50 Years: Isla Vista's Role in the “Countercultural Revolution” a Chicano Center Wants Its Archives Back, but UCSB Won't
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DAILY NEXUS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019 www.dailynexus.com UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA The Faces Shaping the Future of the 50 Years: Isla Isla Vista Community Center Vista’s Role in the Arturo Martinez Rivera first year at UC Santa Barbara. efforts moving toward a benefi- Courtesy of Luz Reyes-Martín Asst. News Editor Having been a member of the I.V. cial goal — and applied them “Countercultural CSD since its creation in 2017, to the Community Center As the soft opening of the long- Brandt eventually became board Advisory Board. awaited community center in Isla president in late 2018 and recently “The strength of creat- Vista approaches, the Isla Vista graduated from UCSB as a his- ing a shared governance Revolution” Community Services District tory of public policy major this model for managing the spent the summer appointing past june. c o m m u n i t y Katherine Swartz At the time, the Bank of America members for the Community He was also a part of the Isla center is Asst. News Editor ... it came out they had extensive Center Advisory Board. The Vista Community Center Ad-Hoc that we advisory board will work with Committee discussions in 2016, h a v e Editor’s Note: This year, UC and advise Community Center a county committee designed to t h e Santa Barbara marks 50 years Director Diana Collins Puente on gather input regarding the reno- since the 1969-1970 school the inception and future of the vation of the community center “The year — a time known for community center, a project that building. political unrest and high Community has seemingly been a perpetual Brandt hopes to transform Courtesy of Spencer Brandt tensions between Isla Resource Building work-in-progress. the community center Vista residents and local could provide a dedi- The Nexus interviewed each into an “inclusive law enforcement. The cated revenue source board member — Spencer Brandt, space for col- Daily Nexus is running a for programming and Pegeen Soutar, Luz Reyes-Martín, lege students, series of articles reflecting building maintenance,” Margaret Klawunn and Christian youth, and on the time period, what Brandt said. “It is impor- Ornelas — and compiled small families has changed since and how KATHERINE SWARTZ/ DAILY NEXUS tant to remember that Isla profiles on each regarding their alike.” His it affected the current state of Vista taxpayers paid to purchase ties to the I.V. community and program- activism at UCSB. both buildings. We deserve to see their visions for the community right set UC Berkeley may be the fruits of that investment rein- center. of voices remembered for the Free vested in our community.” Spencer Brandt at the table Speech Movement, but Pegeen Soutar Spencer Brandt, current to be able to UC Santa Barbara and Isla As a long-standing resident of board president of the Isla make those Vista’s histories are defined I.V., Pegeen first became involved Vista Community Services things happen by the 1970 riots. with the Isla Vista Recreation and District (I.V. CSD), has in a collaborative 1965 to 1970 marked a five- Nexus File Photo Park District Board of Directors been involved with the fashion,” Brandt said in year period where the United in 1993, after she became con- I.V. com- an email to the Nexus. States was transformed by the cerned that there weren’t many munity The I.V. CSD has already Vietnam War and civil rights Nexus File Photo safe recreational places in I.V. for since allocated over $180,000 for the protests. But these national her children, three and five at the his Community Center’s staff and events weren’t just headlines time, and sought to change that. programming in the 2018-2019 to the students of UCSB; at She currently serves as the vice budget, according to Brandt. The the time, male college-aged chairperson for the board. students were being drafted Courtesy Of Margaret Klawunnming I.V. CSD is also planning long- According to Soutar, her prima- i d e a s term goals with the community in droves for the Vietnam ry purpose on the IVRPD board are all geared center as well. War, the 1969 Santa Barbara has been to “build community toward this in the form Santa Barbara County owns the oil spill saw an outage that Nexus File Photo between residents and create a of live music, exercise community center building and would later lead to the modern vibrant and safer place to live” classes, library services the nearby Community Resource environmental movement and and sees the community center as and more. Building, says Brandt, but I.V. CSD four college students had been another opportunity to improve Brandt took a similar set staff is currently in talks with