Chela Rios-Muñoz Oral History Interview

Amanda Belantara: Today I'm speaking with Chela Rios Muñoz, clinical social worker and former staff member at the Chicano Studies Library at UC Berkeley. The interview was conducted for Bibliopolítica, a digital history of the Chicano Studies Library. The interview took place in the Ethnic Studies Podcast Changemaker Studio at UC Berkeley on September 15th, 2023, recorded by Angelica Garcia. The interviewer is Amanda Belantara.

Amanda Belantara: Thank you for speaking with us today. Could you start off by telling us a bit about yourself, where you grew up, what you studied, and the kind of work that you did?

Chela Rios Muñoz: Well, I was born here in Oakland, California, and I grew up in West Berkeley, which is a stone's throw from the university, but as a kid, I never even knew there was a university here. I got to UC Berkeley sort of as a fluke, and as a result, actually, of people like my husband, who pushed the doors open for people like me to be able to get in to university settings. And I arrived at UC Berkeley in 1974, and I got a BA in sociology at that time. And then I returned to UC Berkeley in 1984 and got a master's in social work. - And so going back to your studies, it's 1974, you're a sociology student. How did you come upon the Chicano Studies Library? - Well, at that time, there was financial aid. And as part of my financial aid package, I was able to get work study monies, and my work study placement that I was interviewed for and thankfully was accepted was to work in the Chicano Studies Library. And that's how I first came in contact, officially anyway, with the library as a student worker. - And so how did that process work? I wasn't clear. So did you apply specifically for the library or they kind of placed you there? - No, you had to apply. There was, you got a certain amount of financial aid money and there was places in campus where you could work that were accepting students as part of the financial aid program. And the library was one of those options. And so I, it wasn't a slam dunk. I mean, you had to go in and interview. And of course that was my first choice, was to go there and luckily I got it. - Do you remember who interviewed you? - Oh, it might've been Jose Arce 'cause he was the one that was there at that time.

Amanda Belantara: And so can you remember when you first encountered the library you walked in maybe for the interview or maybe before?

Chela Rios Muñoz: Well, I don't remember the interview specifically, but I do remember the feeling, the feeling that the library gave me as Richard and I were just talking. And when I came to Berkeley, there were few Chicano Latino students. There were very few of us. We probably all knew each other. And entering campus, it was just a feeling of, do I belong here? A feeling of being lost and not necessarily embraced. And going to the Chicano Studies library, walking in and being with other Chicano Latinos and seeing collections that I had never seen before and feeling accepted and embraced and respected really made the difference for me. I've thought about it and I don't know if I would have made it without the connections that the library had for me in so many different ways. - And so when you started working there, where was the library located? - It was at Wheeler Hall at that time. It had just moved from this tiny little space in Dwinelle Hall to Wheeler Hall. In fact, I think that when I got there, there was still boxes that were being unpacked and it was so exciting because it went from this tiny little space to what we thought then was a big space and floor to ceiling bookshelves. And it was, you know, a nice building and windows that looked outside on the campus.

Amanda Belantara: And can you remember the energy or like the atmosphere of the library when you walked in? You said there's boxes everywhere that they have any like signage up or any posters or what did it look like?

Chela Rios Muñoz: Yeah, they were posters. And that's another thing that's significant 'cause where else would you go on campus where you could see some kind of reflection of yourself, really nowhere else, you know, other than the department and the program, but to walk into that and what I felt just was this energy to a whole different time on campus than it is now. There was activism, there was ideas, there was movement, you know, there was, and that was the place to be, you know, where you connect with other people to not only connect with people on a social level, which was extremely important to be able to see people that would become your friends and to, because the social network was part of your survival. So it was that kind of a place, but also where you could generate ideas and percolate ideas that were important and relevant, that weren't necessarily being discussed in any other place on campus. It's still a significant and emotional memory for me to have walked into a library and in my entire education up until that point had never read anything written by a Latina/Latino author. And the significance of walking into a whole library where there were articles and periodicals and publications, it's just, it's hard to explain, you know, what that meant. And I remember seeing Anna Nieto-Gómez, who, I think she was at Northridge at that time, and it was the first time that I had read anything written by a woman. And it just lit my fire that, you know, was there that I hopefully still have. But I just wanna mark how significant that was for me. I ended up being involved in this really exciting project that ended up resulting in a published bibliography. And I think it was the first of its kind, if I'm not mistaken, of a bibliography of writings on La Mujer. Can you imagine that? A bibliography of writings on La Mujer! And so at that time, Dorinda Moreno, who lived in San Francisco in her personal home, in her apartment, had boxes and boxes of a collection that she had. And so it was my job to go to her house on the bus to organize that and archive that collection. And that, as I said, ended up, other people worked on it after me, ended up becoming published, and was significant because it was marking the contributions of women at that time. And how did you feel doing that work? It's like life-changing, you know, to see, and this occurs in a context where there was movement all over the world, you know, here at Berkeley, but all over the world where women were having prominent roles in terms of making change in the world. And part of what, and it just is another point about the importance of the library, when I was a student here, there was a group of us women who, Latinas, who organized a group called Mujeres del Movimiento. And it started out as a social group, but quickly evolved into a group that was an activist group. And as a result of that, and we got a lot of pushback being women to organize just as women. Why are you doing that? You know, why don't you let us in? Was, you know, some of the comments that we got from men, but we really felt a very strong need to be able to meet and organize as women at different levels, as I said, socially and for activism. And one of the things that, or one of the places where we could meet was at the library. And so it just became this place where you knew that you could come together. And that was very important. And one of the activities that we did is that we ended up organizing a conference, a symposium that we called it, that might've been the first of its kind in 1975 that we called "Educación en Luz." And we were students, all women students. We had no idea, how do you do a budget? How do you get money? How do you, what's the venue? How do you invite people? You know, we had to figure all of that out on our own. And the library ended up being a sponsor of this symposium. And we ended up inviting women, Anna Nieto-Gómez, Concha Salcedo. At that time, Lilia Gonzalez was the coordinator. She was a speaker and men as well from California, from New Mexico. And it was just a very important symposium to try to bring together scholars of varying pedagogies to talk about their ideas and to connect them to the community. And the library was a place where we were able to kind of get together and talk about it and do the organizing. - So when you wanted to have the group meet there, would it all kind of evolve? Like, was it just emergent or would you make lots of plans in advance? - Both, both. And actually at that time, if you worked at the library, you got a key to the library. And it was also a place where in the evening, we could go study. We could open the library up and go in there and study. And that's significant too, you know, just to be together to support each other in our academic work.

