Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) rally at Sproul Plaza, 1969, Third World Strike at University of California, Berkeley collection, 1968-1972, UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Library.
Since 1969, the Ethnic Studies Department at UC Berkeley has relied on grassroots efforts to collect, preserve, and amplify research and literature of studies on “race, ethnicity, indigeneity, with a focus on the experiences and perspectives of people of color within and beyond the United States.” The Ethnic Studies Department offers four different areas of study: Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, Chicanx Latinx Studies, Comparative Ethnic Studies and Native American Studies. This department also oversees the Ethnic Studies Library, which was established in 1997. All the resources offered by the department today come from years of student activism to broaden academic perspectives offered in higher education.
The core of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley draws from the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF). This movement emerged in the late 60s as a response to glaring disparities in representation of ethnicities in humanities and social sciences courses offered by higher education. Conversations involving cultural diversity in higher education were catalyzed by the Higher Education Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965. The Higher Education Act of 1965 provided financial support for educational programs in universities throughout the country and for students wishing to study. Simultaneously, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 increased cultural diversity in the United States by ending the quota system of immigration that prioritized immigrants from European countries. Thus, the demographics of students in higher education changed dramatically, and the need for adequate representation in academia became more clear.
The TWLF movement began at San Francisco State University (SFSU) with protests by the Black Student Union and other student groups. After connecting with the movement at SFSU, student organizations at UC Berkeley formed their own coalition. The Third World Liberation Front at Berkeley included the Afro-American Studies Union (AASU), the Mexican-American Student Confederation (MASC), the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA), and the Native American Student Alliance (NASA).
Troy Duster, an emeritus professor of sociology at UC Berkeley witnessed the beginnings of the TWLF. During his time as a professor, he grappled with tensions between faculty of the Berkeley Department of Sociology and its students. In his oral history, Duster reflects on the reservations of faculty at Berkeley:
Troy Duster. Courtesy of the Bancroft Library.
The faculty view was, these insurgent militant students wanted to insert politics into the curriculum while the faculty were simply the neutral purveyors of the established wisdom. So the faculty could typically take the quote, “high moral ground,” that there are these books, there are these articles, “We teach, we teach the canon.” And so they were not just insulted by the students saying that, “We know more than you, you should be giving us a different kind of education.” They went further in terms of putting down the students, that “this was mere politics.” So the ingredients for a titanic clash were there. The faculty had it this way, life as usual, “You should come into the classroom, you should be happy to be here, we let you in, sit down. Shut up. Enjoy the show.” And the militant students saying, “No,” categorically in the other direction, “we want a revisitation of the whole idea of what constitutes a legitimate curriculum.”
Duster also noticed new political divides among Berkeley faculty during the TWLF. Some faculty who supported the Free Speech Movement were less receptive to the movement for Ethnic Studies at Berkeley. One major difference, he notes, was closer proximity to conflict than before:
Well, in the middle sixties, most of the faculty was quite liberal. They were saying, “Of course one should be in favor of civil rights in the South.” What happened in the late sixties is therefore important to sociology and to the local scene, both local sociology and national issues. Because suddenly the issue is no longer liberal about the South, liberal about what is happening way over there. One had to be responding to students on campus who wanted transformation locally. And faculty who had been progressives and liberals in the national scene often found themselves becoming quite conservative, and often portrayed as reactionary when it came to the local scene. So I would say sociology—and indeed, it was true I think for a good part of Berkeley and I think all over the country, but you saw it here sharply and dramatically—you saw people who had been pro-FSM and very much in favor of the students shifting their political position when it came to local scenes about protest on campus, when it came to the Vietnam War, and then later on, most especially the transformation of academic life on campus, namely the insurgency with Black studies and women’s studies.
Students organized a democratic system linking various campus groups to guide decision-making for the TWLF. In his oral history, Harvey Dong, one of many organizers and members of AAPA involved in the TWLF, reflects on his perspective of initial member organization. Harvey Dong recalls the internal politics of the TWLF:
Harvey Dong in 1972. Courtesy of Harvey Dong.
