Toward a Critical Race History: Archival/Oral History Methods and Student Activism in Higher Education Institutions

• In Event: Challenging Ahistoricism: Historical Methods in Critical Race Studies in Education

Abstract

There is a growing area of research that uses historical methods in education research (Anderson, 1988; Donato, 2009; García 2013; and Ledesma, 2013). This project is a historical case study on a student led social movement that led to the establishment of the Chicana/o Studies Department at UCLA between 1990 and 2007. In this project, I am interested in contributing to Education research that uses historical methods, specifically oral history and archival research through a critical race theory lens. Further, I am interested in discussing how to use historical methods in Education research.

In their third tenet, Mari Matsuda, et al. (1993) describe that critical race theory in the law, “challenges ahistoricism and insists on a contextual/historical analysis of the law…and adopts a stance that presumes that racism has contributed to all contemporary manifestations of group advantage and disadvantage” (p. 6). I bring this perspective into education research, specifically to locate historical patterns that shape racialized experiences for Students of Color in higher education institutions. I also use the tenets of critical race theory in education (Ladson-Billings, 1998 and Solórzano, 1997) to locate the role of race and racism in higher education institutions.

The methods employed in this project include oral history and archival research. Michel-Rolph Trouillot (1995) argues that, “…history begins with bodies and artifacts: living brains, fossils, texts, buildings…In history, power begins at the source” (p. 29). I read Trouillot’s assertion as an invitation to triangulate historical methods (in this project, oral history and archival research) to piece together an historical narrative. This paper presents initial findings of 1) 45 oral histories of participants in the departmentalization efforts and 2) eight archives found in institutions and participant’s homes.

The findings in this project are two-fold. First, I provide a practical model for researchers and practitioners interested in using historical methods in educational research. Second, this project finds that student leaders experienced social and institutional racism for their efforts. This hostility is informed by a larger political shift in California that includes neo-liberal and racist policies (Propositions 187, 209, and 227) that shaped the experiences of Students of Color. However, student leaders employed multiple forms of resistance, and eventually their efforts coalesced with UCLA administration into establishing a new center that gained department status in 2005. In 1990, Chicana/o Studies was recommended for suspension by the academic senate, and now in 2017, the department is comprised of 16 faculty, six doctoral student cohorts, and thousands of majors and minors graduated at the undergraduate level. This is a story of resistance via interest convergence (Bell, 1980) where the demands of student activists were partially met by UCLA administration. This project is significant because it helps scholars and practitioners connect the past to current trends of racial hostility in higher education institutions in relationship to a political shift to the conservative right under the Trump administration.

Author

• José Manuel Aguilar-Hernández, California State Polytechnic University - Pomona