El Magonista | Aug. 28, 2024 | Vol. 12, No. 22

By CSUSB Editor | CSUSB | Photo Courtesy of the CSUSB

LEAD Summit XIII “El Plan de San Bernardino" 

Armando Vazquez-Ramos (born August 10th, 1949), known and respected widely for many generations of students, collaborators, and mentees, as "El Profe", passed away at his home in Long Beach, California on August 4th, 2024.  He was 74 years old.

El Profe knew a thing or two about activism! He tirelessly promoted educational opportunities for the Chicano/Mexican and Latino population for more than 5 decades. He walked it like he talked it...and as many have repeated numerously over his years of activism, just speak to Professor Vazquez-Ramos long enough and you became immersed in his passion and fervor.  

Armando Vazquez-Ramos was brought to the United States from Mexico City by his parents when he was 12 years old. Activism had been in the family DNA as he comes from a union activist family with leadership roles since the 1970’s. The whole family became active in union organizing in large part to the influence of Bert Corona, a Labor Activist known for fighting for the right of Undocumented Workers. 

He became a student at CSU Long Beach in January 1968 and earned a bachelor’s degree in Mexican-American studies and a master’s in psychology. Vazquez-Ramos was from Mexico but grew up in East Los Angeles. He graduated from Lincoln High School months before the first protest of the school walkouts in March 1968, when Chicano students and teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District protested unequal conditions in schools. As a Cal State Long Beach freshman, Vazquez-Ramos returned to his alma mater to join one of his role models – social studies teacher Sal Castro, a prominent leader of the East LA School Walkouts.

As a student leader, he would join others in co-founding the Chicano and Latino Studies department in 1969. That activism also spread off campus as a group of CSULB students and community members went on to found Centro de la Raza in late 1969. He taught on Chicano/Latino education, history, immigration, politics, public policy, and U.S.-Mexico relations, where he was also Coordinator of the California-Mexico Project.

He had been active with the California Faculty Association (CFA), California Teachers Association (CTA) and National Education Association (NEA) for over 25 years. In 2004, he co-founded the CFA’s Statewide Latino Caucus for the California State University System and served as Founding Co-Chair with Professor Gonzalo Santos and Coordinator of the Founding Conference.

In 2010, he established the non-profit California-Mexico Studies Center, Inc. to research, develop, promote, and establish policies and programs between higher educational institutions and cultural organizations to enhance the teaching, mobility and exchange of faculty, students, and professionals between California and the U.S., with Mexico and other nations in the Western Hemisphere (www.california-mexicocenter.org).

As an innovator and immigrant rights advocate for decades, in 2014 professor Vazquez-Ramos also established the California-Mexico Dreamers Study Abroad Program, a precedent-setting model which has allowed over 160 Dreamers the opportunity to study abroad in Mexico through 6 travel-study classes, and returned them legally to the U.S. through DACA’s Advance Parole provision.

But most significantly this pilot project had pioneered a method that enabled Dreamers to adjust their legal status through marriage, and receive permanent resident visas upon return, as a model for other colleges and universities to replicate this opportunity for their students, and could enable thousands of Dreamers to return to their birthplace to meet their families, discover their homeland and study as adults.

On October 18, 2014, Prof. Vazquez-Ramos co-convened the now historic Campaign to Promote Ethnic Studies (CPES) Summit at CSULB, with El Rancho USD Board President Dr. Aurora Villon and CSU San Bernardino’s Dr. Enrique Murillo (LEAD Projects) that went on to spark and/or bolster several parallel movements to make Ethnic Studies a graduation requirement in California high schools. Through the CPES, he established the Long Beach Ethnic Studies Program with a 5-year funding commitment by the Long Beach Unified School District Superintendent, for up to 12 ethnic studies classes with CSULB credit per semester at all 6 LBUSD comprehensive high schools. As the program’s administrative coordinator, he had grown the program to provide 15 Saturday College classes at LBUSD, the El Rancho USD and the Norwalk-La Mirada USD.

Professor Armando Vazquez-Ramos also worked at the CSU Chancellor's Office - Office of International Programs (1993-1996) to promote California-Mexico exchange and North American Studies programs, and since 1998 had led travel-study groups to Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela for students, faculty and union leaders; and the Public Policy Alternative Spring-break in Sacramento, focused on California-Mexico and higher education policy.

