Oliver Rosales, a history professor from Bakersfield College, led the biannual Sal Castro Memorial Lecture on Feb. 26 at the UC Santa Barbara McCune Conference Room. 

The Sal Castro Memorial Conference, formerly known as the Sal Castro Conference, is a two-day event filled with guest speakers from the Chicana and Chicano studies and history departments at UCSB. The conference focuses on the Chicano Movement and the long history of Mexican-American civil rights struggles, which took place in the 1960s and 1970s. This era marked the formation of the Chicano Movement as part of the struggle for civil rights and community empowerment. 

Oliver Rosales, a history professor from Bakersfield College, led the bi-annual Sal Castro Memorial Lecture on Feb. 26 at the McCunne Conference Room. Salma Maytorena / Daily Nexus

The conference had come about with the publication of Mario Garcia and Sal Castro’s  book “Blowout! Sal Castro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice,” an oral history on the 1968 East Los Angeles student walkouts that Castro was a key part of, encouraging students to make their grievances public and how the history of his leadership was in part of sparking the Chicano Movement.

Garcia, who is a professor emeritus in Chicana and Chicano studies at UCSB, is the original organizer of the event, and Castro, a social studies teacher in Los Angeles known for his involvement in the 1968 East Los Angeles student walkouts, also organized the event previously in 2012. He passed away in 2013, which led Garcia to form the conference as a memorial to Castro’s legacy on Chicanx history. 

“All that history that was discussed over six conferences was about how people could make a difference … people coming together to realize that individually, they could not make change, but when they came together, collectively, they could,” Garcia said.

In the 1968 East Los Angeles student walkouts, Chicanx students protested against discrimination in public schools, such as banning speaking Spanish in classrooms and a lack of support for Chicanx students pursuing higher education. Castro himself was a teacher at Abraham Lincoln High School, which was one of the major Los Angeles schools that led these walkouts, and had an active role in leading and encouraging his students to take action for change.

Roughly 55 people attended the event in the Humanities and Social Science Building McCune Conference Room, including students, faculty and alumni. The event began with an introduction to Rosales and a presentation on the topics of his recently published book, “Civil Rights in Bakersfield: Segregation and Multiracial Activism in the Central Valley.” This was followed by a discussion between Garcia and Rosales, whom Rosales conducted his dissertation under, on the themes his book highlights and how Rosales’ own experiences influenced his work.

“I knew that it would be an excellent presentation, that the content would be very inspiring for my students and others, that yes, [change] can be done … But it doesn’t come out just by saying it. You have to organize around it and that’s so badly needed now,” Garcia said.

Rosales received his doctorate in history from UCSB in 2012. He said that the Chicana and Chicano studies department at UCSB allowed him to see his relation with the Central Valley as both a student and researcher, as well as the conferences’ influence on his attention to Chicanx activism topics. 

“[The Sal Castro Conference] brought interdisciplinary scholars from across America to showcase research on the long struggle for Latino, Mexican-American, Chicano, civilized history … and gobbling all that up as a student and then seeing, okay, how is it connected to these larger aspects of scholarship?” Rosales said. 

His book features themes of segregation between Black and Latine groups in Bakersfield, California, where his family has lived for centuries. He writes to explain the historical significance of racial dividing lines, looking at many historical mappings of Kern County in Bakersfield and beyond, and the community formations surrounding them as well as the effects. Also, he explores how civic unity and solidarity, particularly between Latine and African-American communities, championed civil rights reform and movements from the late 1960s to the Chicano Movement. 

“To acknowledge the contributions of Latino Americans to the long history of the United States … it’s not just the Farmworker Movement, but these other aspects of civil rights reform that made a civil rights revolution,” Rosales said. “It wasn’t just in the fields, it was in the schools, it was in the curriculum.”

Attendees at the event mentioned the importance of Chicanx literature and the knowledge of prior movements and how it can promote activism from Rosales’ insights and history.

“It’s good to come out and hear about it, and learn more about his story, what he’s trying to teach everyone about activism,” third-year sociology major Odalys Rios said.

The event also included perspectives from some of Garcia’s students from his class on Chicano History in the 20th century. 

“There’s not as much literature as there should be about this subject. And especially right now, I feel like it’s important to educate as many people as possible because education is power … and right now, people are trying to limit that education,” fourth-year psychological & brian sciences major Alyssa Alanis said. 

Rosales’ next project is to be a historical consultant on a redevelopment project of the César E. Chávez National Monument in the Central Valley, working alongside the selection team to discuss what other artifacts should be used to enhance the experience. Following this, he intends to write about the effect of the monument on Latine public history. 

The first Sal Castro Memorial Lecture still holds impact years after its establishment, Garcia said. Castro’s message of being a “changemaker” remains, Garcia said, and relates to the themes in Rosales’ book.

“[Students] see education as a way of being able to train themselves to become changemakers. I hope that this kind of history helps fortify the current students, that it can be done and this is very important now because of the politics we’re experiencing,” Garcia said. 

A version of this article appeared on p. 9 of the March 6, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.