By Antonio Ruiz ~ Palacio Magazine ~ February 28, 2018
Armando Vazquez-Ramos knows a thing or two about activism. He is the Executive Director of the California-Mexico Studies Center and a Professor in the Chicano-Latino Studies Department at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). For over fifty years, Vazquez-Ramos has been fighting for the rights of workers, teachers, and Chicano/Mexican and Latino population. He has taught on Chicano/Latino education, history, immigration, politics, public policy, and U.S.-Mexico relations at CSULB. Armando Vazquez-Ramos has taken “Dreamers” (young people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — also called DACA) to Mexico on educational and cultural missions and brought them all back.
Professor Armando Vazquez-Ramos in California-Mexico Studies Center office.
Speak to Professor Vazquez-Ramos long enough and you become immersed in his passion and fervor. With DACA facing a March 5th expiration unless Congress acts, Armando Vazquez-Ramos knows the greatest fights and the need for continued activism lie ahead.
PalacioMagazine.com interviewed Professor Vazquez-Ramos last November 2017 in his home office of the California-Mexico Studies Center.
Editor’s Update: Regarding the DACA “Dreamers” cases, the U.S. Supreme Court, on February 26, 2018, the justices turned down the Federal Government’s appeal to rule on the DACA case before the Appeals process was complete. You can read additional reporting on it at The New York Times HERE and at scotusblog.com HERE.
Activism began Early for Armando Vazquez-Ramos
Armando Vazquez-Ramos was brought to the United States from Mexico City by his parents when he was 12 years old. Activism seems to have been in the family DNA beginning with an older brother who has since passed on.
“My oldest brother…was one of the first Latino organizers in the Los Angeles garment industry in the old International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union.”
According to Vazquez-Ramos, 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 died in 2001. Vazquez-Ramos would later go on to be active with the California Faculty Association (CFA), California Teachers Association (CTA), and National Education Association (NEA).
The Student Years at CSULB
Armando Vazquez-Ramos became a student at CSULB in January 1968 and then as a student leader, he would join others in co-founding the Chicano and Latino Studies department in 1969. That activism spread off campus as well. A group of CSULB students and community members founded Centro de la Raza in late 1969.
“The Student leadership, including myself, we started attending meetings. We became part of the advisory council. Then, we got ourselves elected to the leadership of the advisory council and we demanded that changes be made.”
Vazquez-Ramos would eventually become the Executive Director of the Centro in 1973. It lasted twenty years before folding.
A New Adventure for Armando Vazquez-Ramos
In 2010, Armando Vazquez-Ramos founded the non-profit California-Mexico Studies Center. The center began as a project at CSULB as a way to promote study abroad in Mexico. Then, the professor extended that program to include the “Dreamers” we spoke about earlier. He’s taken over 160 “Dreamers” to Mexico and returned with all of them. However, last summer’s trip to Mexico for the “Dreamers” will probably be the last unless something miraculous happens in the Congress by March 5. Through all of this, Professor Vazquez-Ramos has been optimistic. In November, he believed that the court cases making their way through the judicial system would force the Government to extend DACA. One of those cases is awaiting a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I am optimistic that there will be an extension of DACA, either by Trump himself or an order by the court that will extend it through the end of 2018. But also because it’s a politically charged electoral year.”
Armando Vazquez-Ramos says the issue is going to be in “the eye of the storm” and that DACA and “Dreamers” will continue to be a political football.
Professor Armando Vazquez-Ramos with Dreamers
For more Information
To find out more about the California-Mexico Studies Center, visit HERE
