Third World Liberation Front Intergenerational Panel

About

On June 24, 2025, UC Berkeley's annual High School Ethnic Studies Initiative (HSESI) Institute held this panel about the Third World/third world Liberation Front (TWLF/twLF)* for an audience of high school ethnic studies educators. This panel built upon ones that took place the last two years, which featured organizers from the 1969 TWLF student strike, the movement started at San Francisco state and continued here at UC Berkeley, eventually leading to the creation of the academic field of Ethnic Studies. This panel brought back original student strikers from 1969 alongside organizers from 1999, who continued the legacy of the 1969 TWLF organizing as they fought to maintain ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, culminating in a building occupation and hunger strike in May 1999. Through intergenerational dialogue, this panel explored the roots and ongoing role of ethnic studies in community struggle and liberation. The panelists shared their insights and experiences organizing both for ethnic studies and a variety of other issues, crafting an invaluable conversation for anyone, educators or otherwise, interested in making a change in their communities. These were some of the major themes that emerged:

Ethnic studies as liberatory education attained through struggle and situated in the community
Intergenerational learning and organizing through the TWLF/twLF and other adjacent movements
Understanding which tactics and principles to apply in different political contexts
Strategies and guiding principles for coalition building, particularly in support of ethnic studies

* When discussing the two waves of the Liberation Front in 1969 and 1999, the terms "Third World" and "third world" are typically respectively used by organizers from each wave.

Reflection Questions:

These questions were created for HSESI Institute participants, but regardless may help you reflect on the impact of this panel on your understanding of ethnic studies, commmunity-driven change, and your place in relation to both.

After listening to the TWLF panel, how has your understanding of Ethnic Studies grown or changed?
Where do you see yourself within the contemporary movement for Ethnic Studies as an individual, a community member, and most importantly as an educator?
How do you imagine the goals of the TWLF from 50+ years ago manifesting through the words and deeds of the students being taught by educators in this room?

Panelist Bios

Vicci Wong

Vicci Wong is a 1969 TWLF UC Berkeley Student Striker, UC Berkeley alum, and co-founder of the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) that originated the term and concept of Asian American. She is the co-founder of the Salinas chapter of the United Farmworkers Union. While a community and labor organizer, she was elected Manager of the Chinatown Co-op, the first workers-owned garment factory in the world that was part of the International Hotel. She is also the co-founder of the May 4th Singers, one of the first Asian American anti-imperialist cultural groups, and was the lead singer of several revolutionary rock bands like Repe.

Hear from Vicci and other women organizers of the TWLF here.

Dr. Harvey Dong

Dr. Harvey Dong teaches Ethnic Studies courses as a lecturer in Ethnic Studies and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley. Initially, Dr. Dong took part in the 1969 Third World Liberation Front, a student movement to establish Ethnic Studies. Once Ethnic Studies was established, Dr. Dong taught some of the department’s first community issues courses based on extensive fieldwork carried out in San Francisco's Manilatown and Chinatown, while also being active in struggles to save the International Hotel in Manilatown and to protect Asian immigrant labor rights. Dr. Dong studies the history of social movements and activism within Asian American communities, as well as grassroots movements for social change.

Clementina Duron

Born and raised in Salinas, California, Clementina Durón transferred from Hartnell Community College to U.C. Berkeley in the fall of 1968. It was with her participation in the TWLF student strike in January 1969 that Clementina found her voice and passion. She became a public school teacher and principal for 30 years in the Bay Area public schools. In retirement, she served as a school board member in Albany Unified and continues to jam California legislators on their whitewashing of the high school Ethnic Studies requirement.

Hear from Clementina and other women organizers of the TWLF here.

Dr. Genevieve Negron-Gonzales

Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales is a professor in the School of Education, affiliate faculty in the Migration Studies Program, and Faculty Director of the MA in Higher Education and Student Affairs program all at the University of San Francisco. Genevieve got her B.A. in Ethnic Studies, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Education at UC Berkeley, and was a student leader during the 1999 TWLF Hunger Strike. She is an interdisciplinary scholar of education and immigration. Her research focuses on the educational and political lives of undocumented young people; deportation, immigrant families and violence at the border; and the educational navigations of Latinx communities. Her books include Encountering Poverty: Living and Acting in an Unequal World (co-authored with Ananya Roy, Claire Talwalker and Kweku Opoku-Agyemang, 2016, UC Press), We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States (co-edited with Leisy Abrego, Duke University Press, 2020), and The Latinx Guide to Graduate School (co-authored with Magdalena Barrera, Duke University Press, 2023).

