La Causa

What is their story?

LA CAUSA was a community-based college information center founded in 1966 in the heart of Oakland’s Fruitvale community located in a converted Victorian home next to St. Elizabeth High School on 34th Ave. LA CAUSA had a powerful impact on the Fruitvale community, especially on Chicano youth of the time.  As advocates for equity in education, LA CAUSA worked with high school students, helping them to qualify and apply to college.

 LA CAUSA was also a bookstore, an art gallery, and housed La Causa Publications. A multifaceted organization, LA CAUSA served as a gathering place for Chicano youth, community members, artists, educators and students at a time when these kinds of places did not exist.

LA CAUSA played a key role in the Chicano Movement locally in Oakland, but also nationally. LA CAUSA publications had a hand in printing the historic El Plan de Santa Barbara which had an immense impact on Chicano student organizing. El Plan de Santa Barbara was written in 1969 by the Chicano Coordinating Council on Higher Education at UC Santa Barbara and provided the blueprint for the inception of Chicana/o Studies programs in Universities across the United States and helped found the student group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA). Moreover, El Plan called for community control of education and political independence, inspiring the Chicano community to political action.