Even though there were only six Native Americans on campus, they would still have that equal voting power to decide on strike related politics. So you had African Americans, Asians, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans. They all had equally divided 25 percent power on the votes.
The organization used this democratic process to create a list of demands of the University. It sought to establish a “Third World College,” “Third World People in Positions of Power,” and adequate funding to uphold the integrity of the programs. Due to the inadequacy of existing plans by the University to establish a Black Studies Department, the TWLF began the TWLS (Third World Liberation Strike) on January 21, 1969. Dong shares his memory of the strike and witnessing police violence:
The strike was informational in the beginning. So there’d be picketing, chanting in front of Dwinelle Plaza. And then an announcement would be made that the informational part was ending and then there would be a sealing off of the Sather Gate area, which did lead to some tension in terms of people not crossing. Although if you wanted to cross you could just kind of go on the other gates or the other bridges nearby. And then the stationary picket line at Sather Gate would be attacked by plainclothes police. The police would be followed by uniformed police. Okay. The plainclothes would be followed by uniform and then the strike would escalate. The escalation would reach the point where there’d be thousands of students. The police would call for mutual assistance, which would include highway patrol officers. There would be tear gassing.
“Strike 1969” TWLF pamphlet, Third World Strike at University of California, Berkeley collection, 1968-1972, UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Library.
Protesters used a variety of tactics to advocate for ethnic studies: hunger strikes, rallies, class boycotts, and sit-ins. These approaches effectively agitated the university and the state government, ultimately motivating a police crackdown. Cristina Kim, Harvey Dong’s interviewer, remarks:
The TWLS at UC Berkeley was one of the most violently repressed student protests in the history of the United States. Governor Ronald Reagan—who had already forged his political career in opposition to “Berkeley Radicalism”—deployed the California Highway Patrol, the Alameda Police, [the Berkeley Police Department] and the National Guard to quell the uprisings with tear gas and batons.
In contrast to the Free Speech Movement, Winthrop D. Jordan, a professor emeritus of slavery and race relations in the United States, also describes the twLS as more violent in his oral history. He emphasizes the university’s employment of troops, civic, and military forces to suppress the strike. Jordan was a professor of history at Berkeley from 1963 to 1982, and modified his course schedule to accommodate students participating in the twLS. During his preparations to teach the antebellum period of US history (generally considered 1812 to 1861), he recalls his discussion with students before the strike began:
[My preparations] began at the same time that the Third World Strike began, so I was confronted with what was I going to do? Start this course, and being in some ways a conservative, what I ended up doing was I taught it on campus and also off campus. I taught it in two sessions. I told the group when I met them, I said, “The Third World Strike is coming next week and we’ve got a decision, and some of you aren’t going to be able to come on campus and I recognize that. I feel that I have to teach the course. If it’s scheduled it’s my university obligation, I have to teach it on campus. But does anybody have a large living room where we can do it off campus?” I said, “I’m going to teach it back-to-back, two sections, and people can come to whichever they like, they get equal chance of getting an A or an F in the course.”
As a workaround, one student offered a large living room in a fraternity house on Piedmont Avenue for the course. Jordan recalls the reaction of students to the unlikely off-campus location:
Winthrop D. Jordan. Courtesy of the Bancroft Library
I was a little surprised when I got there. There was one great big, perfect room to meet in, their room on the first floor near the front door. I gave lectures there. When students came to the first one, I remember they’d look at the number, at their notepad, on the number on it, and then look at the house. They’d come in with very surprised looks on their faces, mostly Black undergraduates. That’s where I held it all semester, and then I held it on campus as scheduled, so I taught it back to back.
After months of negotiations between student activists, the ASUC (Associated Students of the University of California), and Chancellor Roger Heyns, the chancellor announced the establishment of an Ethnic Studies Department at Berkeley on March 4th, 1969. This announcement came on the same day the ASUC voted 550 to 4 in support of an Ethnic Studies Department at Berkeley with adequate funding for its longevity. The demand for a Third World College did not see administrative support from the university, but the chancellor stated the department would “immediately offer four year programs leading to a B.A. degree in history, culture, and contemporary experience of ethnic minority groups, especially Black Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans.” The strike officially came to an end.
