On Thursday, Nov. 14, student Hispanic organizations including the Puerto Rican Alliance, Mexican Heritage Student Association, and Dominican Student Movement hosted “Possible Dream Encuentro: Countdown to 50 Years.” As the Puerto Rican & Latino Studies (PRLS) Department approaches its 50th anniversary in 2020, many joined to acknowledge and remember all that the department has faced to become the strong, noble department it is today.
The event lasted nearly eight hours, with panels featuring current students as well as alumni and former staff of the department. The event ended with the Don Quijote Leadership Dinner in SUBO’s Penthouse, where former PRLS chairperson Maria Perez y Gonzalez was honored with a touching tribute.
Students and faculty alike expressed their gratitude for the eternal impact the department has had on their lives, celebrating the magnitude that one little department can have.
“Nothing is static, and change doesn’t always happen in your direction,” said Joaquin Rosa, a board member of the Alliance for Puerto Rican Education and Empowerment (APREE). APREE includes many alumni of Brooklyn College who graduated from the department who meet to discuss ways in which they can help their communities.
The PRLS Department has emphasized three main pillars since they began in 1968: awareness, analysis, and action. Action is definitely what the department took back in 1974 when 44 Brooklyn College staff and alumni were arrested for fighting for representation and inclusion within their own department. Known as the “BC 44,” this was only one of many instances when the PRLS took matters into their own hands for change.
The movement was a response to the election of a new head of the department that PRLS students and faculty felt could not relate to the department’s students and their experiences at Brooklyn College.
“The students of the PRLS department had wanted Maria Sanchez to become new chair, but the administration had wanted an alternative candidate to fill the open position after the current department head decided to retire,” said Professor Gisely Colon-Lopez, BC’s first Latina salutatorian and the current secretary of APREE. The students wouldn’t budge – literally.
“Students and faculty barricaded the office with their bodies where the current department still stands,” Colon-Lopez said. Once they decided to take over the registrar’s office, outside authorities were brought in to make arrests.
The movement continued for nearly two years. After returning to school grounds after the arrest, they chanted, “BC 44, we’ve come back to bring you more.”
“I received a misdemeanor after that and it stays on your record. It’s not something that just goes away,” said Professor Antonio Nadal, one of the three faculty arrested among the BC 44. But he has no regrets, because the BC 44 had achieved their goal: the elected chair of the department decided to resign, and Maria Sanchez took over the position.
According to Joaquin Rosa, the event was a huge turning point for the department.
“You have an obligation to the streets you are living in, in your building,” Rosa said. “We need to take action.”
“We would not be here as a department without the strength and battles the department has fought,” said Cesar Ventura, a PRLS major who graduated in 2015. He describes the department as one that “cares about you and your life.”
Another alum of the department, Julia Fernandez, who graduated in 2017, agreed with Ventura, describing the department as a second home.
“They have provided me with unconditional support and I have never been turned away,” said Fernandez, who got emotional discussing all that the department has done for her. “Learning from people that saw me as their equal, majoring in PRLS, it gave me the confidence I needed,” she said.
Current students can also testify that the department is one in which they feel safe. Patricia Dominguez, an undergrad in her junior year at Brooklyn College has taken a few PRLS courses and believes the department allows you to “embrace your culture and not be ashamed or hide in the shadows.”
People in the PRLS Department expressed their determination to keep their program alive, even in spite of budget cuts at CUNY. During the leadership dinner, current PRLS chair Alan Aja told his audience that there was a pattern of neglect in ethnic studies programs across the entire CUNY system.
When BC opened the Murray Koppelman School of Business eight years ago, Aja’s response was a frightened “¡ay dios mio!” According to him, when schools invest in business departments, it’s a warning sign that they plan to cut programs like PRLS in the name of austerity. He credited then-chair Maria Perez y Gonzalez with strategizing to keep the department afloat.
Those at the event last Thursday reached a consensus that the PRLS department must continue to grow and live on. The BC 44 have indeed come back to bring us more — and this time, they’re not alone.