UC Santa Barbara is starting the nation's first doctoral program in Chicano studies, part of a growing interest at colleges and universities in understanding Latinos' heritage and their role in the contemporary United States.

The doctoral program comes a decade after UC Santa Barbara students staged a hunger strike demanding the graduate degree and 30 years after the idea first came up, said Chela Sandoval, chair of UC Santa Barbara's Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies.

"It is a historic moment," Sandoval said. "What we make of this will help us make a difference and help us make the differences between us more understandable."

UC Santa Barbara established its department in 1969 and is one of only 19 four-year universities -- and the only one in the UC system -- to have full department status for Chicano studies. Many universities, including UC Berkeley and Stanford University, offer Chicano or Latino studies within other departments or through research centers, and many more are looking to establish programs and departments.

"There is an awful lot of interest," said Rodolfo Acuna, a professor and founding chair of the Chicano studies department at California State University at Northridge, one of the largest in the country. "We are 2 1/2 times larger than the history department. We are larger than the sociology department . . . the political science department (and) the entire foreign language departments put together."

UCLA is also considering proposals to establish a department and to add doctorate and master's degrees. The campus has offered a Chicano studies major and minor since 1974 and established the Cesar Chavez Center for Interdisciplinary Instruction in Chicana and Chicano Studies after a 1993 hunger strike by faculty and students.

The center had 127 students majoring in Chicano studies this year, compared with 35 a decade ago. The UC Santa Barbara department now has 160 majors, up from 60 in 1993.

"I think the interest is continuing to rise, so the programs that are in existence are growing because of that interest," said Reynaldo Macias, chair of the Cesar Chavez center.

The Latino population is growing around the country, not just in California -- where Latinos make up a third of the population and are expected to become the state's largest ethnic group by 2014.

UC Santa Barbara's creation of a doctoral program "verifies the emergence and is really symbolic of the education and politics of the Hispanic community in this country," said Sheldon Steinbach, vice president and general counsel with the American Council on Education in Washington, D.C.

But some critics say such programs are divisive and may not provide students with a degree that will be useful in getting a job.

"It is more of an ideological calling than something that the market demands," said Lance Izumi, education studies director at the Pacific Research Institution, a free market-oriented think tank in San Francisco. "Overall it is divisive, because they are very centered on that particular culture, and they tend to demonize white and mainstream American culture."

Sandoval countered that the programs are interdisciplinary and include students of all ethnicities.

The new doctoral program will focus on five areas, from pre-Columbian cultures to contemporary American society, and deal with politics, education, literature, the arts, sciences and religion, Sandoval said.

UC Santa Barbara graduate Sergio Morales, 25, says he is excited.

"I'm elated that my academic, spiritual and political interests will be reflected in the program," said Morales, executive director of C-Beyond, a youth organizing organization in Concord. "I've been waiting for a program such as this."

Morales participated in an 18-hour takeover of the campus administration building in 1998, during which students demanded the doctoral program.

UC Santa Barbara is hoping to start the program with about eight students in fall 2004 and grow to 25 students in five years.

"Some faculty want to admit people right away," Sandoval said. "There has been such anticipation waiting for this to happen."