Bienvenid@s New Students
April 7, 2009

Dear student,

Let me take this opportunity to congratulate you on your admission to the University of California, Los Angeles! As the Chair of the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, I want to share information about the program in Chicana & Chicano Studies. I hope you will consider making the Department one of your academic majors or minors.
The mission of the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies is to study, analyze, and research the historical and contemporary experiences of people of Mexican origin within the Unites States, as well as the experiences of other Latino/a and indigenous populations in the Americas. The Chávez Department's location in Los Angeles, home to the largest Mexican origin community in the nation as well as to several other Latino groups, places us in a unique position to draw from this large and diverse population—its social experiences, historical realities, cultural practices, linguistic attributes, and literary and artistic productions.
The César E. Chávez Department provides a strong interdisciplinary methodology to its curriculum, offering a diverse palette of courses from the social sciences, the humanities, and the creative arts. Categories of analysis include race, class, gender, sexuality, language, ethnicity, labor, immigration, citizenship, law, and social change. The curriculum of the Chávez Department is student-centered, writing-intensive, and academically rigorous. Also, we have a Service Learning requirement that introduces students to the organizing tools and leadership skills used by leaders in the Chicana/o & Latina/o community-based organizations and businesses.
The Chicana/o program exposes students to a wide range of theories, methods, and teaching approaches that provide an intellectual foundation and a social consciousness that is necessary for success in an increasingly transnational, diverse, multilingual, and multicultural world
A major in Chicana/o Studies prepares students for graduate education in professional and academic fields and for a variety of positions in community, social, and public service, as well as the private sector. Students have gone on to graduate schools at Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Cornell, and many other prestigious institutions.
If you have any questions, please call 310-206-7696 or for additional information, please visit www.chavez.ucla.edu. I hope that UCLA is your choice for a great undergraduate experience and education, and I look forward to meeting you in the near future.

Sinceramente,

Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Ph.D.
Professor of Chicana/o Studies, English, and Women’s Studies
Chair