El Plan de Santa Bárbara: A Chicano Plan for Higher Education is a 155-page document, which was written in 1969 by the Chicano Coordinating Council on Higher Education. Drafted at the University of California Santa Barbara, it is a blueprint for the inception of Chicana/o studies programs in colleges and universities throughout the US. The Chicano Coordinating Council expresses political mobilization to be dependent upon political consciousness, thus the institution of education is targeted as the platform to raise political conscious amongst Chicanos and spur higher learning to political action. The Plan proposes a curriculum in Chicano studies, the role of community control in Chicano education and the necessity of Chicano political independence. The document was a framework for educational and curriculum goals for the Chicano movements within the institution of education, They were also purposed to imagine Aztlán, the mythical homeland for Chicana/o people, as both a physical place and a nexus for change in educational and academic communities. The concept of Aztlán is given a home in higher education, as those who created this plan were “students, faculty, administrators, and community delegates representing…La Alta California, Aztlán.” This text includes myriad references to “La Raza de Aztlán” and indigenous ways of knowing across subjects. Proposed curricula include indigenous histories of science, sociology, architecture, and music, among many other subjects. Given the context of Chicana/o exclusion in academia, this plan is described as an explicit call for equity.

Critiques

Despite the emphasis on equality in higher education curricula, the androcentrism and heteronormativity of the Chicano movement is recognized and critiqued as a site for future improvement in which a diverse Chicana/o population can be included. Academics of Chicana/o Studies argue that the exclusion of women and the LGBT community in Chicano manifestos such as El Plan de Santa Bárbara and El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán embody the limitations of the future this movement was working towards, as it was exclusionary.

See also

  • Chicano Movement
  • Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA)
  • Aztlán
  • Plan Espiritual de Aztlán

References