After the establishment of the Ethnic Studies Department, Deena González accepted her offer to UC Berkeley for the history graduate program in 1974. Her lived experience as a Chicana and previous involvement in student activism during her undergraduate career at New Mexico State University informed her research focus on Chicana studies. During her studies as a PhD student, González recalls seeing farmworkers speak at Sproul Plaza about racial justice. She draws comparison between Dolores Huerta’s speech at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in the late sixties and the speeches of the farmworkers:
Deena González. Courtesy of Deena González.
I remember going to Sproul Plaza one day feeling a little bit lonely, feeling tired. The farmworkers were speaking. I [remembered I had heard] Dolores Huerta speak at UNM maybe in ’69, ’70 and so I went to hear her, and I thought, this sounds really familiar. And what she did was she began talking about the work of people who labor in the fields and whose lives are marked by insensitivity of others and so on. I think she had said this in Albuquerque, too, about what is wrong about standing up for people who bring food to the table, so you can eat, and that kind of thing; powerful, powerful messages. I remember thinking to myself, wow—growing up in New Mexico as I did and even in the movement of the sixties and understanding the power differentials and class and racial privilege, I’ve never thought about it in the context of a kind of academic field of study. And who had spoken before her and who spoke after her were people who were talking about Chicano studies, and they were saying as a requirement of the university, Ethnic studies as a requirement began even then, and of course didn’t come to fruition till I think, what, the late eighties that finally something got put on the books. It made an impression, it made a really deep impression, and again it was one of these I needed to know more [of], I don’t know enough, and how am I going to get there.
The recurring message of racial justice between Dolores Huerta at University of New Mexico and the farmworkers at Sproul Plaza inspired González to look further into ethnic studies. Later in her academic career, González witnessed changing attitudes in the Department of History. In her view, respect for Ethnic Studies improved notably from 1974 to 1983:
I think there was more of a [reconciliation] these were legitimate fields of study. You couldn’t do US history if you didn’t know African American studies–that’s just impossible and not good. And, I think people are coming around to thinking that if you don’t know Latino and Latina history in the US or Chicano and Chicana studies in the Southwest, you’re certainly not going to be able to do a very credible job of being a faculty member who is conveying to students the freshest, most cutting-edge scholarship.
Outside of SFSU and UC Berkeley, the Bay Area felt the repercussions of the TWLF. On November 20th, 1969, Native American activists, including Dr. LaNada War Jack (a student activist in the TWLF with NASA), occupied Alcatraz to protest in support of indigenous land sovereignty and rights. Occupiers sought to reclaim land for indigenous peoples after centuries of dispossession due to colonialism. Activists who participated in the TWLS at Berkeley also played a significant role in the International Hotel Strike in 1977, namely Emilie de Guzman and Harvey Dong. This strike intended to prevent eviction of Filipino and Chinese people living in the residential hotel as part of an ongoing gentrification process in old Manilatown of San Francisco.
Today, the legacy of student activists lives on in the university through the Ethnic Studies Department, the Ethnic Studies Library, the Multicultural Community Center, the Center for Race and Gender, and many other organizations. Ethnic studies at Berkeley directly stems from the tireless efforts of student activists advocating for equality and representation.
TWLF, UC Berkeley (131_24). Courtesy of Stephen Shames
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Sophia Faaland is a fourth-year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley studying history. They work at the Oral History Center in the Bancroft Library as a Student Editor and contribute to research for the Istanpolis project within the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program. Previously, they worked as a research apprentice and field student at the Nemea Center for Classical Archaeology.
About the Oral History Center
The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library preserves voices of people from all walks of life, with varying political perspectives, national origins, and ethnic backgrounds. We are committed to open access and our oral histories and interpretive materials are available online at no cost to scholars and the public. You can find our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. Search by name, keyword, and several other criteria. Sign up for our monthly newsletter featuring think pieces, new releases, podcasts, Q&As, and everything oral history. Access the most recent articles from our home page or go straight to our blog home.