Jason Ferreira

Jason Ferreira is Chair of the Department of Race & Resistance Studies at San Francisco State University. He received his PhD in Ethnic Studies from Berkeley and is a proud veteran of the twLF99 hunger strike. Dr. Ferreira’s teaching and scholarship focus on the history of radicalism within and across communities of color. Recent scholarship includes “With the Soul of a Human Rainbow: Los Siete, Black Panthers, and Third Worldism in San Francisco,” and he is completing a social history of the Third World Strike. In the community, Dr. Ferreira co-founded the Institute for MultiRacial Justice. He also established the Center for Political Education as a space dedicated to building strong movements and the Left through education, analysis, theory, and activism. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Freedom Archives and the Kendra Alexander Foundation.

Moderator Bios

Dr. Michael Schulze-Oechtering

Michael Schulze-Oechtering Castañeda is an Ethnic Studies-trained historian who specializes in the study of comparative/relational racialization, and anti-racist and decolonial social movements. The political and intellectual questions Michael asks were nurtured during his time as a participant and later co-facilitator of the Tyree Scott Freedom School, a week-long political education program for Seattle youth. Michael draws upon his past experiences as a youth organizer to develop a research and teaching agenda that examines how racialized subjects of U.S. Empire have both questioned and crossed racial boundaries. As a new faculty member in CSUEB’s Department of History, Michael will be completing his current book manuscript, No Separate Peace: Black and Filipinx Workers and the Labor of Solidarity in the Pacific Northwest, under contract with the University of Washington Press. This study examines the parallel and overlapping activist traditions and grassroots organizing practices of Filipinx cannery workers in Alaska and Black construction workers in Seattle between the 1970s and the early 2000s. Additionally, Michael looks forward to developing curriculum at CSUEB that places the concerns of social movements, from prison and border abolitionists to grassroots organizers building local solidarity economies, at the center of the study of U.S. and global history.

Clara Mangali

Clara Mangali graduated from UC Berkeley in 2025 with a B.A. in Sociology and a minor in Ethnic Studies. They have organized with the League of Filipino Students and Gabriela, anti-imperialist organizations fighting for national democracy and genuine liberation in the Philippines. They are a member of the longest-running Filipino American publication in the nation, {m}aganda magazine, and serve as the regional coordinator for Kabataan Alliance Northern California.

Kaneesha Goyal

Kaneesha Goyal graduated from UC Berkeley in 2025 with a B.A. in Sociology and Ethnic Studies. They have organized in a number of spaces on and off the UC Berkeley campus, including mutual aid at People’s Park and Palestinian liberation. They have also been involved in various educational programs, including helping restart and facilitating the Teach in Prison program, an abolitionist student group that tutors at San Quentin State Prison.

Third World Liberation Front Portal

The Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) Portal honors the history of the TWLF student strikes and provides a range of teaching resources, including historical videos, photographs, oral histories, and an interactive timeline of TWLF movements.

HSESI Resource Hub

The UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Educator Resource Hub is a curated collection of materials designed to support students and instructors. Our hub aims to foster a deep understanding of oppression, liberation, and the intricate tapestry of social movements that shape society. Whether you’re seeking to enrich your teaching practices, expand your knowledge base, or engage in community-driven initiatives, this resource hub can provide entry points to teaching and engaging with Ethnic Studies.

Historical Context: Introduction to the TWLF

During the 50th Anniversary of the 1969 Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) student strike at UC Berkeley, a campus collective was formed named the TWLF Research Initiative, which was responsible for the production of the video below. Among other things, this initiative recorded oral histories of student strikers from the 1969 and 1999 TWLF student strikes at UC Berkeley, some of which are linked below underneath the speaker bios

We Want Liberation: TWLF and The Origins of Ethnic Studies

Past HSESI Third World Liberation Front Panels

Check out these past panels with 1969 TWLF strikers that took place at previous institutes.

June 12, 2023: 1969 Third World Liberation Front Strike Panel

June 10, 2024: Third World Liberation Front Panel 2.0

Third World Liberation Front Intergenerational Panel

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