Walking with the Comrades: A Public History of Farm Labor Justice and Chicanx Studies

Christian Paiz
Ethnic Studies
UC Berkeley

“Walking with the Comrades: A Public History of Farm Labor Justice and Chicanx Studies” entangles synergistic components: a public history of farm labor justice among rural Californian residents and an archival initiative to document and foreground UC Berkeley’s foundational role in Chicanx Studies. These components reflect my research interest in the interracial relations and activism among nonwhite, laboring communities in rural California, as well as their value today for building a democratic society. I ask: What goals inspired contestation among California’s marginalized rural communities? How did status, as shaped by citizenship, race, gender, and class, shape their politics in the mid- to late twentieth century? What remains of past visions and what role can public history play in shaping US democracy, especially in overlooked communities and amidst contemporary ecological and authoritarian challenges? Through both components, and in collaboration with community leaders, educators, students, and advocates, Walking with the Comrades” builds public history products in an 18-month project embedded in a larger 5-year project. The latter aims to broadcast California’s militant United Farm Worker and Chicana/o movements. Both provide utopian democratic visions critical for an age of increasing authoritarianism and climate emergencies.