Changing face of Chicano studies

Armando Solorzano sees his lectures on the Chicano experience as bringing alive the history of suffering and struggle of his own people.

For Solorzano, University of Utah associate professor of family and consumer studies, it's an effort to connect with his students — most of whom are white.

That's the opposite of the beginning of Chicano Studies at the U. The program grew out of a local branch of the Chicano movement — a Mexican-American struggle for equality that paralleled other civil-rights movements of the 1960s, Solorzano said.

Chicano Studies was created at the U. to "educate and prepare children of Chicano people," he said. "Now the goal is to educate everybody about the Chicano experience in the United States."

The demographic of students learning about the Chicano experience isn't the only changing aspect of the program. The nation's Latino population is growing — in diversity and numbers.

As many as 95 percent of Utah's Latinos were of Mexican descent in the 1960s and '70s, Solorzano said. An influx of Central and South American immigrants shifted the Latino demographics, making the group much more diverse, he said.

Many universities nationwide are re-evaluating how they look at Chicano Studies, and the U. is no exception.

Lisa Flores, director of Chicano Studies at the U., said there are discussions every year about how to focus the program to best meet the needs of the community. The program falls under the Ethnic Studies umbrella and offers a minor.

"We are definitely thinking about developing new courses," she said. "I'm not sure we're ready to make any major changes."

While about 60 percent of the U. courses are Chicano-specific, there is movement to create a broader curriculum, Flores said. One new proposed course, U.S. Latino History, would encompass issues such as the growing diversity in the Latino population and changes in immigration policy, Flores said. Flores said that course could be offered by the 2006 spring semester.

David Gutierrez, associate professor of history at the University of California, San Diego, recently discussed the issue at the U. He noted the academic world has been slow to catch up with changing demographics.

In 1960, the 7 million Latinos in the United States comprised only about 4 percent of the population, he said. Today, the estimated 38 million to 39 million Latinos represent some 13 percent of the population and have surpassed African Americans as the nation's largest minority group, Gutierrez said.