On March 9, 2024, California lost one of its most revered public servants. For over forty years, Joseph Bodovitz stood at the center of the state’s regulatory process. He was the founding executive director of both the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and the California Coastal Commission. He was the executive director of the Public Utility Commission and headed up the California Environmental Trust. And before retirement, he agreed to serve as the project director for Bay Vision 2020. To be sure, his fingerprints could be found—one way or another—on some of the most important regulatory policies and decisions passed in California during the twentieth century—actions that would come to impact people throughout the Golden State, both then and now.
Joe, as most knew him, did not initially set his sights on government work. Born in Oklahoma City during the Great Depression, he studied English literature at Northwestern University, and after serving in the Korean War, earned a graduate degree in journalism at Columbia University. In 1956, he accepted a job as a reporter with the San Francisco Examiner, allowing him to return to a state and region for which the young Oklahoman had grown fond during his military service with the Navy. In the early 1960s, Bodovitz left journalism to take a position with the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, an organization whose work in urban policy and development had become critical in the postwar boom of San Francisco. Such work proved a good fit for Bodovitz, whose reporting at the Examiner focused on politics and urban redevelopment in the city. By 1964, his reputation and work at SPUR had caught the attention of Eugene McAteer, a state senator from San Francisco who sought to establish a government study on regulating development and fill in the San Francisco Bay. Bodovitz not only joined that new group, he took the lead in crafting what would become known as the Bay Plan. When finished, he also agreed to serve as the founding executive director of the new regulatory agency that plan created, BCDC.
Bodovitz was entering uncharted waters in his role at BCDC. There was no precedent for this kind of environmental regulation back in 1965. In fact, BCDC was the first regulatory agency of its kind in the nation. That meant Bodovitz, with the help of commission chair Melvin B. Lane, was charged with creating a regulatory structure and policy from scratch. The task was daunting, especially in light of the array of forces they confronted throughout the process, from city mayors and wealthy businesses to citizen groups and environmental organizations. For Bodovitz, the principle that guided his work was striking a balance between economic development and environmental conservation. “People sort of had to confront the legitimate interests of both conservation and development,” he recalled in his 1986 oral history. “They may disagree on a particular permit or a particular issue, but no fair-minded person can say marshlands aren’t important. Similarly, no fair-minded person can say ports aren’t important to the Bay Area economy.” As he would often point out, balance was the underlying principle of BCDC: “There is a reason why conservation and development are in the name.”
In 1972, California voters approved Proposition 20, which created another historic agency: the California Coastal Commission. And as quick as the votes were tallied around the creation of the new state agency, Bodovitz and Lane were asked to bring their expertise from BCDC to the regulation of the state’s 1,100-mile coastline. In the familiar role of executive director, Bodovitz began to adapt the regulatory structure and policies of the bay to the coast, crafting what would become the coastal plan. His experience aside, the task proved even more daunting this time around. As Bodovitz recalled, the stakes were higher and the issues much more complex. “I don’t mean to make the BCDC planning sound simple because God knows it wasn’t; but relative to what we were dealing with in the Coastal Commission—it was simpler.” Ultimately, that work created a foundation for coastal regulation which would be studied around the world, and help made California one of the most pristine coastal regions of the Western Hemisphere. Fifty years later, the shorelines of Golden State still stand as a legacy of Bodovitz’s work.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Bodovitz’s public service on behalf of California continued. Shortly after he left the Coastal Commission in 1979, he was named executive director of the California Public Utilities Commission—the state agency charged with regulating utility companies throughout the state. Here, Bodovitz brought his experience and expertise to a range of important issues, from the breakup of telephone giant AT&T to the rising debate about deregulation and its impact on the state’s utility services. After his terms with the PUC, Bodovitz was tapped to head the newly created California Environmental Trust, as well as serve as the project director for Bay Vision 2020, which created a plan for a regional Bay Area government. In both organizations, Bodovitz provided invaluable leadership in helping to address a new set of environmental and development issues at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
It is an oft-stated adage among those in politics that civil servants are the unsung heroes of government. They conduct the research, staff the committees and commissions, and do the legwork that turns a written bill into an effective public policy. Joe Bodovitz was one of California’s unsung heroes. The Oral History Center had the privilege of conducting two oral histories with Bodovitz, documenting his experience and insights for future generations. The first, published in 1986 as part of the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Era Project, covered his experience at BCDC. Segments of this oral history are featured in the OHC’s Voices for the Environment exhibit and the accompanying podcast episode “Tides of Conservation.” The second oral history, published in 2015, offers an in-depth look at Bodovitz’s life and career. Both oral histories are available online through the links below.
