Oral history interview, Cleopatra Estrada, 2013 (video and transcript)

Cleo Estrada, a counselor in the multicultural section of Student Services at the Univ. of Colorado at Boulder, was born in 1951 in Center, in the San Luis Valley. Her father worked in a lumber yard, and her mother was a field worker. Cleo started working in the fields at age 5-6, with her siblings; she gives a moving description of how hard the work was and her mother's help to the children. She talks about the San Luis Valley and Spanish language and traditions there. When they went occasionally to Alamosa, where Adams State College is, she never imagined she could go to college. She describes poor housing for Latinos and segregation in Center. She came to CU Boulder in 1969 through the Migrant Action Program, receiving her undergraduate degree in 1973 and her Master's in counseling in 1974. She describes her involvement with UMAS, Chicano activists on campus, and protests. She gives the background to the Chicano movement, describes special programs for Hispanic students, and lays out the issues the student activists were concerned about and why. She talks about what has changed on campus since then.