Professor Jennie Luna teaches Chicana/o Studies.
By Julie Drake
As chair-elect for the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS),
Jennie Luna, Professor of Chicana/o Studies, designed the theme and program for the
organization’s national conference, held April 2 to 5 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“It’s an honor to be elected by the national body to chair the organization and also
represent my campus at a national level. It’s a big deal,” Luna said.
Luna is actively working toward changing the paradigm in her field to address Indigenous
issues and work toward decolonization; how we imagine it; and how we see it in our
reality and lifetime, she said.
“I’m really excited to have people from all over the country gather to share research
and participate in the plenary sessions I have coordinated, highlighting scholars
leading the field of Chicana and Chicano indigeneity,” she said.
Education is especially important to Luna. She is a first-generation college graduate.
She attended the University of California, Berkeley where she learned about the Third
World Liberation Front.
“It influenced me to become an activist and organize on campus,” she said.
The Third World Liberation Front was a 1969 multiracial student coalition that helped
establish Ethnic Studies as an interdisciplinary field in the United States. Thirty
years after the largest student strike in U.S. history, Luna was one of the student
leaders of the 1999 Third World Liberation Front hunger strike and protests against
a series of cuts to the Department of Ethnic Studies.
“There’s a documentary, On Strike, and I’m actually in the documentary and narrate
it,” she said. “The outcome of the hunger strike was that we helped preserve ethnic
studies to what it is today at UC Berkeley, leading the trend to expand Ethnic Studies
K-20 in California.”
Luna received simultaneous Bachelor of Arts degrees in Chicana/o Studies and Mass
Communications from UC Berkeley.
Luna originally wanted to be a journalist. The late Mexican-American journalist Rubén
Salazar inspired her. He was one of the first Chicano journalists at the Los Angeles
Times. He was killed on Aug. 29, 1970, while covering the National Chicano Moratorium
March, which was organized to protest the Vietnam War.
However, Luna’s path took a different direction. While she was a senior in college,
she started teaching Raza Studies at Pittsburg High School. As a member of M.E.Ch.A.
(Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán) and Ch.a.LE (Chicanos and Latinos for Education),
the groups organized in the community and demanded Chicana/o Studies. The high school
agreed to offer the class but said they had no one to teach it. Luna and another classmate
stepped up.
“That’s when I decided I needed to go into education,” she said.
Luna completed her Master of Education at Teachers College at Columbia University.
During that time, she taught at schools in New York City.
“I really loved it,” she said. “It was a really hard job.”
At the same time, she had a second job where she taught at a community college in
the city, Boricua College.
“I loved teaching higher education,” she said.
The experience solidified Luna’s desire to get her doctorate. Luna got her master’s
and doctorate in Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis.
“I knew I wanted to teach Chicana/o studies,” she said. “But I also wanted to teach
it from an Indigenous perspective. Chicana/o Studies at the time really didn’t have
a complex curriculum or foundation in Indigeneity.”
Part of the requirement in the Native American studies doctorate program at UC Davis
is having to learn two languages, and one of them must be an Indigenous language.
Luna already spoke Spanish. When deciding on her Indigenous language study she chose
Nahuatl. She studied on campus for two years. She also received a grant for two years
to study in Mexico.
"I knew I wanted to teach Chicana/o studies, but I also wanted to teach it from an
Indigenous perspective."
–Jennie Luna
It was a two-year summer intensive language course and an immersive experience in
a Nahua community. Nahuatl is the third largest Indigenous language spoken on the
North American continent.
Further, she has participated in the Intercontinental Indigenous spiritual runs, even
running through South America with the Peace and Dignity Journeys. Her work has extended
to participation in global gatherings of Indigenous women via the United Nations Permanent
Forum for Indigenous Peoples and as a traditional Mexica/Azteca dancer since the age
of 15. She started the first Aztec Dance group in New York City.
Luna taught Chicana/o Studies and Native American Studies for over 10 years at various
institutions before she joined CSUCI in Fall of 2014. Luna came to CSUCI for the opportunity
to be part of building the University’s Chicana/o Studies program, developing courses
such as Xicana Feminisms, Gender and Sexuality, Nahuatl Language and Philosophy, and
Reproductive Justice.
CSUCI has over 50% Chicano/Latino students.
“These are the students I’ve always wanted to work with,” she said. “I love the students
I work with. I definitely feel that teaching Chicana/o studies is my calling; it’s
my vocation. It’s what I was meant to do.”
Laila Tejeda, a second-year student who is double majoring in Political Science and
Chicana/o Studies said, "I have a deep appreciation for Dr. Luna as she was the main
reason as to why I chose to go to CSUCI. I have known her ever since I was a little
kid and grew up admiring her as a person to later on admiring her as a professor and
as my Chicana role model!
“If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have chosen this school that I love so much, I
wouldn’t have been able to convince my family to let me go to a university, and I
wouldn’t have been able to have as many opportunities as I do now. I thank her from
the bottom of my heart for everything she’s done for me."
Lariza Flores, who graduated from CSUCI in May of 2024, said Luna has been an inspiration
in her journey as a first-generation Latina in education.
“Having taken a handful of her classes, Dr. Luna has taught us the importance of taking
a stand for our needs as students through the lens of student and women activists,”
she said.
She added that Luna was a pillar in her support system throughout her educational
journey “as she always reminded me not to be afraid of moving forward in higher education
because as women and People of Color, we must occupy those seats as well.”
“Dr. Luna has also inspired me to reconnect with my indigenous roots through her classes
on Nahuatl and Danza Azteca,” she said. “Even in education, the personal has its
place, and I carry that with me every day as I enter my classroom to teach our future
generations.”
This Fall, Flores will begin her master’s program in Chicana and Chicano Studies at
San José State University.
“When I see my students that go on to fulfill their own dreams and they see themselves
as intellectuals and that they have the ability to get a doctorate and to be a thinker
and be a scholar and be an activist, I love when I see the light that sparks and that
makes me really happy,” Luna said.