RSVP for Desde 1976: Education, Culture and Community

media release: 2026 marks 50 years of Chicanx/e and Latinx/e Studies at UW-Madison. We are honoring our legacy through an ongoing speaker series and a two-day symposium on October 16 and 17, 2026. The deadline to register is Oct. 9.

On April 14, 1974, student activists began picketing, demanding that the University of Wisconsin-Madison account for what it had chosen not to know. Over the following two years students organized, lobbied the state legislature, and refused to be turned away until the university curriculum included the study of the histories, cultures, arts, literatures, and social and political lives of Chicanx/e and Latinx/e people in the U.S. Their efforts led to the creation in 1976 of the Chicano Studies Program at UW-Madison.

Desde 1976: Education, Culture, and Community honors and celebrates five decades of work in preparing students for successful careers, growing our knowledge of Chicanx/e and Latinx/e populations through innovative research, and collaborations with local communities.  Since its founding, the Chicanx/e and Latinx/e Studies Program (CLS) has been asking the questions that matter most: whose histories get told, whose communities get studied, whose futures get imagined.

Fifty years later, we continue interrogating the barriers to being for Chicanx/e and Latinx/e peoples through research and teaching in literature, political science, sociology, education, urban planning, theater, media and communication arts, history, geography, anthropology, gender studies, counseling psychology, health, and medicine.

We are here. Welcome.

Find the complete schedule of events at https://chicla.wisc.edu/schedule-of-events/.

Friday, October 16

3:00 pm: Welcome and Exhbit Opening. Levy 2212

3:30 pm: Launching CLS-Founders' Panel

4:30 pm: Desde 1976 Exhibit: Levy 3204

5:30 pm: Reception  

Saturday, October 17

9:30 am:  Breakfast, Judy and Peter Weil Study and Event Space, Levy

10:00 am: Reflecting on the Lessons of CLS in Student Lives, Levy 2212

11:15 am: CLS Grads Making a Difference: Multiple Career Paths, Levy 2212

12:30 pm: Lunch and Keynote, "Chicanx Poetry: Voice of Dissent and Desire"

Rafael Pérez-Torres, UCLA. Skyview Room, Fluno Center

2:30pm:   Building Bridges: CLS Research and Community Partnerships

Levy 2212

3:30pm:   Reception. Music by the Tony Castañeda

Latin Jazz Band, Levy 3204