In 1999 he established the California-Mexico Project and through the Latino Political Roast raised scholarship funds for students to study abroad in Mexico and promote educational exchange. Thus, in 2008 Assemblymen Jose Solorio and Kevin De Leon co-sponsored Assembly Concurrent Resolution 146, to recognize the CSULB California-Mexico Project and directed the California Research Bureau to conduct the study “The California Research Bureau Report on California-Mexico Study Abroad Programs”.

He promoted the establishment of Mexican universities in the U.S. and served as consultant to create extensions of Mexico’s Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM), Universidad de Guadalajara and Universidad de Colima in the L.A.-area, and established collaboration agreements between CSULB and the UNAM, Universidad de Guadalajara and Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas.

Through these agreements, he hosted several Mexican professors as Visiting Scholars at CSULB, has organized four California-Mexico Policy and Higher Education seminars at CSULB and 2 in Mexico City (2006 and 2012), he was the Grand Marshall for the 2015 CSULB Chicano/Latino Graduation, served as the 2016 University of La Verne’s Latino Graduation Commencement Speaker and led the celebration of the 2014 Chicano and Latino Studies Department’s 45th Anniversary.

Most recently in February 2024, El Profe helped co-organize the Building Academic Exchange Bridges Across Borders (California-Mexico and Beyond) 2024 meeting along with LEAD CSUSB, in Mexico City, and was coordinated and hosted by the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM).  A LEAD delegation of a dozen CSUSB faculty, staff, and students attended the meeting in Mexico City and got to spend quality time with El Profe, witnessing first-hand his ongoing advocacy for binational higher education exchange opportunities and the value of international partnerships. 

Part two of the bi-national meeting will take place at LEAD Summit XIII, and it was Professor Armando Vazquez-Ramos who insisted on the name and theme “El Plan de San Bernardino" to mark a new era that will address education as the principal issue by which to frame the U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship.

The summit will also showcase as its featured exhibit the “Anthology of Dreams from an Impossible Journey,” a compilation by the California-Mexico Studies Center (CMSC) – the summit’s major partner – for its 12th anniversary in 2023. The book features 38 stories shared by Dreamers, selected from 215 participants in the CMSC’s Summer 2021 Dreamers Study Abroad Program.

LEAD Summit XIII is dedicated to the memory of our Profe. 

Please consider donating to Go Fund: Honor Profe Aarmando Vazquez-Ramos Legacy, organized by Luz Vasquez-Ramos

QEPD - Rest in Power! 

By CSUSB Editor | CSUSB | AUG 23, 2024 | Photo Courtesy of Pepe Serna

Pepe Serna, whose acting career has spanned more than five decades, more than 100 films and 300 TV shows, and a memorable role in the movie “Scarface” with Al Pacino, is the Padrino de Honor (Honorary Chair) of LEAD Summit XIII. Register now for the free Sept. 27 conference at Cal State San Bernardino.

Whether you’re a millennial, Gen X, boomer or any other generation, and went to the movies or turned on the TV, chances are you have seen Pepe Serna. He wasn’t the star, but usually the guy to the left, the one who made the scene work and the star shine.

Serna is one of the longest working actors in Hollywood, and he has been named the Padrino de Honor (Honorary Chair) of the LEAD Summit XIII, an annual gathering at Cal State San Bernardino that this year is taking place on Sept. 27.

Each year, the Latino Education and Advocacy Days (LEAD) Project hosts the summit, which is open to the public and free to attend. It brings together teaching professionals and educators, researchers, academics, scholars, administrators, independent writers and artists, policy and program specialists, students, parents, civic leaders, activists and advocates – all sharing a common interest and commitment to education issues that impact Latinos to help them define the future.

LEAD Summit XIII’s theme is “El Plan de San Bernardino: Transnationalism, Academic Mobility, and the Reframing of Education.” It will take place from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Santos Manuel Student Union South. Visit the 2024 LEAD Summit XIII Registration webpage to reserve your spot.

Throughout his career, Serna has inspired and paved the way for generations of Latino actors by defying stereotypes and fighting for representation in an industry that continues to largely ignore the Latino community.

Also an artist and motivational speaker, Serna was born on July 23, 1944, in Corpus Christi, Texas. With a career spanning more than five decades, he has appeared in more than 100 films and 300 television shows. READ MORE

By Valeria Gonzalez | Border Report | AUG 27, 2024 | Photo Courtesy of Evan Vucci

A federal judge in Texas on Monday paused a Biden administration policy that would give spouses of U.S. citizens legal status without having to first leave the country, dealing at least a temporary setback to one of the biggest presidential actions to ease a path to citizenship in years.