the killed by National Guard on community relations with stu- of values as those encompass- county to obtain a two-year lease soldiers during an anti-war PEGEEN ANDREA / DAILY NEXUS dents and families living in I.V. ing the I.V. CSD — collaborative of the community enter building. protest at Kent State in Ohio. Isla Vista quickly became Community Center p.3 a countercultural hub, in part because of the high student population and small-town nature that made Nexus File Photo A Chicano Center Wants Its Archives the area a breeding ground for political activism. “We just felt like the country was on the verge of a revolution. Back, But UCSB Won’t Return Them It was easier to feel that way when we’re all in a center of a refuge of like-minded people like here in Isla Vista,” Steve Byrd, who attended UCSB between 1965 and 1970, said. The anti-war movement at UCSB and Isla Vista differentiated from movements at other universities during the Nexus File Photo period, Byrd said, in part because of the violent tensions that led to investments in the burning of the local Bank of the Vietnam War and profiteering America building, the death of a off the Vietnam War.” student by the hands of police and A crowd of “a few hundred” the deployment of the national gathered around the Bank of All Photos Courtesy of Caliasphere guard by then-governor Ronald America building in Isla Vista, the Reagan. current site of Embarcadero Hall. The original terms agreed upon The agreement, according to cably give, transfer, and convey Max Abrams Byrd, a senior at the time, had a They broke windows, grabbed in the 20-year-old document Güereña, was initially intended to the Regents of the University of Asst. News Editor front row seat for it all. furniture out of the building and signed by both the Centro and to be more of a loan than a California Donor’s present orga- He described the hippie made a large pile, lighting it on When a San Diego-based CEMA, however, give the univer- permanent solution, meaning nizational records subject to the movement in the area as fire. Chicano art and cultural center sity permanent possession of the the archives wouldn’t receive the conditions which are described in “peaceful” — at least until January Immediately, police from — home to swaths of archives and archives. same treatment as those perma- this Agreement,” the gift agree- 1970. The rest of the 1969-1970 surrounding towns were brought fragments of Chicano history — At the turn of the century, nently in CEMA’s collections. At ment read. academic year was marked by in the area, and Byrd remembers asked last spring to reclaim dona- CEMA was engaged in a state- the same time, Güereña was in In the years since the gift three distinctive phases of rioting, their “aggressive” behavior toward tions it made nearly 20 years ago wide scouting effort to pinpoint the process of applying for federal agreement, Güereña said CEMA culminating in June with the all of Isla Vista. to the UC Santa Barbara Special cultural centers in possession of and state grants to overhaul slide has categorized and catalogued arrival of the National Guard and “They didn’t know Isla Vista at Research Collections, members of materials in need of archiving, collections from “various cultural the Centro’s entire archives and the arrest of 10% of Isla Vista’s all, they just knew the stereotypes the center learned they wouldn’t Güereña said. Upon speaking with centers” around the state — and returned to them a “fully cata- population one week before final and they were pissed off. They be getting them back. the Centro’s president at the time, the Centro wanted in, he said. logued, fully arranged” duplicate exams, Byrd said. were pissed off to be here and The archives, currently housed it became apparent to Güereña But the project, which included set. The Centro is entitled access The event that sparked the maybe fearful and scared and they at the UCSB Library’s California that “[the Centro] was very con- efforts to both catalogue and digi- to the archives on an as-need basis violence of 1970 is arguably the became very aggressive with us, Ethnic and Multicultural cerned about [its] lack of ability to tize the archives, couldn’t be done and maintains the power to make most nationally well-known event very, very aggressive with us.” Archives (CEMA), once belonged be able to archive,” he explained. “unless [the Centro] had some- requests for specific archives if in the university’s history: the After three days, students “ran to Centro Cultural de la Raza, an Due to the fragile nature of thing in writing showing that the Centro wishes to hold a show- burning of the Bank of America [the police] out of town,” according art museum and artists’ collective the materials — mainly photo- they’re interested in working with case or “retrospective exhibition,” building in Isla Vista.