"Stolen is Our Land, Education is Our Stand!" Mexican-American Educational Access and Activism, University of Colorado, Boulder, 1968- 1979

My research analyzes the impact of the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and United Mexican American Students (UMAS) activism on minority recruitment and support at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1968-1979.... [ view full abstract ]

My research analyzes the impact of the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and United Mexican American Students (UMAS) activism on minority recruitment and support at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1968-1979. Mexican-American students at CU Boulder engaged in an impressive breadth and depth of activism that demanded administrative support for minority students, further developed Mexican-American Chicanx identity, and created change within their own community and within the larger campus. The 1968 creation of the EOP, a nation-wide college access program for minority students, coincided with the July 1968 formation of UMAS, a Mexican-American activist and support organization within the Chicanx movement, at CU Boulder. The combination of these two minority-support organizations occurred as students across the nation rebelled against the status quo, and as Mexican-Americans adopted a new, self-determinant political ideology, starting the Chicanx movement. In order to understand the Chicanx movement at CU Boulder, I examine the history of Latinx people in the Southwest, the beginning of assimilationist Mexican-American civil rights organizations, the onset of the Chicanx student movement in California, and the development of the Chicanx movement in Colorado. Through access to an extensive array of primary sources from the University of Colorado Special Collections & Archives and oral history interviews, I then analyze the extent and impact of the EOP and UMAS activism on campus.