Overview
In 1969 Manuel Delgado (center) was a leader in the Mexican American Students Confederation, one of the four groups that banded together to form the Third World Liberation Front. Their demands for an autonomous Third World (Ethnic Studies) College resulted in the formation of the Ethnic Studies Department. Photo: courtesy the Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley
The Minority-Majority State
By 2000 California had become a minority-majority state. This means that no single racial or ethnic group can claim to be the majority population group in California.
During the 1960s, groups once dismissed as powerless immigrants staked their claim in the state with greater drive and a stronger voice. The following are just a few examples of the changes they brought about.
College Campus Strikes and the Birth of Ethnic Studies
Among the many high-profile incidents that occurred in California were the college campus strikes organized by Black, Brown, and Yellow Power groups in 1968. Participants in these actions credit the earlier Black Civil Rights movement with providing the inspiration along with many of the ideas supporting their agenda for change. Also taking cues from earlier immigrant rights struggles and the peace and free speech movements, these new student groups brought a distinctive voice to the struggle for ethnic rights.
Advocating for a voice in the educational system, students on college campuses protested the racial inequality within their schools, and the lack of ethnic representation in teachings, by going on strike. Due to the efforts of student strikers, departments of ethnic studies and courses such as African American history, and Chicano studies were instituted. The culture of universities in California was changed forever.