The Sacramento Movimiento Chicano and Mexican American Education Oral History Project

In the late 1960s, Sacramento State University served as an important site for Chicana/o student organizers who sought to revolutionize academia from inside and make impactful changes in the community. In November 2012, a group of Chicana/o movement elders and allies came together and formed The Sacramento Movimiento Chicano and Mexican American Education Oral History Project (hereafter, “Project”). The purpose of the collective was to record Chicana/o movement activists/participants’ oral histories about their involvement and contributions in the Mexican American civil rights movement in Sacramento from 1965 through 1980.

The Project was successful in collecting 98 richly detailed and textured oral histories. The interviewers were, for the most part, conducted by undergraduate students who were enrolled in Professor, Dr. Lorena V. Márquez’s qualitative methods courses at the University of California at Davis. The Project comes at a critical time as many of the early activists, some forty-five years later, are now in their 80s and 90s. Some have died. With their passing has gone their history of struggle and the mindset which prompted them to make the critical civil rights changes. We are grateful that we were able to reach so many of the influential activists and record their insights and knowledge.

Sam Rios, the late Sac State professor of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies, was one of the many significant voices in the Chicano movement of the 1960s and '70s. (Photo courtesy of Lorena Márquez)

The Sacramento State University Library was gifted the 98 video histories from the The Sacramento Movimiento Chicano and Mexican American Education Oral History Project in December 2020. This collection of interviews provides a rich and vibrant history linking cultural resilience, and qualitative research to community and social change. The 98 narratives reveal a layered understanding of the Chicana/o movement in Northern California, and more specifically Sacramento. The counter-stories the activists relayed provide a critical context to understanding and transforming past beliefs and knowledge. The narrative voices are grounded in real life experiences and are contextualized in the social situation of the time with the added reflection of their lives today.

University Library staff are reviewing the videos and placing them on the library servers so they can be viewed by scholars and students around the world. Simultaneously, full transcripts of the videos are being created and placed on library servers. We anticipate this work will be completed during the fall of 2021.

This picture, showing Cesar Chavez (front row, third from left) and other notable activists, provided notice of a 2013 reunion of members of the Chicano movement to be held at Sac State. (Image courtesy of Lorena Márquez)