed.D., or MFA in an academic home discipline in education, the arts, social sciences or humanities with expertise in Chicana/o Studies, Latina/o Studies, and/or Transborder Studies; administrative experience and curriculum and program development experience; a record of effective teaching with a variety of methodologies and theoretical approaches; a record of scholarly achievement; and experience with and commitment to working in multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural environments on an off campus. Associate/Full Professor Preferred Qualifications: Spanish language fluency; experience with experiential and service learning pedagogies. Assistant Professor Required Qualifications: A Ph.D., Ed.D., or MFA in an academic home discipline in education, the arts, social sciences or humanities with expertise in Chicana/o Studies, Latina/o Studies, and/or Transborder Studies; demonstrate the potential to create a record of effective teaching with a variety of methodologies and theoretical approaches; detail a scholarly agenda to achieve tenure and promotion; demonstrate the capacity to assume administrative, curriculum, and programmatic responsibilities appropriate to this rank; and experience with and commitment to working in multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural environments. Preferred Qualifications: Spanish proficiency; willingness to adopt experiential and service learning pedagogies.

Minimum Degree Requirements: Ph.D., Ed.D., or MFA in an academic home discipline in education, the arts, social sciences or humanities with expertise in Chicana/o Studies, Latina/o Studies, and/or Transborder Studies.

Required Qualifications: Associate/Full Professor Required Qualifications: Administrative experience and curriculum and program development experience; a record of effective teaching with a variety of methodologies and theoretical approaches; a record of scholarly achievement; and experience with and commitment to working in multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural environments on an off campus.

Preferred Qualifications: Associate/Full Professor Preferred Qualifications: Spanish language fluency; experience with experiential and service learning pedagogies. Evidence of commitment and ability to work in teams. Assistant Professor Required Qualifications: Spanish proficiency; willingness to adopt experiential and service learning pedagogies.Assistant Professor Required Qualifications: Demonstrate the potential to create a record of effective teaching with a variety of methodologies and theoretical approaches; detail a scholarly agenda to achieve tenure and promotion; demonstrate the capacity to assume administrative, curriculum, and programmatic responsibilities appropriate to this rank; and experience with and commitment to working in multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural environments.

For details visit: https://www.csucifacultyjobs.com/applicants/jsp/shared/frameset/Frameset.jsp?time=1192194411370

Ventura County Farm Worker History

Manuel Unzueta presented a lecture on Saturday, October 6th, at the Rancho Sespe community center in the city of Fillmore, California. Unzueta spoke on the origins of farm worker corridos that emerged out of a joint project in the 1970s consisting of University of California at Santa Barbara academics and the Casa de la Raza. In promoting the Unzueta lecture, Ventura County activist Moses Mora detailed that, “some (then) young local Chicano academics put forth a call to farmworkers from Santa Maria to Ventura County to submit poetry and songs about their lives. They were overwhelmed with the response and got the Library of Congress in documenting this history.” A book was also published. Titles within the Alma Chicana de Aztlan cd are: El Corrido del Chicano/Mexicano, El Corrido del Rancho Sespe, La Sobrina, Corrido del Chino Valdez, La Despedida al Rancho Sespe, El Mojado, Yo Soy Mexicano Señores, Tanto Tienes, Tanto Vales, Corrido del Campesino and Corrido a Damian García. These songs document the experiences of struggle and perseverance among farm workers.

Before the lecture Aztec dancers performed before guest and residents of the Rancho Sespe farm worker housing community of the Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation. Moses Mora, Dr. Gabino Aguirre, and Manuela Aparicio-Twitchell are currently organizing Manuel Unzueta speaking engagements in Santa Paula, Oxnard, and, possibly, at California State University Channel Islands.
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C.V.

Curriculum Vitae
July, 23, 2021

Frank P. Barajas
Professor History Program and Chicana/o Studies
California State University Channel Islands
One University Drive
Camarillo, CA 93012
805.437.8862; frank.barajas@csuci.edu
http://www.frankpbarajas.blogspot.com/

Areas of expertise.
California History. Chicana/o History. Education. Immigration. Labor History. Race and Ethnicity.

EDUCATION:
AA Moorpark College Moorpark, California

BA and MA History California State University, Fresno Fresno, California

PhD History Claremont Graduate University Claremont, California

TEACHING
2012- Professor
2007 Professor
Associate Professor at California State University Channel Islands
2001 Assistant Professor at California State University Channel Islands
1992-2001 Tenured at Cypress College.

