May 7, 1980LSU Sit-in and Arrestsat BGSUA LOCAL HISTORY BGSU Latino Issues ConferenceRoxann Brown, MACIE 24 March 2016

“People of every place and time deserve a history.”

Joseph Amato, Rethinking Home: A Case for Writing Local History (2005)

“Local history fulfills an innate human desire to be connected to a place.”

Local history is the study of a defined region within a defined time period. Doing local history can help you see:

• How power relationships work out• How social unrest plays out• The consequences of policy as they play out in a local space• Get at what is / was happening in individual people’s lives

Locale is what local historians try to find and describe.

The Event: Bowling Green, Ohio: On the seventh day of May (a Wednesday) in 1980 at 7:45

pm in the hallway outside of the office of President Hollis Moore of BGSU a four hour peaceful sit-in protest organized by the Latino Student Union (LSU) ended.

At this time 23 protestors were arrested and hand-cuffed by Campus Safety and Security while chanting “We want justice.” 21 were members of the LSU.

They were taken to the city of Bowling Green’s Safety Building, where they were processed by city police and charged with criminal trespassing (a misdemeanor).

My beginning questions

Did not find answers to all of them in my archival research

Why did this sit-in protest happen in May 1980? What were these students demanding?

Why were these students arrested? Would they have been arrested if they had not been Latinos?

Where Latino students protesting on other campuses? Or was this an isolated case?

What can be learned about the place, BGSU, from exploring and studying this event 35 years later? What does this say about the larger American society at this time?

Why is this event important to study? Because many of the demands made in 1980 are still being taken and done today on college campuses.

Can you tell which year (1980 or 2015) the following demands are from?

Demands to end systemic racial biases on campus

Demands for university administration to make the campus safer for minority students

Demands to increase the number of tenured faculty of color

Demands for investigations into apparent violations of affirmative action policies

Demands for classes about minorities and their experiences in America

Demands for race relations workshops for faculty and staff

Demands to increase Latino students on campus

Percent of Hispanic and Latino population by state in 2012

Hispanics / Latinos in Ohio and BGSU

Ohio and BGSU mirror each other over time in terms of racial make-up of their populations.

1980 2010 Ohio 2015 BGSU

Ohio Total Population 10. 8 million 11.54 million

Ohio Hispanic Population

120,000(1.1 %)

354, 674 (3.1 %)

BGSU Undergrads

Hispanic students at BGSU

14,571

94(0.6%)

14,099

564(4%)

LSU Sit-In on May 7, 1980 was both:

Culminating point of two years (1978-1980) of student activism, civil disobedience, and protests involving LSU, BSU (Black Student Union) & Third World Student Organization to:

o Bring a campus-wide focus on institutional racism at BGSU

o Demand administration take action to address this racism

Breaking point between LSU & other student organizations as:

o LSU had decided its demands for Latino students required separate actions from the other groups

LSU Sit-InWHY DO IT? Not satisfied with administration’s

response to LSU’s Statement of Concern issued on April 28, 1980 on institutional racism towards Latino/a students

THEIR DEMANDS? LSU to be recognized as a separate

organization from BSU

More Latino/a faculty and professional staff be hired

Student Support Services develop programs appropriate to meet the needs of Latino/a students

Recruit more Latino/a students

Surprises from my research

Lack of research done on LSU on college campuses

The whole protest movement was started by international students in 1978-79 year and taken up by BSU

Many schools, including BGSU, viewed the needs and subcultures of the Latino students and Black students as identical in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s

Due to gaps in the archives for BSU, Ethnic Studies, Multicultural Affairs, and President Moore, I do not believe I have a complete picture of what happened on May 7, 1980 or what led up to it.

Methodology and Sources:

Primary Sources – all from Center for Archival Collections

LSU Papers

BG News and BG Sentinel-Tribune

BGSU College Bulletin and yearbooks

BSU Papers

Ethnic Studies Papers

Multicultural Affairs Papers

Obsidian Student Newsletter (minority students monthly news magazine)

President Hollis Moore, Jr. Papers

Undergraduate Student Association

Secondary SourcesScholarly Books and Research Articles on:

Civil Rights Activism and social movements of the 20th century

Latino University Student organizations and activism

Mexican-Americans

Latinos