When UCLA reflects back on its historical roots, recent research shows that the founder of its predecessor institution, the Los Angeles State Normal School, was Latino.

Reginaldo Francisco del Valle, who served as both a state Assemblyman and state senator, was the force behind the creation of the normal school, which is the predecessor institution of UCLA, according to the paper, "Reginaldo Francisco del Valle: UCLA's Forgotten Forefather," produced by the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture and published by Southern California Quarterly.

"When UCLA celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2019, homage should be paid to Reginaldo Francisco del Valle," said David Hayes-Bautista, lead author and center director. "The normal school provided the institutional platform from which the UCLA campus grew and developed. In past celebrations, including the 1930 dedication of UCLA, Del Valle was not recognized, and it is important that he is given his due."

Hayes-Bautista praised Del Valle's focus as a state legislator.

"Del Valle spent years in the Legislature to secure establishment, funding and winning of independent governance for the Los Angeles State Normal School," Hayes-Bautista said. "It is commendable for a legislator to be so dedicated to such an important cause and succeed."

The creation of the Los Angeles Normal School with autonomous governance was a struggle for Del Valle involving several bills over a number of years. He first introduced a bill in the 1880 legislative session, but was unable to win approval as five other cities introduced competing legislation to establish a normal school in one of those areas. In the 1881 session, Del Valle successfully introduced and negotiated the passage of the bill that then-Gov. George C. Perkins signed into law to establish the branch state normal school.

In subsequent years, Del Valle's initiative ensured sufficient funding for construction and operation of the school. Del Valle developed a legislative scheme in 1885 to allow those in Los Angeles to make their own decisions, rather than have decisions made by people at the normal school in San Jose. His first attempt at passage was not successful. He retired after the 1886
session, and in the following year, his legislative scheme finally was enacted, carried by Assemblyman John Brierly.

"Del Valle should be considered the intellectual author of the bill carried by Assemblyman Brierly," Hayes-Bautista said. "Del Valle was the one who developed the legislative scheme to achieve this goal via extensively amending 12 sections of the Political Code and repealing the 13th."

The normal school provided the only access to publicly financed post-secondary education in the southern region, but was limited by being only a teacher's training college. As the population in Southern California grew after 1886, with Los Angeles County surpassing San Francisco County in population by 1910, public pressure grew on the University of California to establish a campus in the southern part of the state.

To accommodate a growing student body, the normal school moved to a larger site on Vermont Avenue in 1914 - now the site of Los Angeles City College - but demand for education continued to grow. An agreement was reached in 1919 in which legislation abolished the state normal school, and in its place at the Vermont Avenue site, a southern branch of the University of California was established.

"Del Valle would not have felt disappointment at the dissolution of his hard-fought legislative victories because they provided the platform upon which the Regents built UCLA, which grew in ability and prestige to rival its sister campus at Berkeley," Hayes-Bautista said.

Merry Ovnick, editor of the Southern California Quarterly, which published the paper, said, "The journal's focus is the history of Southern California, the state as a whole and the American West. This paper is a valuable contribution to our readers' understanding of the past. Equally important, it corrects a long-standing oversight by acknowledging Del Valle's role in bringing a state-supported institution of higher learning to Southern California."

Five hundred reprints of the article were made possible by Health Net of California. "We are proud to support the publication of a paper that sheds light on the important accomplishments and contributions Latinos have made to the state of California," said Ana Andrade, vice president of Latino programs for Health Net of California.

About the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture
Since 1992 the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture has been a resource for cutting-edge research, education and public information about Latinos, their health and their role in California. Under the leadership of Hayes-Bautista, the center, part of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, has been the lead institution to explode myths and stereotypes about Latinos in California society, provide reliable data on Latino health, emphasize the positive contributions of Latinos to the state's economy and society, and inform the public about the important emerging Latino medical market.


About UCLA
California's largest university, UCLA enrolls approximately 38,000 students per year and offers degrees from the UCLA College of Letters and Science and 11 professional schools in dozens of varied disciplines. UCLA consistently ranks among the top five universities and colleges nationwide in total research-and-development spending, receiving more than $820 million a year in competitively awarded federal and state grants and contracts. For every $1 state taxpayers invest in UCLA, the university generates almost $9 in economic activity, resulting in an annual $6 billion economic impact on the Greater Los Angeles region. The university's health care network treats 450,000 patients per year. UCLA employs more than 27,000 faculty and staff, has more than 321,000 living alumni and has been home to five Nobel Prize recipients.

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