The administrative stay issued by U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker comes just days after 16 states, led by Republican attorneys general, challenged the program that could benefit an estimated 500,000 immigrants in the country, plus about 50,000 of their children. The states accused the administration of bypassing Congress for “blatant political purposes.”

One of the states leading the challenge is Texas, which in the lawsuit claimed the state has had to pay tens of millions of dollars annually from health care to law enforcement because of immigrants living in the state without legal status.

President Joe Biden announced the program in June. The court order, which lasts for two weeks but could be extended, comes one week after the Department of Homeland Security began accepting applications.

“The claims are substantial and warrant closer consideration than the court has been able to afford to date,” Barker wrote.

Barker was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2019 as a judge in Tyler, Texas, which lies in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a favored venue for advocates pushing conservative arguments.

The judge laid out a timetable that could produce a decision shortly before the presidential election Nov. 5 or before a newly elected president takes office in January. Barker gave both sides until Oct. 10 to file briefs in the case.

The policy offers spouses of U.S. citizens without legal status, who meet certain criteria, a path to citizenship by applying for a green card and staying in the U.S. while undergoing the process. Traditionally, the process could include a years-long wait outside of the U.S., causing what advocates equate to “family separation.” READ MORE

By Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy & George Fabe Russell | USA Today | AUG 26,2024 | Photo Courtesy of Kyle Grillot

U.S. Rep. Nanette Barragan of California spoke with USA TODAY at the Democratic convention last week, saying that a potential Kamala Harris administration would push for expanded protections for “dreamers”—people covered by the Obama-era immigration policy Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

“I know that a President Kamala Harris is very supportive and is going to be ready on day one to sign a bill from Congress to provide those protections that we need to provide for dreamers,” Barragan said.

DACA offers deferred deportation (but not a green card or citizenship) to some people with a clean criminal history and a high school degree or military service record who came to the United States with their family as children.

The law was passed in 2012 as a temporary measure, and holders of legal status based on DACA remain in a tenuous position as courts have repeatedly thrown the law’s status into doubt.

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden’s administration expanded the law to add a path for DACA recipients to apply for employer-sponsored work visas and green cards. It also allowed them to enroll in the Affordable Care Act exchange health insurance plans, often called “Obamacare.”

Still, the fate of DACA—whether it will be overturned or expanded—is not set in stone.

Barragan said that the president alone cannot expand laws like DACA: “That’s something that Congress is going to have to do.” READ MORE

By The Conversation Staff | The Conversation | AUG. 16, 2024 | Photo Courtesy of Kevin Lamarque

Since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race on July 21, 2024, and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris’ campaign has generated widespread enthusiasm and attention. She quickly became the official Democratic presidential nominee and erased Donald Trump’s lead over Biden in national and swing-state polling.

Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have also drawn tens of thousands of supporters to their recent rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada.

Although things could change dramatically over the next two-plus months, there is a real possibility that the United States may finally elect its first female president.

But in polling that we conducted in August 2024, after Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, we found that sexism is still a powerful force in American politics.

Hope and change?
Yes, the scars of the 2016 campaign – in which sexism played a key role in Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s defeat by Trump – are still fresh for Democrats. But many hope that America has changed and has become more accepting of women in leadership roles.

Harris’ gender, this argument goes, won’t be a significant deterrent for voters.

On the surface, our recent nationally representative survey of 1,000 American adults supports this, with 51% of Americans agreeing with the statement: “America is ready for its first African American female president.” Only 23% of Americans disagreed.

Even so, some Republicans appear to think they can win by making gender an issue in the campaign. This is apparent in the sexist rhetoric that Trump and other Republicans are using when talking about Harris.

Trump, who has a history of making sexist statements, asserted that foreign leaders would regard Harris as a “play toy,” referred to her as unintelligent, and is now commenting on her appearance. Both The Associated Press and The New York Times have reported – based on unnamed sources – that Trump has also called Harris a “bitch” in private, although Trump’s spokesman denied he used that term.

In a similar sexist vein, Trump allies have attempted to turn Harris’ past romantic relationships into campaign issues, with one conservative commentator on Fox Business News crudely labeling Harris the “original hawk tuah girl,” an obscene sexual reference.

Will such attempts to exploit sexism as an electoral strategy backfire? Or, after all these years, might it still be out of reach for a woman to overcome sexist stereotypes and win the highest office in the United States? READ MORE