Faculty and students in Chicano studies can look forward to participating in collaborative projects with Spanish universities, thanks to a recent goodwill trip taken by seven Latino faculty members from various social science and humanities departments at UCLA.

Because of the coalitions faculty were able to build during the trip, several Spanish universities have offered to host summer institutes and conferences on Chicano studies in the future. And several collaborative projects emerged, with some faculty members planning to return this year to accept sabbatical affiliations with Spanish universities.

"All in all, we are delighted with how the trip turned out: collegial contacts were made, university-level agreements established, and dialogue forwarded. In four days, we produced a tremendous leap forward in Chicano-Spain relations," said Guillermo Hernandez, director of the Chicano Studies Research Center.

Sponsored through the Los Tigres Fund at UCLA, the trip was organized to open the eyes of academics there to the Chicano experience and the growing importance of Latinos in the United States. It was launched in Madrid at a press conference hosted by U.S. Ambassador Edward L. Romero and Antonio Colomer, director of the Spanish Council for the Study of Iberoamericanos.

"Academics in Spain have a tremendous interest in Latinos, but little access to information about them. I knew they would be delighted to meet with and hear from their American colleagues," said Juan Velasco, a visiting scholar from Spain who is a literature and film professor at Santa Clara University. He accompanied the group to universities in Alcalá, Valencia, Granada and Seville.

Faculty later met with members of Spain's largest center for the study of North America at the University of Alcalá, traveled to the ancient town of Benissa where an institute for the study of Iberoamerican culture has been recently established and gave presentations at three universities on Chicano demographics, economics, labor, politics, language and culture.

"The trip was tremendously successful in creating bridges between academics doing research on Chicanos," Hernandez said. Also participating from UCLA were David Hayes-Bautista, Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, Abel Valenzuela, Rodolfo Alvarez, Reynaldo Macias and Claudia Parodi-Lewin.