Will Travis—another unsung hero of California in own right—perhaps said it best when writing the introduction for Bodovit’s 2015 oral history.
By having Joe as my friend for over 40 years and watching how other people treat him, I’ve learned why the Yiddish word mensch had to be created. A mensch is a person of integrity and honor, someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. In colloquial American English, a mensch is a stand-up kind of guy. Joe is a mensch.
Yee and family at San Francisco Board of Education rally, 2008
“I am proud to be a Chinatown kid who grew up to be of consequence at City Hall for my own community, and for the City I love. I hope one day my story will be one that creates a history that affords others new futures.” — Norman Yee
The UC Berkeley Oral History Center is proud to announce the release of Norman Yee: Serving the People of San Francisco, From Chinatown to the Board of Supervisors. For most residents of San Francisco, Yee needs no introduction. He is a former member of the Board of Education and Board of Supervisors, elected positions in which he served for sixteen years. Before politics, we worked for over two decades as an innovative facilitator and advocate of multicultural education in San Francisco.
Norman Yee, District 7 Representative, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Born and raised in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Yee grew up within a large extended family and spent much of his childhood and teenage years working at his parents’ grocery store. He attended Galileo Academy of Science and Technology, and upon graduation continued his education at City College of San Francisco and UC Berkeley, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. Yet, his career as an engineer barely lasted six months. Although he had a mind for mathematics, his heart drew him to education and the overlooked needs of the children in Chinatown. Leaving his position at Cal OSHA, he volunteered at the Chinatown YWCA, where he worked with the neighborhood’s youth and became involved in several projects aimed at expanding the resources and programs available to children and families in the neighborhood. By 1978, he decided that early childhood education was his calling, and entered the Teacher Corps, a two year program that asks candidates to work in urban school district, in this case East Palo Alto. In exchange he would receive his Master of Arts degree in elementary education.
Yee began his career in early care and education at Wu Yee Children’s Services in Chinatown. There he helped develop one of the first curriculums in bilingual multicultural education. He also taught mixed language classes in the San Francisco School district, as well as ESL (English as a Second Language) courses at City College of San Francisco, where he played a critical role in creating unit-bearing ESL classes. Yee continued to expand the educational opportunities for immigrant and first-generation children. He was a founding member of the Alice Fong Yu Alternative School, the country’s first Chinese immersion public school. He also expanded both the resources and services offered by Wu Yee Children Services, and proved pivotal in the creation of San Francisco’s Public Education Enrichment Fund, a third of which is designated for early childhood programs and education.
Norman Yee, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Yee entered public office in 2004, marking a start to a political career that would see him serve two terms on the San Francisco Board of Education and two terms on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. In both positions, he continued to be an unwavering advocate for early childhood education and public services for underrepresented populations in the city. He co-authored Proposition C in 2018, which created universal childcare in San Francisco, as well as Proposition W, which made City College free for San Francisco residents. After being severely struck by a car in 2005, he sponsored the Vision Zero initiative to increase pedestrian safety. He also successfully sponsored initiatives for police reform and one of the city’s most progressive senior housing developments. In 2010, he was elected president of the Board of Supervisors, and played a critical role in helping guide San Francisco through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout his multiple careers, Yee confronted each challenge with hope, determination, and an unwavering commitment to the city and community he sought to serve. The Oral History Center is thrilled to bring his inspiring and untold story to the public.
