Remembering UCLA's Latino Forefather, Reginaldo Francisco Del Valle

Join us for a celebration honoring the contributions of UCLA’s Latino forefather, Reginaldo Francisco del Valle, including an interactive exhibit, music, and food. This event simultaneously recognizes and honors the more than 100 years of contributions Latino students, alumni, faculty, and staff have made to UCLA and to the wider community.

As part of our efforts to recognize and celebrate Del Valle’ss role in the history of UCLA, we hope to commission a portrait of him, to be installed in a prominent place on campus alongside memorials of other figures significant in the campus’s history and development. May 24, 2019, also marks the beginning of this memorial project.

Who was Reginaldo Francisco del Valle?

As Los Angeles’s State Assemblyman in 1880–1881, and State Senator and President Pro Tempore of the California State Senate in 1882–1886, Del Valle introduced and guided to fruition legislation establishing and fully funding the Branch State Normal School at Los Angeles, and subsequently led the legislative efforts granting it administrative autonomy. In 1919, the Regents of the University of California expanded the U.C. system by absorbing the assets of the State Normal School in Los Angeles, to establish its first campus in southern California: the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Without Del Valle’s legislative work, Los Angeles’s first publicly funded institution of higher learning, the State Normal School, would not have been built, to later serve as the basis for UCLA.

12:00 PM --- Somos UCLA Procession (from Wilson Plaza to Founder's Rock)
12:20 PM --- Arrive at Founder's Rock, begin reception
12:45 PM --- Special performances 
1:00 PM --- Celebration ceremony and presentation of resolutions 
1:30 PM --- Historical exhibit and reception continues