As a child, Dr. Lea Ybarra’s family followed the harvest and moved between
California and Texas before ultimately settling in Sanger, CA. She spent the
rest of her younger years in the Fresno area. Ybarra was a talented
student, staying in the top ranks of her classes throughout her K-12 career. Despite her academic excellence, she received mixed support from her teachers and school counselors. One counselor actually told her that, despite her good grades, she would never make it in college and refused to
give her a college application. Despite this lack of support and discrimination from some, luckily there were other teachers who encouraged her to continue her education. This myriad of attitudes towards Ybarra stayed with her in both high school and college. She attended Fresno State College for two years and then transferred to UC Berkeley in January 1968, where she received her BA (1970), MA (1972), and Ph.D. (1997) in Sociology.
When thinking about current protests and the diversity of people at Black Lives Matter marches, Ybarra recalls a similarity in the diversity of TWLF strikes. She notes a great sense of unity and togetherness where people of different ethnic backgrounds, ages, and professions came together for the formation of the Third World College. During our conversation about gender roles among the members of the front, Ybarra noted that while she and other women encountered some chauvinism, they confronted it and did not let it stand. The women held strong roles and were an integral and important part of the movement. “In the struggle itself, I don’t remember a lot of chauvinism because women, from day one, were involved in it. We were in leadership roles, we were involved in the planning meetings, strikes and demonstrations.” She reiterates that women were given respect because they earned it through their commitment and actions in the Third World Strike and other aspects of the movement.
Ybarra’s details her participation on campus as the following,
“There were so many things going on at the same time - the strikes, the Vietnam war, the civil rights movement, the growing Chicano movement - and I participated in many ways. I was involved in planning meetings, campus demonstrations, boycotting of classes and in protest marches in both Berkeley and San Francisco. I remember clearly the day hundreds of us were gassed by police helicopters flying over the Berkeley campus and being surrounded by National Guard troops that blocked us from leaving. In addition to campus involvement, I would get up early and be at the Oakland Induction Center by 6 a.m. to counsel Chicanos about their rights for deferments during the Vietnam war.”
Ybarra returned to Fresno during her summers and on weekends to work with the United Farmworkers of America who organized in fields around the Fresno area. She participated in boycotts, picketing, and worker organization. Ybarra and hundreds of other women were arrested and detained at Fresno County Jail for several weeks for picketing in the field.
At UC Berkeley, tensions were high every single day because of the militarization of the campus. Peaceful protests were met with excessive force; police departments from all over the Bay Area were called in to subdue the demonstrations. Ybarra recounts the day her mother was visiting her on campus, officers tear-gassed student protestors and those unaffiliated with the strike. Thousands of national guardsmen sent by Governor Ronald Raegan surrounded the campus and gassed any group of students regardless of their affiliation or actions. Ybarra remembers seeing some of the younger soldiers on campus appearing very nervous and shaking with their guns in hand as they stood guard against the students.
Of the relationships formed at the time of TWLF and anti-war organizing, Ybarra said, “It was a difficult time, but it was also a fun time. We made friendships that have lasted more than 50 years. It wasn’t just that we knew each other but that we were involved in the same struggle together and we had the same idealism.” Many of the participants of the original strike continued to work with their communities in the years following. They felt a
need to be involved.
“Regardless of how people define the 60’s, and what happened at Berkeley and other campuses, we believed we could make a positive difference in society and I think that has always stayed with us. Even to this day, 50 years later and we’re no longer the 19/20-year-olds at the Berkeley campus, we still work towards making a difference in our lives and in our communities.”
Ybarra explains that the students graduating in 1970 with their bachelor’s degrees did not receive a graduation ceremony. The campus administration learned of student plans to disrupt the ceremony at the Greek Stadium. University officials thought there was “too great a chance of disruption and violence” with the TWLF and Anti-Vietnam War protests going on and decided to cancel the graduation ceremony that year. Twenty-five years later, Ybarra and and other Chicano activists from her time were invited to the 1995 U.C. Berkeley Chicano graduation. Ybarra was the class speaker, representing the students who did not receive a graduation in 1970, and the keynote speaker for the 1995 class was singer and activist Ruben Blades. “We had a great and memorable time and will always appreciate the Chicano Graduation committee thinking of us and giving us a graduation ceremony!”
After her time at UC Berkeley, Ybarra returned to Fresno and secured a faculty position in La Raza Studies at CSUF, where she then went on to organize it into a Department of Chicano and Latin American Studies. She became Assistant to the President of CSU Fresno where she dealt with racist attitudes from the white secretaries. Ybarra had dealt with racism from white women before. In regards to the Women’s Liberation movement, Ybarra said in an interview with Rocío Solís Hernández that it did not matter, “how many Ph.D.’s we [Chicanas] have, we’re still grape pickers to them, and they don’t think they have to listen to us... the assumption that there’s a natural alliance between white women and minority women” is not always correct. In our 150W interview, Ybarra said,
“Oftentimes, we are told that we're not feminists as much as others, but we’ve always been strong feminists as Chicanas. We believe, of course, in our liberation but I think that the difference between us and a lot of white feminists is that we have always thought of our community as well. We weren't just fighting for better jobs or better education for us as women. We were fighting for our children, for our entire community to progress. That's important because some people may think that if you're fighting for your whole community, and not just women’s rights, you're not really a strong feminist. We can be both and that is our feminism, to ensure that when we fight for ourselves we are fighting for everyone in our community to progress as well.”
She imparts the following, “Regardless of how my generation in the '60s is often depicted as flower children, etc., one thing that is certain is that we were a generation who truly believed we could make a positive difference in creating a better society.” Since her days at Berkeley, Ybarra has held many impressive leadership positions, undertaken research projects, published several written works, made presentations throughout the world, and remained active in her community. She has raised millions of dollars for scholarship opportunities for Latino and other underrepresented students.
Most recently, she has held the title of Executive Director of the Center for Talented Youth and Associate Dean at Johns Hopkins University. She has received many awards, including: the Johns Hopkins University Diversity Leadership Award (2004), Top 100 Most Influential Hispanics in the U.S (2005), the Hispanic Heroes Award (2008), and the Promete Foundation Award from Spain for Recognition of International Work with Children (2007) . Among her published works are Vietnam Veteranos: Chicanos Recall the War and Americanos: Latino Life in the U.S. with Edward James Olmos.
Resources featuring Lea Ybarra: