Coalition Backs Call for Chicano Studies Dept. : Education: Students and community groups ask for meeting with Chancellor Young to discuss future of UCLA program.

Some Latino students from UCLA took their battle for a Chicano studies department to Olvera Street on Wednesday, where a broad-based coalition of groups announced its support for the students’ demands.

At a news conference on the historic street in downtown Los Angeles, the coalition--called the United Community and Labor Alliance--demanded that Chancellor Charles Young meet with its members to discuss the future of a separate Chicano studies department on the Westwood campus.

They also asked university officials to end what they labeled as harassment of students and professors who support the expansion of UCLA’s present Chicano studies program.

“This is symbolic, because this is where the Mexican community began in Los Angeles,” Marcos Aguilar, one of a handful of Latino students present Wednesday, said of the gathering. “This is a less hostile environment than the UCLA campus. This is a better place to extend our campaign into the community.”

At issue is a demand by the students of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) that the university establish a separate department and hire a permanent faculty to offer a bachelor’s curriculum in Chicano studies. The university’s current program, which operates on a budget of $150,000, has only 11 students majoring in Chicano studies.

Interdisciplinary Chicano studies courses, involving the history and contemporary issues facing Mexican-Americans in the United States, have been popular on the UCLA campus for more than 20 years. But faculty and students complain that the curriculum has been suffering from inadequate funding.

“I can’t believe that in Southern California, with a population and history that it has, that they would not have a Chicano studies department,” said Los Angeles Board of Education President Jackie Goldberg, who joined others in supporting the students’ demands.

“They are being racist. It is racism. That is why they don’t want to have a separate department,” said Juana Gutierrez of Mothers of East Los Angeles.

State Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), who attended the meeting, vowed to use his power as chairman of the University of California admissions committee to hold up funding for UCLA if Young refuses a meeting.

The coalition includes the Mexican American Education Committee, the Los Angeles Regional Chicano Moratorium Committee, the United Farmworkers of America and Olvera Street Merchants Assn.

One student, Minnie Ferguson, told the news conference that the university faculty has been trying to intimidate other students into not taking part in their action by saying that their involvement could “work against us in terms of getting recommendations for graduate school.”

Professor Juan Gomez-Quinonez said he had received a letter from the UCLA administration urging that he not become involved in the Chicano studies campaign.

Associate Vice Chancellor Raymund Paredes said he was unaware of any harassment of UCLA students and faculty.

“Those kinds of allegations are very serious and would be investigated,” he said.

Paredes said Young, who was out of town Wednesday, will probably meet with students and community leaders when he returns.

“We are all in agreement that we need a strong Chicano studies program,” Paredes said. “The students who have rallied community support are insistent that a department be adopted immediately. It requires a thorough examination. It is an academic issue and there is a committee looking into the issue, how it will be structured, and they will make recommendations.”

Paredes said the students seeking a Chicano studies department do not represent the majority of the 4,000 Latino students on campus, who he said “are not taking courses in Chicano studies. They are majoring in the conventional fields like English, history and science.”