University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Thursday, October 31, 2019
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Ways to beat your midsemester blues +L&S page 8
Snapper’s Row +page 4
Students shape Chican@, Latin@ Studies By Alejandra Canales STAFF WRITER
At noon on a Thursday, a line of students and faculty forms outside the conference room on the third floor of Ingraham Hall. They chat about their days and classes while they fill plates with food and sit down for a meal. The weekly Chican@ and Latin@ Studies community gatherings offer a chance for those in attendance to spend time together, but also a time to discuss. A recent workshop featured doctoral students who shared their journeys through higher education — a path filled with systemic barriers and limited institutional support for the Latino community. While many UW-Madison students are familiar with ethnic studies through their three-credit general education requirement, these units mean much more to those actively involved. Yet, maintaining and growing ethnic studies programs has been anything but a given on this campus. One such unit — Chican@ and Latin@ Studies — is the largest it’s been in its more than 40-year history largely because of the continuous dedication of students and faculty pushing for its existence and expansion. “Anything that was given to [CLS] was given because of a demand,” said Benjamin Márquez, a CLS faculty affiliate. Initial demands The CLS program was born from the struggles of the 1960s and ‘70s national Chicano Movement — an era of widespread activism around issues of racial and social justice. “Wisconsin was a center of social movements, not just [for] labor organizing but also multiracial and multiethnic civil rights movements,” CLS program director Armando Ibarra said. At the time, activists from the Chicano student organization, El Movimiento Estudiantil de Chicanos
de Atlzan (MEChA) — formerly known as La Raza Unida — claimed that UW-Madison administrators were not addressing issues of underrepresentation within the student body or lack of institutional support for the few underrepresented students that did attend the university. After two years of trying to convince university officials about the need for a Chicano studies department that would provide academic programming specific to the experience, culture and history of Chicanos, Chicano students began picketing. These demonstrations in spring 1975 lasted four months and led to heightened tensions between the university and activists, even resulting in the arrest of student leaders for spray painting an Aztec calendar on the sidewalk. In the end, it was the state — not the university — that provided the means for the initial program. “The [state] legislature went over the heads of university officials and created [the funding for the program] despite them,” Márquez explained. Even after this special allocation to UW-Madison’s budget, it still took months for the university to designate a search committee to start hiring faculty. The first Chicano studies course on campus, “Literary Group Experiences: The Chicano,” was finally listed in the fall of 1981. “The strength of any program is its students, faculty, and their willingness to come together and build something,” Ibarra said. “This program came from students, faculty and community really making a demand as to a space to have this type of curriculum.” Still working towards original goals, 40 years later The protests of the 1970s would not be the last time that students took action surrounding Chicano and Latino studies in higher education. MEChistas and students from other
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Through the efforts of dedicated students and faculty, programs like Chican@ and Latin@ Studies have built a strong community following an academic push for ethnic studies programs. Chicano and Latino student organizations maintained an active role on campus, engaging in talks with administrators and faculty. “A lot of the history of our folx who identify as Latinx/Latino is just rooted in social activism,” CLS certificate alum Arturo “Tito” Diaz said. “In the [Latino] community, it is just a part of who we are to advocate and hope for a better world — not only for us but for our future as well.” Throughout the 1980s the program focused on recruiting more Latino students and faculty to UW-Madison, and in 1992 the CLS undergraduate certificate was created, with its first recipient graduating May 1994.
Despite struggling to maintain their space on campus over the years, the CLS program united around a shared vision of the importance of Chicano and Latino scholarship and department. Focusing on scholarship and curriculum development within the department would help with research output and program building, Ibarra said. “What we’re building has to have tenured faculty to be able to really set deep roots in this institution and in this state,” he added. Departments — which CLS proponents originally demanded in 1975 — are the most important affiliation for a faculty member since
faculty are granted tenure by their departments, Márquez explained. Similarly, salary increases, promotions and assignments to various committees all happen within a faculty’s tenure department. “That’s where your primary professional attachment is, and for many people still, that’s where your professional identity lies,” he said. “If we had a department, then all these major decisions about a person’s professional life would be here.” Faculty are not the only ones who recognize the value in a CLS
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DOC seeks media coverage to sex offenders’ homes on Halloween By Jessica Lipaz STATE NEWS EDITOR
“Would you normally let your sixyear old walk outside by themselves in the dark?” Wisconsin Department of Corrections Sex Offender Registration Program Director Grace Knutson asked. “No, so let’s use this as an opportunity. When we can all as adults keep kids safe, that lessens the opportunity of a sex offender having an opportunity to reoffend.” Knutson acknowledged there is no other time of year children are out in the streets at night, often alone, going to strangers’ houses asking for candy. To mitigate potential threats, the DOC increases their street presence on Halloween, and ensures the lack
of presence of formerly incarcerated sexual offenders. However, there is not an increase in sexual crimes on Halloween. In fact, Knutson said they decrease, while crimes like pedestrian-involved car accidents are more prevalent. “A majority of the time there are very few sex offenses that happen as a result of trick-or-treating or as a result of Halloween,” Knutson said. Despite this, registered offenders on community supervision across the state must abide by a set of rules inhibiting them from participating in trick-or-treating activities. They are mandated to turn their porch lights off, have no decorations or candy both inside or outside the house, as well as
not wear costumes. In addition to the restrictions, the DOC conducts home visits along with local law enforcement and parole agents to ensure the parolees’ are following protocol. Last Halloween, more than 2,200 visits occurred with 43 sex offenders taken into custody for violating supervision requirements. “There are 31 offenses that require registration, we do not differentiate between somebody who has a hands-on offense versus a hands-off offense,” Knutson said. “If the statute says they are required to register, they are required and that is what we are driven by.” Despite the wide-range of offenses one can be added to the registry for,
the DOC determines which offenders to visit based on their proximity to other offenders and high density trick-or-treating zones — not their original crime. Halloween is the only time the state agency administers this concentrated level of home visits, which have been mandated for the last 10 years. This year, the DOC invited media outlets to participate on the trick-ortreat walk-alongs with agents. Deputy Communications Director for the DOC Clare Hendricks believes this is an opportunity for members of the media to see law enforcement operations firsthand and subsequently generate awareness about safety precautions to the public.
“There can be a lot of anxiety around Halloween because you do not know who is out there and sometimes people might be so-to-speak afraid or worried, but reminding folks that our probation and parole agents are out there and what we do on a regular basis — let alone on Halloween — can be reassuring,” Hendricks said. However, City News Editor at The Cap Times Jason Joyce said the newspaper will not be sending any reporters to the walk-along with parole agents because these experiences are often skewed to show a specific part of an operation.
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“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”