Abstract

This chapter offers some reflections on the emergence and development of Chicana/o Studies in France from as early as 1965 until 2015. The significance of an academic adventure for a group of 20 scholars, over a span of 50 years, cannot be fully appreciated/understood unless it is contextualized within a favorable national environment. The context boosted the academic activism of leaders who gathered around them dynamic individuals not only equipped with the necessary intellectual tools and multilingual abilities, but also heirs to a pervasively open mentality. Such a background permitted them to tackle a foreign theme with the acumen of distant observers, even though, quite paradoxically, they may well have considered themselves as proxy members of the Chicana/o community.