CAMARILLO — “From La Colonia to the Clinton Administration, and to Cal: Learning and Leadership — A Conversation with Maria Echaveste” will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27 CSU Channel Island. The public is welcome to attend.
Growing up the eldest of seven children in Oxnard’s La Colonia, Echaveste shouldered a lot of responsibility early in her life, including working in the fields with her family.
Years after graduating from Channel Islands High School, earning a bachelors degree from Stanford University and a juris doctorate from UC Berkeley, Echaveste accepted responsibility of a different kind when she became White House Deputy Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton.
Echaveste said the thrust of her talk will be to remind other first generation college students, as she was, that the American Dream may be harder to achieve these days, but it is still within reach with hard work, and the right attitude.
“I really, really believe the accident of birth should not determine whether you are able to achieve your potential,” said Echaveste, 61, who now calls Berkeley, Calif. home. “That means a quality education and we need public policies in place to help make that happen.”
The pathway to college for Echaveste lay between the pages of books, which she discovered as a young girl.
“I was a very avid reader,” she said. “I was reading so broadly, I knew there was a world out there that was very different than the one I was living in and I wanted that world.”
In a traditional family like hers, girls did not leave home until they were married, Echaveste said, so when her grades and an educational grant from the state enabled her to enroll in Stanford University, her father forbade her to go.
“My mother had to put me on the Greyhound Bus,” she said.
After earning an anthropology degree at Stanford and then a juris doctor from the University of California at Berkeley, her father began to accept that this was the right path for his eldest daughter.
Echaveste went on to practice corporate law in Los Angeles and New York, then began to work for then-candidate Bill Clinton’s campaign.
“I was so fed up with 12 years of Republicans,” she said. “I believe there is a role for government in helping people have opportunity.”
From 1993 to 1997, Echaveste worked for the Department of Labor, then began working for the White House in 1998 as Director of Public Liaison.
From 1998 to 2001, she served as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton, becoming one of the highest-ranking Latinas to have served in a presidential administration.
Currently, Echaveste is the Policy and Program Development Director at the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at UC, Berkeley. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a co-founder of the Nueva Vista Group, a policy, legislative strategy and advocacy group working with non-profit and corporate clients.
Echaveste’s presentation is sponsored by CI’s Chicana/o Studies and History programs.
“Maria Echaveste is an outstanding role model for not only CSU Channel Islands students but all K-14 students in our service area,” said Professor of History Frank Barajas, Ph.D.
Limited parking is available on campus with the purchase of a $6 daily permit; follow signs to the parking permit dispensers. Free parking is available at the Camarillo Metrolink Station/Lewis Road with bus service to and from the campus. Riders should board the CI Vista Bus to the campus; the cash-only fare is $1.25 each way. Buses arrive and depart from the Camarillo Metrolink Station every 30 minutes from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday. For exact times, check the schedule at www.goventura.org.
Sponsored by Instructionally Related Activities at CSU Channel Islands, the California Faculty Association and History and Chicana/o Studies.
Contact Professor Frank P. Barajas at frank.barajas@csuci.edu or 805-437-8882 for more information.
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About California State University Channel Islands
CSU Channel Islands (CI) is the only four-year, public university in Ventura County and is known for its interdisciplinary, multicultural and international perspectives, and its emphasis on experiential and service learning. CI’s strong academic programs focus on business, sciences, liberal studies, teaching credentials, and innovative master’s degrees. Students benefit from individual attention, up-to-date technology, and classroom instruction augmented by outstanding faculty research. CI has been designated by the U.S. Department of Education as a Hispanic-Serving Institution and is committed to serving students of all backgrounds from the region and beyond. Connect with and learn more about CI by visiting CI’s Social Media.