Acuña, Rodolfo F., 1932-

Rodolfo F. Acuña was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He earned his B.A. and Master's degrees from Los Angeles State College and his Ph. D. from the University of Southern California. He is a political activist and a scholar committed to social justice. In 1969, he founded the first Chicano Studies Department at San Fernando Valley State College (now known as California State University, Northridge). In 1972, he published Occupied America: The Chicano's Struggle Toward Liberation, groundbreaking book exposing the Chicano community to their unknown history. This book has been labeled the "Chicano Studies Bible." Currently, this book is in the fifth edition with new in-depth sources and expanded chapters. In 1991, he was denied a tenure position in Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1992, he filed a lawsuit against the UC Regents on the grounds of race, age, and political discrimination. In 1996, he won his lawsuit with a judgment based on age discrimination. Following the lawsuit, he published Sometimes There Is No Other Side: Chicanos and the Myth of Equality, based on his lawsuit against UC System and the notion of objectivity. Within his 35-year teaching career, he has published articles and book reviews in Pacific Historical Review, Choice: Current Review for Academic Libraries, and The Journal of American History. He also published political essays in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Los Angeles Times, and La Opinión. In addition to Occupied America and Sometimes There Is No Other Side, he has published several other books on Chicano history, including A Community Under Siege: A Chronicle of Chicanos East of the Los Angeles River, 1945-1975, Anything but Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary Los Angeles and U.S. Latino Issues.