The Chicano Studies Library was an outgrowth of the Chicano Movement. Its founding is rooted in the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) Strike that took place on the UC Berkeley campus in 1969. The TWLF was a coalition of African American, Native American, Mexican American, and Asian American student groups. During the strike, they demanded that the university confront racism on campus and create a Third World College; a separate college with its own dean; calling on the university to recruit and maintain faculty, staff and students from marginalized groups. Amidst extreme police violence and institutional pressure, the students held their ground. After 10 weeks, the strike ended. While a separate Third World College was not realized, a Department of Ethnic Studies was created with programs in Native American Studies, Afro-American Studies, Asian American Studies and Chicano Studies.
A key organizer of the strike, The Mexican American Student Confederation (MASC), anticipated and planned for the establishment of a fully functioning Chicano library. In 1969, the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) approved a student fee that would provide funding for the 4 newly formed programs within the Ethnic Studies Department. Chicano Studies Program Coordinator, Myrtha Chabrán directed a portion of these funds to develop a Chicano Studies Library. Initially known as La Raza Library, the Chicano Studies Library (CSL) was never just a place to conduct research and collect Chicana/o/x materials. It was a tool for social justice that was made possible by and for communities on and off campus. The objective was not only to found and organize a library, but to bring people together to make concrete change.
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