CSRC Newsletter - April 2013

In the spring of 1986 I dropped out of graduate school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, packed up my belongings, and drove 2,400 miles to East Palo Alto so that my then-wife could enroll in graduate school at Stanford University. I had already fulfilled my one dream in life at that time, which was to teach a section of freshman English. Why I wanted to do such I thing I do not know, but I did it, and I was happy. That first night in East Palo Alto, as I slept on the floor avant le moving van, the earth shook ... but it did not swallow me. So the next morning I hit the streets, looking for work. I quickly found the one job I truly despise, even though I have returned to it again and again. I became the cut-in man on a paint crew.

By fall I found myself re-evaluating my future. I wasn't sure what prospects the university offered—I mean, I had already taught, and once that's done, what else is there to do in academia? Nevertheless, I trekked to the central administration building at Stanford University, seeking some guidance. I still believed in the kindness of authorities. I found myself sitting across from an imposing figure—you know, the type who can throw you into profound doubt about the most basic aspects of your very existence by raising an eyebrow. I had just met Cecilia Preciado Burciaga. She held many titles at Stanford: assistant to the president and advisor on Chicano affairs, associate dean of graduate studies, senior associate provost and associate dean and development officer for student affairs. She was the highest-ranking Latino administrator on campus. But the titles and rank hardly explain her forceful and hands-on commitment to increasing the number of Chicanos in graduate education. Without her unflinching belief in my rather ill-defined abilities, without her down-in-the-trenches sense of strategy, I would not have been accepted into a Ph.D. program at Stanford University for the following year. She made things real for me. She pointed to goals beyond my too-easily-realized dream of teaching freshman English.

But Cecilia also pointed to the magical. “You should meet my husband,” she said, “he's an artist.” What I remember now is something I did not appreciate back then: I spent a lot of time in Tony’s studio at Casa Zapata, the Chicano-themed dormitory, where he and Cecilia were the resident fellows. Tony was multi-talented, finding success as a muralist, graphic artist, humorist, and founding member of the comedy group Culture Clash; he was also the author of numerous books of poetry, essays, and dichos. Cecilia and Tony were role models on many levels, not least as a couple committed to—and living—gender equality. They were, as Tony, who passed away in 1996, liked to say, a mixed marriage: Tony was from Texas, un tejano, and Cecilia ... well, she was from California ... . If they could work it out, there was hope for the rest of us. Back then being a Chicano graduate student at Stanford was not easy, especially insofar as we negotiated between our commitment to social equity for our community and the upward mobility a place like Stanford helped us secure as individuals. By 1991 I was a Ph.D. and had landed my first job at the University of New Mexico. Looking back twenty-two years later as a full professor at a major research university, the story of what it means for me to have earned a Ph.D. from Stanford necessarily starts with Cecilia and Tony Burciaga. It is the people, and not the institution, that make a difference.

Cecilia, born in Pomona in 1945 to Mexican immigrants, passed away on Monday, March 25, after a seven-month battle with lung cancer. Today the hundreds of us who were mentored by Cecilia carry on her legacy in seeking educational access for all students. To use Tony’s words in Spilling the Beans: Lotería Chicana (Joshua Odell Editions, 1995, page 101), we are her chameleons: “As we move from one world to the other we exchange colors, ideas, symbols and words in order to fit, to relate and to survive. The result is a prismatic iridescence when the difference of colors play on each other, like a rainbow after a rainstorm in the desert. We are chameleons.” Cecilia Preciado Burciaga, Presente!

This commentary is excerpted from “Cecilia Preciado Burciaga, Presente!” published on the Huffington Post. To read the full article, click here.