Recent reporting from the New York Times and others has cast light on extremely concerning reports of sexual assault, sexual abuse and sexual harassment perpetrated by Chicano union and civil rights leader César Chávez toward his co-leader Dolores Huerta, Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas in their girlhood, and other women in the farmworker movement.
As scholars, we recognize that we continue to live in a society where the abuse of women and young girls and violence against women remain all too common. As an interdisciplinary academic program dedicated to the critical examination of Chicanx/e and Latinx/e histories, cultures, arts, and experiences, we re-commit to the study and teaching of gendered exclusion and gendered violence in all its forms, and to developing in our students the critical knowledge, skills, and capacity to so that they have the opportunity to imagine and build new kinds of relations.
As recently as a few weeks ago, our faculty gathered for a discussion of how we might strengthen attention to gender analysis across our curriculum. Now more than ever we must continue to employ the power of critical inquiry not only in Chicanx/e and Latinx/e Studies but throughout our university and society.
As a program we have led students in examining the significance of the farmworkers and civil rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s as well as the gendered shortcomings of those movements that Chicana and Latina feminists critiqued then and since. As Ms. Murguia, Ms. Rojas, and Ms. Huerta have noted in their interviews with journalists, “the movement was their story, too” because “the movement…was more than one man.”
With the recent revelations, we are also re-examining the beautiful mural on the walls of the CLS Academic Resource Center, created by artist Malaquias Montoya and painted by CLS student artists Deborah Kuetzpal Vasquez and Katrina Brooks Flores in 2000.
That mural, which is a tribute to the farmworkers’ struggle, also embodies our collective effort to claim space and honor the struggles and histories of Chicanx peoples as well as their artistic expressions.
However, the mural includes a large image of César Chávez, which takes up about 1/3 of the wall. We are in the process of consulting with Montoya, as well as the campus art management policy and the Ad Hoc Campus Art Advisory Committee, to explore the future of this work, particularly in light of our planned office relocation in July.
Please know that as we work to clarify the future of the mural, we remain dedicated to upholding and honoring the collective struggles of our community as it has existed over the decades. Chicanx/e and Latinx/e Studies stands with every member of our community who encounters sexual harassment, abuse, or violence.
We encourage all those beyond campus who experience sexual harassment, abuse, or assault to contact local support services for survivors and local law enforcement. Students on the UW-Madison campus who experience sexual assault may contact University Health Services Survivor Services on campus at 608-265-5600. UW-Madison students, staff, and faculty may report incidents of sexual assault or violence to the Sexual Misconduct Resource and Response Program here. To report an incident to law enforcement, contact UWPD at 608-264-2677. Our campus encourages us all to participate in cultivating a safe and respectful community. If you see inappropriate or disrespectful actions, please help to stop it or ask others to assist in stopping it.
—Theresa Delgadillo
Director, Chicanx/e and Latinx/e Studies Program, UW-Madison
Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of English and Chicanx/e and Latinx/e Studies