Amanda Belantara: That's amazing. You had a key to the library, a real place.

Chela Rios Muñoz: I don't know if you knew that at that time.

Amanda Belantara: So when you were working there, can you remember who else was working with you?

Chela Rios Muñoz: Oh, sure. Well, Jose Arce was the librarian. And then, Purita Mesa, who's now my comadre, talk about relationships. I still have relationships all these years later with many of the people that I went to school with, including the library. So at the library, Purita was working there. And then later came Elva Yañez, who became a librarian. Not at Berkeley, but she became a librarian. And then, let's see, Richard came later, Richard Chabrán. And then Oscar Treviño, Hector Rodriguez, I think was there. Tony Aguirre was there. Of actual employees, I think those are the ones that I remember. Oh, of course, Martha Rodriguez. May she rest in peace, she's passed on, but she became an artist, a very well-known artist. And she also was involved in the Bibliography of Writings on La Mujer. And there were many others that gathered there, that I'm still in touch with.

Amanda Belantara: You mentioned Jose Arce. Can you tell us a little bit more about your memories of Jose? And did you collaborate with him at all on the Chicano classification system?

Chela Rios Muñoz: Well, Jose Arce, Richard and I were just talking about him. I can close my eyes and see him. He always had a buttoned up shirt, jeans. He's always very organized, very meticulous. And he is the one who I remember talking with about doing this project with Dorinda Moreno's collection. And I didn't know a thing. That back then it was a Dewey Decimal system. And so then how do you archive boxes? Like literally they were carton boxes, just stuff thrown in there. Important things, but it wasn't organized. And so I didn't know what to do with it. And so at that time, it was way before computers, way before CD-ROMs, before anything like that. So he told me about these punch cards. So I went to the ASUC bookstore and there were these, like I think they were five by seven punch cards. And across the top there were, it was the alphabet. And then there was lines on it and what I would do is find an article and then I would punch the letter, like with literally like with a knitting needle, you know, to make a hole corresponding to the author's last name. And then in writing, put the name of the person and then annotate what the article was about. And so then at the end of the project, I had this huge stack of punch cards that you would then be able to find by sticking a needle into whatever the letter was, you know, that you were looking for. -

Amanda Belantara: Wow, that's amazing. So manually you had to enter all of the author's names on all of these separate cards.

Chela Rios Muñoz: Yeah, and at that time I used to use a fountain pen, I still do. So you had to literally write it down manually. But then how do you find them? So that the way that it was alphabetized was that across the top, you would punch in, you know, the letter of the person's, I mean, that's the technology that was available at that time. - And these cards then, would they go into the card catalog? - You know what, I don't, no, they did not go into the card catalog. I don't know if they were from there transferred, you know, into the card catalog. When the bibliography of Bibliography of Writings on La Mujer was actually published, I was away on a study abroad program in Mexico at that time. And so I don't know what the process was of getting that stack of punch cards into this annotated bibliography and what ended up happening in terms of transferring all that information to the actual library system. I was not a part of that.

Amanda Belantara: Wow, what a project. And so while you were working there, were there other projects that you did in the library as well? Did you have other assignments in addition to the bibliography?

