The CU-Boulder United Mexican American Student organization and the Cultural Unity Center will host a welcome dinner and Diez y Seis de Septiembre celebration Monday, Sept. 16, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the University Memorial Center, room 235.
The dinner will be held from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The festivities to commemorate Mexico's Independence Day, Diez y Seis de Septiembre, will follow from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and will feature a video, slide show and music of the 1970s Chicano Movement in review of its historical, cultural and political impact on communities of color. Juan Federico Trujillo, an activist who led the way for minorities at CU-Boulder in the 1970s, will be on hand to speak on his experiences from the past.
The Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s mandated access to educational opportunities for all citizens. In 1968, CU-Boulder instituted one of the first Educational Opportunity Programs in the United States as the mechanism for recruiting and retaining greater numbers of minority students to its predominantly white campus.
"The context of that time in history is in reference to a divided society," said Cleo Estrada, CUC associate director. "People of color were in a tumultuous struggle to gain access to employment opportunities as they sought a better quality of life, rather than to continue languishing in the abject poverty inherent in our nation's barrios, ghettos, projects and reservations.
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"With the advent of the Civil Rights Movement and the bright future that it promised, prospective minority students enthusiastically jumped at the opportunity to apply to CU-Boulder," she said.
Trujillo, whose campus moniker was "Freaky Fred," came to symbolize a unique student profile that has continued to inspire and encourage the recruitment and retention of diverse and nontraditional students. Trujillo is a Mexican American born in Trinidad, Colo., and raised in Denver. He dropped out of West High School, earned a general equivalency diploma, or GED, and came to CU-Boulder in 1970 fluent in both Spanish and English. He was influential in helping CU-Boulder fulfill its commitment to minority communities, particularly to the Chicano community.
As an active member of UMAS, Trujillo participated in numerous meetings, debates and demonstrations on campus and in the community. In 1977, he was elected to the Associated Student Government of CU as a representative of poor people on campus and also was involved with the Migrant Action Program, Farm Labor Task Force and the Mexican American Correctional Help Organization.
Trujillo's passion to archive a collection of Chicano Movement media information and memorabilia from the past to the present came to fruition with the creation of the Colorado Chicano Movement Media Archives, housed in Pueblo. His audio recordings of music concerts beginning in the mid-1960s over the years has expanded to 500 hours, and includes original CU-Boulder concerts featuring Daniel Valdez of Teatro Campesino, Little Jimmie Edwards and Agustin Cordova. Some of the activist personalities he recorded include Cesar Chavez, United Farmworkers Organizer, Russell Means, American Indian Movement leaders and many poets and authors including Ricardo Sanchez, Lalo Delgado, Alurista and others.
His collection of Chicano newspapers and magazines ranges from CU-Boulder's student newspaper, El Diario de la Gente, to a collection of Chicano student poems such as "Pensamientos."
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It will be Trujillo's collection of photographs of the Chicano Movement replete with the accompaniment of original movimiento songs and music by Agustin Cordova that he and his colleague, Jose Esteban Ortega, will offer the audience for their historical, cultural and political journey to the old days of Chicano activism.