A Community's Long Fight for Self-Governance

When UCSB relocated from downtown Santa Barbara to Isla Vista in 1954, students were moved into an isolated, rapidly overdeveloped community with no meaningful local government of their own. It would take over sixty years — and a series of crises — to change that.  See the stories which, to this day, continue to shape our history.

History of the Barbareño Chumash People

The land now called Isla Vista is the ancestral homeland of the Barbareño Chumash people, who have stewarded this coastal landscape since time immemorial. The IVCSD acknowledges this history and honors the living culture and continued presence of Chumash peoples.

 

Download a PDF of the Full History with APA citations