Find this interview and all our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. You can search by name, keyword, and several other criteria.
About the Oral History Center
The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library preserves voices of people from all walks of life, with varying political perspectives, national origins, and ethnic backgrounds. We are committed to open access and our oral histories and interpretive materials are available online at no cost to scholars and the public. You can find our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. Search by name, keyword, and several other criteria. Sign up for our monthly newsletter featuring think pieces, new releases, podcasts, Q&As, and everything oral history. Access the most recent articles from our home page or go straight to our blog home.
For over 150 years, residents and visitors alike have not run short of reasons to support the claim, “There’s no place like California.” And since the 1960s, that claim has been echoed—albeit in whispers—among cannabis circles around the globe. Bestowed with rich soils and a unique Mediterranean climate, counterculture-turned-farming communities in California pioneered cultivation and breeding practices that would revolutionize cannabis, and in the process, give the Golden State near mythic status. Strains such as Haze, Kush, Blueberry, Purps, Skunk, and SAGE became legendary, as did the California regions that produced them: Big Sur, Santa Cruz, and the famed Emerald Triangle of Mendocino, Trinity, and Humboldt Counties. For a plant whose history spans millennia, such developments were more than just a feat; they proved to be a game changer. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, the innovations of California cultivators had created the very seedbed upon which the modern world of cannabis would flourish.
The UC Berkeley Oral History Center (OHC) is proud to announce the launch of the California Cannabis Oral History Series, and the release of the series’ inaugural interview, Oliver Bates: Reflections on Over Three Decades in the Cannabis Industry. Created by OHC Historian Todd Holmes, the new oral history series seeks to capture the untold history of the state’s cultivating communities and finally situate cannabis within the historical record. The Center is also thrilled to announce that Holmes will add nearly a hundred hours of interviews to this important series over the next two years as part of a multi-institutional research team studying legacy genetics among California cannabis communities. Supported by a $2.7 million grant from the California Department of Cannabis Control, the project will be conducted within a community-based participatory research framework that combines oral histories, ethnographic field studies, community outreach, genetic sequencing, and the creation of community herbariums.
An Untold Legacy
The significance of documenting the history of California cannabis is hard to overstate, as it has long been relegated to the shadows. Designated an illegal substance in 1937 with the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act, cannabis cultivation was forced to take root in the dark soils of prohibition—a landscape that legally branded farmers as outlaws, and their crop as contraband. Thus, unlike other agricultural sectors, cannabis had no state organizations to provide support to growers, no venues to share the latest methods and innovations. In fact, most cultivators lived and operated in near seclusion, which proved an important survival tactic amid America’s escalating War on Drugs. The craft of cultivation, therefore, came to resemble a highly guarded secret among cannabis communities, one that was passed down over the decades from one generation to the next. In a touch of irony, cannabis also arose during this same time to become—in terms of estimated sale revenue—the state’s number one cash crop. California voters finally began to pull back the veil of prohibition in 1996 with the passage of Proposition 215, which legalized cannabis for medical use. Twenty years later, voters fully legalized cannabis in the state with Proposition 64. For the first time in modern history, California cannabis farmers were able to fully step out of the shadows; and with them, came the untold history of their craft.
Oliver Bates, President of the Big Sur Farmer’s Assoc.
The oral history of Oliver Bates represents the OHC’s initial step toward documenting this overlooked history. President of the Big Sur Farmers Association and a thirty-year veteran of the cannabis industry, Bates began growing on California’s Central Coast in his teens, applying the methods he learned from working with elder farmers in the Big Sur community. Upon the passage of Proposition 215, he moved his small operation from the secluded mountains of Big Sur to a sizeable open farm in Monterey County, where he was among the region’s earliest cultivators of medical cannabis. The medical boom soon led him north to the border area of Mendocino and Humboldt Counties—the epicenter of the famed Emerald Triangle. There he worked in the historic Spyrock community with some of the top growers in the industry, helping to develop the new techniques and strains needed to meet the ever-changing demands of the evolving cannabis market.