Chela Rios Muñoz: I think that that was my major assignment. I mean, you would have to go and put things away in the stacks, you know, and clean up. Because as I said, this was a play. And at that time you could, you gathered there, you know, and so it was organizing it, but I was not, you know, an archivist or anything like that. I was a student, you know, I was 20 years old. I was 19, 20 years old. And so it was just mostly my focus. That was really that bibliography.

Amanda Belantara: And can you remember any conversations around organizing or describing any of the materials?

Chela Rios Muñoz: Well, there was a lot of conversation around the materials as we were able to read in this collection works by women. And as many of us women were really evolving our identities and our political awareness as Latinas, as women, and the relationship to the Chicano movement, the relationship to the women's movement, this collection was pivotal because it was written by Latinas and speaking from a perspective of a Latina perspective. And so it was a seed, you know, it was a place to have discussion. And out of that, I'm actually remembering that there weren't very many people that had gone before us, but there was a few. And so that were just a little bit older than we were. And we organized times where we would actually meet with them in their homes to have this connection between the young women that were students and the women who had just finished. Without us knowing that it was kind of a combination of a continuing dialogue as we were all formulating who we are and the visions, 'cause we were in some ways vanguards, you know, trying to figure out what part of culture are we going to keep and what are we challenging? And what are we going to change? And to have those kinds of discussion as women with these different, not generations, because we were too close in age to be called it a generational difference, was really important. And that kind of organizing also came out of the library. It's not that the library sponsored it, but that's where we would be able to convene to talk about these things. 'Cause otherwise, where else would we have done it?

Amanda Belantara: And then you also had the literature.

Chela Rios Muñoz: And we had the literature. And we had the atmosphere. And one very important word that I want to be able to be sure to include is that we had the safety. It was a safe place for us.

Amanda Belantara: You've touched on this quite a bit in your interview already, but I did want to ask you what impact did working at the library have on you as a person and later on going on and moving to your career?

Chela Rios Muñoz: Oh, well, as I've said, I mean, as a person, it helped me in my identity formation. It helped me feel that I belonged. And you need those things to be able to go forward. And it was a place that allowed and encouraged critical thinking by exposure to people that were thinking and to have dialogue. And so I think that at that time in my early life, it really helped solidify a foundation that I have carried throughout the rest of my life.

Amanda Belantara: You mentioned that you would work to organize symposiums and you would meet there after classes to study and whatnot. Can you remember if there were any other programs going on at the library at the time?

Chela Rios Muñoz: I don't remember. I mean, the big one for me was the symposium that we had. Well, actually, it was a place where, it was the only as we mentioned, that a lot of things happened there. I remember when he was, Carlos Muñoz was brought from Irvine to be interviewed for the position at Berkeley. He was interviewed in the library. So it was a place where things that were important to the development of Chicano studies, not just books and articles, but activities, that was the place where you could do it. So I remember him coming to that interview and being interviewed in the library and me being there as a work study student, that's where we met. And 45 years of marriage later.

Amanda Belantara: Did you and Richard Chabrán ever work together at the same time at the library?

Chela Rios Muñoz: Richard was there. I can close my eyes and see Richard standing behind the desk. I can close my eyes and see him still. I'm sure I have a picture of him somewhere. -

Amanda Belantara: Can you remember the type of stuff that Richard was doing at the library at the time?

Chela Rios Muñoz: Well, he was more in a class above my pay grade in terms of the organization of the library, in the administration of the library. And I was a student collecting this archive. And so I just saw him as being in charge of the library 'cause he was. I don't think he was ever my boss specifically. Maybe I just never obeyed, I don't know.

Amanda Belantara: Well, one thing that both Lily and Richard have mentioned to me is that the library was never really a place built on hierarchies, that everybody was kind of just doing their own thing. What's your thoughts on that?

Chela Rios Muñoz: Yeah, well, I think that because it was at the beginning of the early parts of Chicano Studies, there was a lot of young people around. And there weren't a lot of us yet who had gotten PhDs and credential. Many people were on their way and there were people there. But I think that maybe that was part of what created this collegial, collateral kind of a relationship. But there was certainly respect. I had respect for what Richard was doing and I had respect for what Jose was doing. It was I don't know what the word would be to describe it, but it was based on respect. And that was important too, in terms of all of our formations is that you're important, regardless of how old you are or what you're important. And whatever your ideas are, are important too. And this is a place where you can talk about them and contribute.

Amanda Belantara: And so when was it that you decided to leave the library?

Chela Rios Muñoz: I went away to school. I went away to school and when I came back, my work study money was gone.

Amanda Belantara: Is there anything else about the library, your memories or your experience of it that you would like to share?

Chela Rios Muñoz: If it wasn't for the library, I think many of us would not be who we are. And many of us have gone on to do community work and to continue to question and challenge and analyze to try to make this a better world. And the significance of having the library as a place of intellectual development, social development really helped many of us become who we became. I owe a lot to the library.