Description
Reverend Vahac Mardirosian has been a major advocate of Mexican-American educational reforms in Los Angeles and San Diego
school districts since the early 1960s. This collection contains material related to his pastoral work, his involvement with
the 1968 East Los Angeles walk-out demonstration and organizations he helped found and run, including the Hispanic Urban Center
Board of Education (founded 1970) and Parent Institute for Quality Education (founded 1987). Materials include clippings and
press releases, letters and statements, notes, sermons, evaluation reports, reading score percentiles and rankings, memoranda,
fact sheets and administrative documents, and cover a wide variety of educational topics including bilingual education, integration,
teachers' attitudes towards Mexican American students, parental involvement, and reading achievement.
Background
Reverend Vahac Mardirosian has been a leading advocate of educational reform in Southern California, especially in the Mexican
American communities, since the late 1960s. Of Armenian descent, he was born in Alepo, Syria and raised in Mexico City and
Tijuana. He became ordained as a Baptist priest in California in 1946 and went on to serve the Mexican American communities
of Topeka and Chicago, before returning to California in the 1950s. In 1968 he became involved with the walk-out protests
at Garfield High School in the East Los Angeles School District. He acted as a mediator with administrators and became a representative
of parents and students in his role as chairman of the Educational Issues Coordinating Committee (EICC).
Extent
3.75 Linear Feet
(7 document boxes and 1 half document box)
Restrictions
Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained
by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue
the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Availability
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.