Interviewer: Sandra Enriquez (SE) Interviewee: Ricardo De Anda (RDA) SE: "Thinking of a particular person, and it has, I guess my question has two parts. I understand that Martha Cotera was very active in the women's rights, especially throughout MAYO and during her time at UT, and also I was wondering if you had an experience with that one, and two, if you were part of the community or the organization part of bringing Mexican American studies to UT in the 70s." RDA: "Well, I left Austin in 1971. And being with the university community between 69 and 71 I was taking graduate history classes. The lack of inclusiveness in the student body was up there. That was like one of the top three issues that were up for us. It was the university, we were dealing with administrators, we were dealing with students. So that was clearly an issue that people were pushing for. Plus the civil rights movement was all about that, it was about inclusiveness. So it was the same fight. I think it was, was one university of Texas, a professor there... Americo Paredes...?" SE: "Mhm, he was at UT." RDA: "I think he was like the only one there. It reminds me of an interview that I read of him where he just retired? Or is he still there?" SE: "Oh, no I think he's passed away but..." RDA: "Or, he passed away. But before he passed away they asked him about the fact that now he was the chairman of the department, and does this show how much progress... and he says 'hell no, I just outlived all those bastards." SE: "Well I wonder what he would have to say now, I don't know if you're aware of the Center for Mexican American Studies and the latino studies department gave a prize to the latino heritage award... I can't even... or leadership award to Bush, the land commissioner. People went up in arms about it because he does not represent the latino population in Austin, and it's brought up a lot of fight between faculty and community members against the people that are in the department and a lot of people have continued to say that UT is very much stuck in its old ways and there's not really been a lot of progress for Mexican American faculty and students so... but sorry, continue about Americo Paredes." RDA: "Yeah so anyway, that was an issue back then that we were constantly drumming against with the administration at the university."