2016-2018; 2019- Chair of History and Chicana/o Studies

Courses: U.S., California, and Chicana/o History

SCHOLARLY AND CREATIVE ACTIVITIES
PUBLICATIONS: Peer Reviewed

Mexican Americans with Moxie: A Tran-Generational History of El Movimiento Chicano in Ventura County California, 1945-1975. University of Nebraska Press, 2021.

“Decolonizing the Newspaper: The Historian and the Op-Ed.” Perspectives on History. February 2015 53 2: 38-39. (https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/february-2015/decolonizing-the-newspaper)

“Community and Measured Militancy: The Ventura County Community Service Organization, 1958-1968.” Southern California Quarterly 96 no. 3 (Fall 2014): 313-349.

Curious Unions: Mexican American Workers and Resistance in Oxnard, California, 1898-1961. University of Nebraska Press, 2012.

David G. Garcia, Tara J. Yosso, and Frank P. Barajas"'A Few of the Brightest, Cleanest Mexican Children': School Segregation as a Form of Mundane Educational Racism in Oxnard, California, 1900-1940." Harvard Educational Review Spring 2012: 1-25.

“An Invading Army: A Civil Gang Injunction in a Southern California Chicana/o Community.” Latino Studies 5 no. 4 (Winter 2007): 393-417.

“The Defense Committees of Sleepy Lagoon: A Convergent Struggle against Fascism, 1942-1944.” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 31 no. 1 (Spring 2006): 33-62.

“Resistance, Radicalism, and Repression on the Oxnard Plain: The Social Context of the Betabelero Strike of 1933.” Western Historical Quarterly XXXV no. 1 (Spring 2004): 27-51.

Non-Peer Reviewed

"The Vexation of History In An Age Of Police Violence." History News Network. June 14, 2014.
(https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/175956)

"Remembrances, Race, and Role Models: The Renaming of a Middle School." History News Network. February 9, 2020 (https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/174247) LatinoLA. January 30, 2020 (http://latinola.com/story.php?story=15183)

"Proposition 187's Twenty Fifth Anniversary." November 2, 2019.

“Say It Ain’t So Joe: Strategies of Segregation in Ventura County.” History News Network. July 14, 2019. (https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/172519?fbclid=IwAR11DNP3SUith_8SVhR4TvNCzHBXrVKXY1_qNq7zi9pGBFoheVU-HtCe7O0)

“Critic of Oxnard Police will get his day in court.” Ventura County Star newspaper. July 11, 2015. (http://www.vcstar.com/opinion/columnists/frank-p- barajas-trial-to-examine-claim-by-oxnard-police-critic_63604643)

“Murgia of the Past and Present.” Amigos805. July 15, 2015. (http://amigos805.com/guest-commentary-murgia-of-the-past-and-present) --“Murgia of the Past and Present.” LatinoLA. July 13, 2015. (http://latinola.com/story.php?story=13590)

“I got mine. You’re out of luck!” Ventura County Star newspaper. May 16, 2015. (http://www.vcstar.com/opinion/columnists/frank-p-barajas-i-got-mine-youre-out- of-luck_54013186)

“Do something about immense student debt in California.” The Bakersfield Californian newspaper. May 17, 2015. (http://www.bakersfield.com/Opinion/2015/05/04/FRANK-P-BARAJAS- Do-something-about-immense-student-debt-in-California.html)

“Making college affordable for California students.” Ventura County Star newspaper. February 5, 2015. (http://www.vcstar.com/opinion/columnists/frank-p-barajas-making-college- affordable-for-california-students_22857506)

“Governor, legislature need to make college more afforcable.” The Bakersfield Californian. January 23, 2015. (http://www.bakersfield.com/Opinion/2015/01/23/FRANK-BARAJAS- Governor-legislature-need-to-make-college-more-affordable.html)

“Are We Giving Cesar Too Much Credit.” History News Service (http://hnn.us/search?q=barajas) April 7, 2014.

“Remember the Latinos in the ‘So Go Created a Farmer’ Super Bowl Ad Last Year? Neither Do We.” History News Network (http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/154604) January 30, 2014.

“The National Park Service Explores the History of Farm Labor in America.” History News Service (http://historynewsservice.org/2011/05/the-national-park- service-explores-the-history-of-farm-labor-in-america/) May 3, 2011.
“Park Service Explores the History of Farm Labor.” Ventura County Star newspaper. May 7, 2011.
--Dallas Morning News link to Ventura County Star
--“Reconstructing the History of Farm Labor in America.” The Bakersfield Californian.” May 7, 2011.
“The National Park Service Explores the History of Farm Labor in America.” History News Network (http://hnn.us/articles/139080.html) May 8, 2011.

“The Alinsky, Chavez, Obama Connection.” Ventura County Star newspaper. November 2, 2008.

