Chicana/o Studies
Chicana/o Studies

The Chicana/o/x Studies Program at Oxnard College is an interdisciplinary academic program dedicated to the critical exploration of the Chicana/o/x and broader Latina/o/x experience within both local and global contexts. Rooted in the educational needs of Mexican American and Latino students, the program seeks to foster a deeper understanding of the social, historical, psychological, and cultural dimensions of Chicana/o/x life in the United States.
Through courses that integrate perspectives from Sociology, History, Psychology, and Anthropology, students gain a comprehensive knowledge of Chicana/o/x history and culture, as well as the major theories and concepts that explain the lived experiences of Chicana/o/x communities. The curriculum emphasizes critical, analytical, and creative thinking to prepare students to engage thoughtfully with issues of identity, inequality, and cultural heritage.
The primary mission of the Chicana/o/x Studies Program is to cultivate an academic space where students can understand, value, and appreciate the richness of Chicana/o/x culture, while also equipping them with the intellectual tools to navigate and contribute to a diverse and evolving society.
This is an introductory interdisciplinary course designed to introduce students to research and publications in related disciplines and familiarizes them with the interdisciplinary aspects of Chicana/o studies. The course is a survey of diverse historical experiences, cultural factors, and ethnic/racial paradigms, including indigenousness, gender, sexuality, language, and borders, that help shape Chicana/o identities, with an emphasis on critical reading and writing skills. The course will provide students with a comprehensive examination of Mexican, Chicana/o, and Latina/o development in the United States. Through critical reading and thinking, textual analysis, and coherent, persuasive writing and communication skills, students will gain a clear understanding of some of the central developments of Chicana/o history and culture. This course will also provide an overview of the formations, definitions, and transformations of Chicana/o peoples by critically analyzing gender roles, the borderlands, Chicana feminism, the arts, immigration, tradition, and identity of Chicano people.
This course will explore the development of Chicana/o identities through a survey of social scientific, historical and literary sources. This will include exploration of Mexican American regional cultures that trace the development of societal division based on gender, race, ethnicity and other categories.
This course is a survey of the Chicanx experience beginning with the era of US imperialism wars of the expansion to the present, emphasizing the roles of Chicanx people in the political, social, and economic development of U.S. society. Utilizing theoretical frameworks and methodologies from Ethnic Studies and Chicanx Studies, historical themes and events will be analyzed through an intersectional lens that interrogates categories of identity and power, including Indigeneity, race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and religion. Topics covered include the impact of US invasion into Mexico on the lives of Mexicans and Indigenous people in the borderlands; (im) migration and labor struggles; the impact of World War I, World War II, and the Cold War on Mexican Americans; the campaigns for civil rights, racial; discrimination, and the struggles for civil rights, decolonization, and self-determination; the construction of a "Chicana/o/x" identity; gender, sex, sexuality, and the emergence of Chicana feminisms; and the transnational Chicanx experience contemporary US.
This course provides students with a basic understanding of the Chicana/Latina in contemporary society. Emphasis is placed on establishing a framework from which to view the historical development and treatment of women in modern society. It includes an analysis of selected Latina issues currently affecting Chicana/Latina women.
This course provides a historical survey of the Mexican and Chicano/a/x experience from the pre-Columbian era to the present. Emphasis is placed on Mexican settlement in Greater Mexico and the United States' Southwest within the broader narrative of United States history. The course examines the participation, contributions, and lived experiences of Mexicans in the United States across major socio-historical, political, judicial, legislative, economic, and educational developments. Students will explore significant moments in the histories of both Mexico and the United States, including the colonial period, the early national era, the framing of the U.S. Constitution, westward and northward migration over the past 250 years, the American Mexican War, the Bracero Program, the Mexican American labor movement, the Chicano/a Movement, and the evolution of U.S.–Mexico relations into the early twenty-first century.
This course examines the institutional and structural conditions that have and continue to shape the Chicana/o experience in the United States. This course makes use of a Sociological perspective that incorporates various paradigms/theories including but not limited to: Stratification, Colonialism/Imperialism, Chicana Feminism, Queer Theory, Conflict Theory, and Assimilation/Acculturation. Of specific interest is the impact of social institutions such as: Education, the Legal System, the Economy, Politics, Family, and the Media on the Chicana/o community. This course will examine institutionally perpetuated systems of oppression and privilege such as: white supremacy, sexism, heteronormativity, and classism.
For more information contact:
Liberal Studies Division Office (805) 678-5804
Dr. Elizabeth Villa-Rosales
Professor of Chicana/o Studies
Email: evilla@vcccd.edu
Office: LS-L