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Article Excerpt
Vicki L. Ruiz is the dean of the School of Humanities and a professor of Chicano/Latino studies and history at the University of California, Irvine. Ruiz is one of the most prolific scholars of and fiercest advocates for Chicana/Latina studies and history. While at Florida State University as an undergraduate she envisioned a postgraduate path in teaching, but when she was encouraged by one of her mentors, Jean Gould-Bryant, to think about graduate school she decided to apply--"on a whim," she says in the interview that follows. In graduate school at Stanford University, working with Albert Camarillo and Estelle Freedman, she sought ways to both uncover the lives and tell the stories of Chicanas and Mexican American women. Through graduate school and several decades in the historical profession she has continued these journeys--as a teacher fighting to incorporate Chicana, Mexicana, and Latina narratives and historical contexts into the mainstream U.S. historical and American studies canons; as a mentor to students struggling to find a past that helps them better situate themselves and their experiences and a voice in fields that continue to be marginal within the academy; as a scholar documenting the lives of Chicanas and Latinas and always contesting the canons that frame such inquiries. As she explains,
When I was a child, I learned two types of history--the one at home and the one. at school. My mother and grandmother would regale me with stories about their Colorado girlhoods, stories of village life, coal mines, strikes, discrimination, and family lore. At school, scattered references were made to Coronado, Ponce de Leon, the Alamo, and Pancho Villa. That was the extent of Latino history. Bridging the memories told at the table with printed historical narratives fueled my decision to become a historian. (1)
From her initial historical monograph documenting the lives of female cannery workers in southern California in the early twentieth century, to her sweeping study of the lives of Chicanas, Mexicanas, and Mexican American women in the United States during the twentieth century, to the groundbreaking anthology Unequal Sisters that she coedited with Ellen DuBois, Ruiz has been tireless in her efforts to bring greater visibility to Chicanas, Mexicanas, and Latinas historically. (2) One indicator of the success of these efforts can be seen by the fact that Unequal Sisters is now a standard text in many U.S. women's history classes and was/is the "first collection that provides for a more inclusive, multicultural women's history, focusing on the experiences of Latinas, African American women, Asian American women, and Native American women." (3) Most recently Ruiz coedited with Virginia Sanchez Korrol the encyclopedia, Latinas in the United States. (4) Of this three-volume publication Ruiz notes, "We didn't want this to be a dry encyclopedia .... We wanted to show these women's lives in their historical moment .... I wanted these women to reveal themselves in their own words and on their own terms, whether through a letter, a court case, diary or interview." (5) This statement exemplifies Vicki Ruiz's approach to the profession; to make history, especially Chicana history, accessible to everyone and to be responsible to the subjects of her studies.
Vicki Ruiz has been one of the critical inspirations for this special issue of Feminist Studies. Seeking to heed her call for greater attention to the Spanish borderlands and to the lives of Chicanas, we hope that this volume continues the path laid out by Ruiz through her own life and work. (6)
--Leisa D. Meyer
Leisa Meyer: Could you talk a little about your early experiences as a Chicana scholar?
Vicki Ruiz: I think that for all of us, the cohort that was in graduate school in the '70s, there was a burden of proving yourself, of proving that you belonged. When I went to my first job interview [in the early '80s] I was not asked--I may have been but I don't remember being asked--a single question about my research. It was assumed that I knew Chicano history, but they asked, "How would I teach Progressivism?" or "How would I teach the New Deal?" I left the interview with the idea that "Wow, I have just taken orals again!" It was that sense of "Okay, what do you know?"
I offer my students ... my women students ... a cautionary jeremiad: "Do as I say, not as I did." I showed up to my first job with a baby on the hip and one on the way--that probably did not endear me, I don't believe, to some of my colleagues (not all, for sure, as I developed wonderful friendships from that period, particularly with poet Pat Mora). (7) I was always seen as a mother. Most of my students were absolutely wonderful--in fact when I gave birth to Dan, who turned twenty-five yesterday, my U.S. survey class sent me flowers--they were like the sweetest--this is at the University of Texas, El Paso--I adored them. They were first generation; they were happy to be in school. I had many reentry women who just taught me much more than I ever taught them. [laughing] I mean I learned so much from them. I remember one time I was lecturing on the Farah Strike, (8) and these two women were sitting there winking, elbowing each other, and giggling, and I interrupted the class and they said "Oh, we're sorry, Dr. Ruiz, we were there." A bit nonplussed, I turned over the class to them. They were wonderful, but I did have one student--who was an older man who always pointedly called himself "Hispanic"--who decided that I was beyond the pale and, in fact, told me that it's all right for Anglo women to work but not for Hispanic women, particularly when you're pregnant. And there was a level of harassment, but at that point in time, because he never physically touched me, basically nothing could be done about it. But that sort of harassment ... calling and breathing ... and when I would tell people that I was getting these calls a colleague said, "Oh 'so and so'--you made 'so and so' mad." You know because people knew about him.
L.M.: So, he had done this before?
V.R.: He had done this before. In fact, he had not taken the final exam so I flunked him, and the chair of the department changed the grade to a "C" because he was afraid for my safety. I was not pleased. The next semester he saw me in the hall and he basically cornered me and he had this alcoholic breath and he breathed over me. He said, "I hope you'll have an easy delivery and your baby will be healthy." And at that moment Dan moved and it just freaked me out. An older Mexicano who was in another class came up to me and said, "You don't know what just happened to you, do you?" And I said no. "Well, you've just been given mal ojo (the evil eye), but I will help you." The next day he arrived in my office with an aloe vera plant and a prayer in Spanish, which I still have. He told me to set it in a sunny spot in my kitchen and to get up every morning and say this prayer in front of the plant. And you better believe I did it. I had a very hard delivery with Dan, and I remember when he was born I was, like, does he have all his fingers and toes? It's become a family joke. My younger son is a talented writer and a poet, so the joke is that his hard delivery and mercurial personality is due to this student.
But this sense of proving yourself continued. When I went to Davis [in 1985] I was living in Stockton at the time and commuting, and there was a real difference at Davis. I did not bring my children to functions until I had tenure, and I'll always remember that there was a history department picnic and my kids were out there chasing the ducks and David Brody [ history department colleague] looked at me and said, "Vicki! Are those your children?" And I said yes. And he said, "I didn't know you had children. You always looked so relaxed." And I said thanks! Then, of course, I took the boys everywhere, especially when I was living in Davis as a single parent, my children went with me everywhere. But I think that as a Chicana there was this sense among those of us in graduate school during the 1970s that we knew that "we're in this together." For some women there have been genuine bonds of friendship that...
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