“The Alinsky, Chavez, Obama Connection.” San Benito News newspaper. November 2, 2008.

“New Face of Segregation.” Ventura County Star newspaper. January 20, 2008. “Democracy, history linked.” Ventura County Star newspaper. September 27, 2007.
“Labor (and Community) Day.” Ventura County Star newspaper. August 31, 2007.
“Entertaining Democracy.” Ventura County Star newspaper. September 3, 2006.
BOOK REVIEWS:
The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas by Monica Muñoz Martinez. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018) for The Journal of American History, December 2019 106 3: 387.

Defiant Braceros: How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom by Mireya Loza. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016) for California History, Winter 2017: 62-64.

Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest by Mario Jimenez Sifuentez. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2016) for the Journal of American History, June 2017 104 10: 274-275.

From South Texas to the Nation: The Exploitation of Mexican Labor in the Twentieth Century by John Weber. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015) for the Western Historical Quarterly, Summer 2016 47 3: 353-354.

Power and Control in the Imperial Valley: Nature, Agribusiness, and Workers on the California Borderland, 1900-1940 by Benny Andrés Jr. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2015) for the Western Historical Quarterly, Winter 2015 46 4: 526-527.

Palomino: Clinton Jencks and Mexican-American Unionism in the American Southwest by James J. Lorence. (University of Illinois Press, 2013) for the New Mexico Historical Review, Summer 2014: 409-410.

Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870 to 1930 by Jeffrey Marcos Garcilazo (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2012) for the American Historical Review, December 2013 118 5: 409-410.

El Cinco De Mayo: An American Tradition by David E. Hayes-Bautista. (University of California, 2012) for The Historian, Winter 2013 75 4 918-920.

Justinian Caire and Santa Cruz Islands: The Rise and Fall of a California Dynasty by Frederic Caire Chiles. Arthur H. Clark Co., 2011) for the Journal of San Diego History, Spring 2012 28 1⁄2: 106-108.

Cosecha Triste: El Programa Bracero/Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program by Gilbert G. Gonzalez and Vivian Prince (Self-Produced) for the Pacific Historical Review, February 2012 81 1: 123-125.

Chicano Studies: The Genesis of a Discipline by Michael Soldatenko. (University of Arizona Press, 2009) for the Pacific Historical Review, February 2011 80 1: 144-145.

The Union of Their Dreams: Power, Hope, and Struggle in Cesar Chavez’s Farm Worker Movement by Miriam Pawel. (Bloomsbury Press, 2009) for the Western Historical Quarterly, Summer 2011 42 2: 250-251.

Mexicans in California: Transformations and Challenges by Ramon A. Gutierrez and Patricia Zavella. (University of Illinois Press, 2009) for Camino Real, December 2010 2 3: 181-182.

North for the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers & the Sugar Beet Industry by Jim Norris. (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009) for the Journal of American History, March 2010 96 4: 1235.

The Power of the Zoot: Youth Culture and Resistance during World War II by Luis Alvarez. (University of California Press, 2008) for the Western Historical Quarterly, Autumn 2009 40 3: 382.

Beasts of the Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769-1913 by Richard Steven Street. (Stanford University Press, 2004) for the Western Historical Quarterly Autumn 2005 36 3: 377-378.

PRESENTATIONS
“El Plan de Santa Barbara: Accountability and the Development of Leaders At California State University Channel Islands.” Presented at the 50th Anniversary Conference El Plan de Santa Barbara. February 22, 2019 University of California at Santa Barbara.

“Writing the Past and Present: The Historian as Participant Observer.” Presented at the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, August 6, 2016 Waikoloa, Hawaii.

“The Movement Before El Movimiento: Farmworker Advocacy and Organization Programs in Ventura County, 1961-1967.” Presented at the Sal Castro Memorial Conference. February 24, 2016 University of California at Santa Barbara.

“Mexican American with Moxie: Rachel Murguia Wong’s Struggle to Defend School Integration, 1968-1973.” Presented at Nuestra América: Rethinking Fronteras in US History A Conference Honoring the Career of Vicki L. Ruiz. February 20, 2015 University of California at Irvine.

“An Environment of Contention: Rachel Wong’s Struggle to Defend School Integration” Presented at the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, August 15, 2015 Portland Oregon.

National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Conference “Before Delano: Cesar Chavez and the Community Service Organization in a Southern California Community, 1958-1959. April 22, 2008 Austin Texas.

University of California at Los Angeles Conference “The Sleepy Lagoon Case, Constitutional Rights, and the Struggle for Democracy: A Commemorative Symposium”presentation. The Evolution of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. May 21, 2005 University of California Los Angeles. http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/special/scweb/slexhibit.htm