“It was so dangerous and so tight knit…if you were lucky enough to know a grower, and then worked very hard for that grower, maybe you were lucky enough to get a few tricks so you didn’t have to spend the next ten to twenty years falling on your face to get it right. Because it’s a very finicky plant if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s very sensitive. It’s hard. People think and say, ‘It grows like a weed.’ Not true.”
His experience at Spyrock expanded and refined his skillset as a cultivator. It also introduced him to the next chapter of his career: indoor hydroponics. For a grower who strove for perfection with every plant, Bates found the potential of indoor hydroponics hard to resist. Outdoor cultivation requires a farmer to work with the natural environment to produce the best possible product—a factor that explains California’s preeminence in cannabis cultivation. Indoor cultivation allows growers to create the optimal environment, and with it a greater chance for a more optimal product. Bates quickly took to the new venture, opening large indoor operations in Oregon and Colorado before returning to California to run one of the largest hydro operations in Santa Cruz County. And in each location, he increased both scale and variety to keep apace the shifting currents of the medical cannabis market. For a farmer who began growing in the secluded Santa Lucia Mountains of Big Sur, the developments he had both witnessed and helped advance in the cannabis world were staggering. The medical market now came to include hundreds of cannabis strains, powerful concentrates, and an ever-growing assortment of THC products.
In 2012, Bates returned to Big Sur with the intention of getting back to a simpler practice. Bothered by the environmental excesses of indoor growing and the commercialism of the cannabis market, he yearned to return to his roots by growing legacy cultivars in the community he called home. He also wished to be of service to his fellow farmers. Upon the passage of Proposition 64 in 2016, Bates helped found the Big Sur Farmers Association, a mutual benefit nonprofit that works to support, protect, and advance the rights of cannabis cultivators in the region.
Partnering on Ground-Breaking Study
California Cannabis Flower
The oral history of Oliver Bates stands as a unique and valuable piece within the large mosaic of California cannabis—a picture that the OHC and its institutional partners hope to bring into better focus through their research project on legacy cannabis genetics. Supported by a $2.7 million grant from the California Department of Cannabis Control, the multi-institution research team will identify, document, and help preserve the history and diversity of the state’s legacy cannabis genetics and the communities that steward them. In many respects, the project stands as the first of its kind. First, the study will be conducted within a community-based participatory research framework, an approach where community members, organizational representatives, and academic researchers operate in partnership on all aspects of the research process. The community organizations partnered on this study are the Origins Council (OC), a California nonprofit public policy and research institute serving California’s historic rural cannabis farming regions and the Cannabis Equity Policy Council (CEPC), a statewide equity advocacy organization representing the interests of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in urban communities.
Second, the study is being collaboratively led by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from across the state. The research team includes: Principal Investigator Dr. Dominic Corva, assistant professor of Sociology and program leader of Cannabis Studies at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt; Co-Principal Investigator Genine Coleman, executive director of Origins Council; Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Rachel Giraudo, associate professor of Anthropology at California State University, Northridge; Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Todd Holmes, historian and associate academic specialist with the Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Eleanor Kuntz, co-founder of Canndor, the world’s first cannabis herbarium, and co-founder and CEO of LeafWorks, a genomics and plant science company.
For the Oral History Center, this project will add nearly 100 hours of oral history interviews to the California Cannabis series, making this collection the largest of its kind on cannabis history in the United States. These firsthand accounts will document the history of cultivation communities in the legacy regions of California’s Central and North Coasts as well as urban cultivators in cities such as Los Angeles, San Jose, and Oakland. Moreover, when paired with the other work of the research team—like the genetic sequencing and community herbariums produced by Dr. Kuntz at LeafWorks, and ethnographic fieldwork Dr. Corva at Cal Poly Humboldt—the oral histories will play a critical role in the official documentation of California’s world renown cannabis genetics. We are excited about the future of this project and the impact it will have for the scholars and policymakers of today, and those of tomorrow.
