^{"I’m sure there were students; there is always a group that doesn’t agree – but what they disagreed with was the tactics, not necessarily… The intention or the demand, it’s the tactic like, ‘You didn’t have to take over a building to do that.’ Well… Well yeah, they did."}

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• Were there any students against it? Or faculty and staff against it?

There were students who didn’t support it, that they thought that it was unnecessary, but the majority of latino students supported it. Without a question, the Chicano Studies faculty supported it; the Chicano administrators supported it. I don’t think there was someone who outright said, ‘No this is such crap.’ I didn’t see any of that happen. I’m sure there were students; there is always a group that doesn’t agree – but what they disagreed with was the tactics, not necessarily...The intention or the demand, it’s the tactic like, ‘You didn’t have to take over a building to do that.’ Well… Well yeah they did.  Because nobody listened to them until they did that and I think that’s one of the things the students had already come to a conclusion about the fact that they’ve been talking and talking about it. But until they did the building takeover, it wasn’t on anybody’s front burner.

• Was this the first and only time of a building takeover?

No [smiling].

• There’s been others!

Yes [keeps on smiling]. Oh yes.

• Has it been for diversity as well?

There’s always been an issue … usually for some aspect of diversity.

• Do you think that issue is kind of well known here?

I do think so, and I do think that people recognize the fact that change was needed to be made, that clearly the demographics of the state of California were changing, but the demographics of the country were changing. We had a huge influx of Central Americans and yet the student body didn’t represent at all. So you’re like, ‘ok we have a whole group of people that are not here!’ And so I think that everyone here recognizes that and even now there’s a huge shift, not just in the politics but just a huge shift in population. You know clearly, the South Central of Los Angeles reflects those changes in the state but in the country overall. There’s a shift. I think the fact that 71% of Latinos voted for Obama is a huge telling sign of where politically Latinos are – and that’s just the present. But back then, it was important because it was saying, we need to have more representation here because the Claremonts are a really fabulous place. If we are truly graduating the leaders of tomorrow , then those leaders have got to be Black, Brown, and Asian, as well as White. And it’s that combination; I think pretty much everyone agreed with that, that we had the responsibility to educate groups that were not represented here traditionally. And so, the underrepresented groups became a very strong rallying force. And that’s what leads us to the fact that Latinos and Blacks and Asians are so successful here. To a great degree the Jewish population has always been kind of invisible, but they don’t feel invisible. Invisible in the sense that some people don’t recognize that they are different; they clearly are. They clearly are. And they recognize it themselves. The Jewish Students recognize it but I think a lot of people don’t see them as a group that has needs. I firmly believe they do because I don’t see a difference in terms of needs. I think social justice issues are a problem and they have social justice issues.

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