Rodolfo Acuña


Rodolfo "Rudy" Francisco Acuña, Ph.D., is an American historian, professor emeritus at California State University, Northridge, and a scholar of Chicano studies. He authored the 1972 book Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, approaching history of the Southwestern United States with a heavy emphasis on Mexican Americans. An eighth edition was published in 2014. Acuña has also written for the Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Herald-Express, La Opinión, and numerous other newspapers. His work emphasizes the struggles of Mexican American people. Acuña is an activist and he has supported numerous causes of the Chicano Movement. He currently teaches an on-line history course at California State University, Northridge.

Early Life

Acuña was born in Los Angeles, California in 1932 to Alicia Elías who was from Sonora, Mexico. His father was from Cocula, Jalisco.
Acuña says his academic counselor advised him to teach "Spanish" or "Physical Education" because "Mexicans don't have a history." This infuriated him, an outrage that motivated him to pursue a doctorate in history. His specialty was northern Mexico and the Mexican origin of people in the United States. His study led to his participation in the movement to begin Chicano Studies, giving a voice to Mexican Americans in education and history.

An Educator

In 1958 Acuña began teaching at San Fernando Junior High, transferring later to Cleveland High School where he taught social studies until 1965 when he received a tenured position at Los Angeles Pierce College. He also taught adult high school to pay for his doctoral studies at the University of Southern California during which time he was active with the Latin American Civic Association and the Mexican American Political Association. He was the founding chair of the California State University, Northridge's Chicano/a Studies department, and his teachings began there in 1969. The CSUN Chicana/o Studies Department at CSUN presently has 28 tenured professors and offers 166 sections of Chicana/o per semester.
In 1989, Acuña was a founding member of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, a civil rights advocacy group. Two years later he traveled to El Salvador as a correspondent for the Texas Observer covering its presidential elections. He has always sought to fulfill his lifelong query as to "how accurate were the interpretations of historians of the past", their reliability and objectivity. His books and lectures analyze and cross examine this query from his study of documents and life experiences.
Acuña continues to call himself a Chicano because "Words have meanings, meanings that are supposed to be linked to reality. In creating a historical narrative the meanings should be clear and best describe the reality of the times. Meanings can be obscured for political purposes; we often call this doublespeak; we say one thing and mean another. The Chicana/o Public Scholar argues that the word Chicana/o best describes the area of studies called Chicana/o Studies and expresses the idealism that we as a community should be striving for. Foremost Acuña prefers to be known as a teacher, having taught four to five classes per semester for most of his career.

U.S. Latino issues

At a lecture celebrating the release of his book in 2003, he critically addressed U.S. Latino Issues and the Latino label or identity. He delves deeply into what exactly defines a nation or culture; their similarities and differences; and what life experiences are necessary to differentiate one ethnocultural group from another. In his book he clearly notes the mistaken trend of describing a large and heterogeneous group like people of Latin American descent in the US under labels like Latino. He acknowledges the fact that many people are actually opposed to the term and that the media has arbitrary and whimsically imposed Hispanic and Latino as absolute and monolithic ethnic groups:
In 2008, Acuña and his wife Guadalupe Compeán edited a three volume anthology titled Voices of the U.S. Latino Experience. The work is the basis of his history of Chicana/o Studies at CSUN entitled In the Trenches of Academe where Acuña—based on his study of over 2000 documents on Latinos living in the United States—concludes that as yet there is no Latino History. He loosely builds on the points raised in Marx's National Question. His 2007, Corridors of Migration: Odyssey of Mexican Laborers, 1600-1933 breaks new ground in the transborder study of Chicano history, using documents on both sides of the border to document and explore the early urbanization and proletarianization of Mexican workers.

"Is Antonio Banderas Latino?"

During a lecture titled "Is Antonio Banderas Latino?" at Swarthmore College, his studies of the race, age, history and class of the Chicano identity were compared and contrasted to the definition of the alleged Latino identity of U.S.A. His question "should a Spaniard get affirmative action for Latinos without the life experience?"—where life experience meant that one needed to suffer discrimination—was answered no. This has been a recurring theme in his work: that civil rights entitlements are not automatic, but reserved for those who have historically experienced racial and class discrimination. No matter what people may think of Banderas as a person, he is European and not part of a class that has historically suffered discrimination. In 2002, Acuña opposed the nomination of Miguel Estrada, a Honduran immigrant whose father owned a plantation in Honduras, to the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court.

Discrimination

In 1992 Acuña sued the University of California, Santa Barbara for discrimination; the judge dropped the race discrimination cause of action; the political cause of action had previously been dropped because it missed the statute of limitations filing. A jury found that Acuña had been discriminated on the basis of his age, but Federal Judge Audrey Collins refused to compel the University to hire him, instead awarding him a monetary compensation of $325,000, which Acuña used to establish a foundation that he, his wife and his supporters started to help the victims of employment discrimination in higher education. The For Chicana Chicano Studies Foundation recently launched a web site. Aside from awarding tens of thousands of awards for court costs the foundation gives an average of $7,500 annually in scholarships.

Legacy

Acuña's archives are held in the Special Collections and Archives section of CSUN's Oviatt Library.

Honors