Watch The Short Film
The oral history interviews of Oliver Bates served as the basis for the short film, The Legacy of Big Sur Cannabis. Created and produced by OHC historian Todd Holmes and his partner Heidi Holmes, the film was recently featured in the Cannabis Exhibition at the 2023 California State Fair.
About The Oral History Center
The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library preserves voices of people from all walks of life, with varying political perspectives, national origins, and ethnic backgrounds. We are committed to open access and our oral histories and interpretive materials are available online at no cost to scholars and the public. You can find our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. Search by name, keyword, and several other criteria. Sign up for our monthly newsletter featuring think pieces, new releases, podcasts, Q&As, and everything oral history. Access the most recent articles from our home page or go straight to our blog home.
In A Field All His Own: The Life and Career of James C. Scott
“James C. Scott is regarded by many as one of the most influential thinkers of our time.”
The Oral History Center at UC Berkeley is proud to release, In A Field All His Own: The Life and Career of James C. Scott, a documentary that offers an unprecedented look at the famed Yale political scientist. Created and produced by UC Berkeley Oral History Center (OHC) historian Todd Holmes, the film draws from nearly thirty hours of oral history interviews with Scott and affiliated scholars at Yale and UC Berkeley to trace the intellectual journey of the award-winning social scientist from his childhood in New Jersey through each of the ground-breaking works he produced throughout his accomplished career. Overall, the film presents an intellectual biography of one of the world’s preeminent academics, a feature that will serve as a treasured resource for students and scholars around the globe.
While intellectual biographies may not be a typical genre, Scott is far from a typical academic. Over the last fifty years, few scholars have achieved such prominence within the American academy as James C. Scott. The Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, with appointments in anthropology and the school of forestry and environmental studies, he is regarded by many as one of the most influential thinkers of our time. Throughout his career, his scholarship became a series of major interventions that impacted dozens of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. From the strategic rhythms of peasant life to notions of resistance and the functioning of the modern state, his work continually shaped and reshaped research agendas and discourses in the academy. By his retirement in 2022, Scott stood as one the most widely read social scientists in the world – an influence and distinction that placed him, as the film title suggests, “in a field all his own.”
The idea for the documentary developed out of the Yale Agrarian Studies Oral History Project, which Holmes conducted between 2018 and 2020. The focus of that project was to document the career of James C. Scott, as well as the thirty-year history of the renowned Yale Agrarian Studies Program he founded. Those oral history interviews, which the OHC released in 2021, served as the basis for the film. Holmes had worked for both Scott and the Agrarian Studies Program during his graduate studies at Yale. His motivation for both the project and documentary was to capture Scott’s story—in his own words—for future generations. As Holmes recalls, “I had the privilege of meeting and working with Jim Scott before ever reading Jim Scott, a unique vantage point that allowed me to develop a deep appreciation for the brilliant scholar behind the books—his limitless curiosity, his wit and humor, and the welcoming nature of his intellect. I wanted to capture these qualities in telling his story. His books will be read for generations to come; it was my hope that this film could serve as a companion and allow students and scholars to get to know James C. Scott and the inspiration behind his work.”
The film was made possible through the generous support of Yale University’s Program in Agrarian Studies, InterAsia Initiative, and Council on Southeast Asia Studies. It was produced by Todd Holmes in association with the UC Berkeley Oral History Center and Teidi Productions, a digital creations label he operates with his partner Heidi Holmes. The film is available to the public via YouTube.
About the Oral History Center
The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library preserves voices of people from all walks of life, with varying political perspectives, national origins, and ethnic backgrounds. We are committed to open access and our oral histories and interpretive materials are available online at no cost to scholars and the public. You can find our oral histories from the search feature on our home page. Search by name, keyword, and several other criteria. Sign up for our monthly newsletter featuring think pieces, new releases, podcasts, Q&As, and everything oral history. Access the most recent articles from our home page or go straight to our blog home.
