Welcome to Chican@ Studies!

Official statement in support of #BlackLivesMatter here.

Spanish version of official statement in support of #BlackLivesMatter here.

Established in Fall 1970, the Chicana/o Studies Department emerged from Black and Chicana/o student activism, most notably the North Hall building take-over in Fall 1968 and the El Plan de Santa Barbara conference held at the Francisco Torres residential hall in April 1969. 

The UCSB Chicana/o Studies Department was the first such unit in the entire UC system.  Chicanx/Latinx student organizing, namely the 1989 and 1994 hunger strikes, strengthened the Department over time, leading to the creation of the world's first doctoral program in Chicana/o Studies which began in 2003.  The Chicana/o Studies Department engages students in the interdisciplinary study of Chicana and Chicano history, culture, and politics. 

The Department is fully committed to social justice and uprooting all systems of inequality.  In partnership with affiliated faculty from across campus and Feminist and Black Studies Ph.D. emphasis programs, the Department's B.A./M.A./Ph.D. programs challenge students to link theory with practice, scholarship with teaching, and the academy with the community.

 

Congratulations to Professor Silvia Rodriguez Vega for her new book, Drawing Deportation: Art and Resistance among Immigrant Children, published by NYU Press and released on February 2023.

Dr. Cherrie Moraga, Internationally recognized poet, essayist, playwright, and memoirist, as well as Professor and faculty member at the Department of English at UCSB, will receive the 23rd Annual Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature.

The award will be presented during a ceremony on Wednesday, February 8th 2023 in the McCune Room at the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at University of California, Santa Barbara. The event is free and open to the public. 

 

  1. Luis Leal Award

Yucatec Maya rapper Pat Boy will be coming to UCSB on March 1st, 2023! 

  1. March 1, 2023 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm