Rodolfo “Rudy” Acuña
Rodolfo “Rudy” Acuña is a prominent activist, historian, and professor known for his significant contributions to Chicana/o studies. Born in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, in 1932 to Mexican immigrant parents, Acuña has dedicated his career to advocating for the representation of Mexican American history and culture in academia. He played a pivotal role in establishing one of the first Chicana/o studies departments at California State University, Northridge, which has since grown to become the largest program of its kind in the nation. His influential book, *Occupied America: The Chicano's Struggle Toward Liberation*, published in 1972, introduced the concept of "internal colonialism," framing the experiences of Chicanos in the U.S. as akin to those of colonized peoples.
Acuña's work during the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s emphasized the need for ethnic studies and has shaped the discourse around Mexican American identity and history. His academic achievements have been met with criticism, leading to controversies such as the banning of his textbooks in some educational institutions. Despite these challenges, Acuña remains committed to activism, viewing his work as a means of addressing social justice issues. His archives are preserved at California State University, Northridge, reflecting a career dedicated to both education and advocacy within the Chicana/o community.
Subject Terms
Rodolfo “Rudy” Acuña
- Rodolfo F. Acuña
- Born: May 18, 1932
Is an activist, professor, historian, and author of twenty-one books and many more academic publications. He founded one of the first Chicana/o studies departments in the nation at California State University, Northridge, which is now the largest Chicana/o studies program in the nation.
Rodolfo Acuña was born in Boyle Heights, an East Los Angeles community with a predominantly large Mexican and Mexican American population in 1932. His mother was originally from Sonora and his father was from Jalisco, two states in Mexico. In 1951, Acuña graduated from Loyola High School. He enrolled in college and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from Los Angeles State College (now California State University, Los Angeles). Upon completing his master’s degree, he enrolled in a doctoral program in Latin American history at the University of Southern California and earned his PhD in 1968.
Acuña was hired by San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University, Northridge) in 1969 and he formed the Chicana/o studies program. In the post-World War II years, the first Mexican American students entered the American university system, but it was not until the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s that large populations of Mexican American students enrolled in university. When these students began to fill the classrooms, they found that their history, politics, culture, and literatures were not taught. Given the charged political atmosphere of the civil rights era, the students began to demand ethnic studies courses. There were few Chicana/o professors to teach the courses, given the dearth of Chicana/o graduate students in the 1960s, and almost none of them were trained in what is today called Chicana/o studies. Most of the history professors like Acuña were either formally trained Latin Americanist historians or American historians. Acuña’s ability to create a department early on was a significant development for both the Chicano Movement and the field of study.
Acuña was part of seminal cohort who helped shape the field of Chicana/o studies. Their early publications were often the first texts written by Mexican Americans themselves on their history and culture. Early on, professors relied on texts written by progressive white journalists and historians, like Carey McWilliams’s 1949 book North from Mexico and Leonard Pitt’s 1966 history The Decline of the Californios. In 1972, Acuña published Occupied America: The Chicano’s Struggle Toward Liberation, the first Chicano history written by a Chicano.
Occupied America was a formative text in the field; it is still one of the most important historical surveys today. In Occupied America, Acuña introduced the concept of “internal colonialism” in reference to the history of the ethnic Mexican population in the U.S. Southwest. “The experience of Chicanos in the United States parallels that of other Third World peoples who have suffered under the colonialism of technologically superior nations,” he wrote, adding later: “I contend that Mexicans in the United States are still a colonized people, but now the colonization is internal—it is occurring within the country rather than being imposed by an external power.” The internal colonial model connected the histories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries into a coherent narrative. American settlers invaded and conquered foreign lands in the nineteenth century, reducing its indigenous populations (Spanish/Mexicans and Native Americans) to dominated groups. The penetration of industrial capitalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century built upon the subordination of these racialized groups and used their status as justification for exploitation and continued discrimination, despite them sharing the same citizenship as their oppressors. It was a controversial idea, but one that resonated among Chicana/o activists and academics alike. Internal colonialism became the dominant analytical model until the 1980s.
While writing and teaching, Acuña also participated in the Chicano Movement. He spoke at rallies, supported boycotts, and traveled to school walkouts and other protests from California to the Texas panhandle. After decades of achievements, the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies named him a NACCS Scholar in 1989, the highest honor the organization bestows.
In 1991, Acuña applied for a position at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and was denied the appointment. He sued the regents of the University of California for discrimination on the basis of age, race, and political orientation. The political charge was dropped by a judge on a technicality; Acuña’s claim surpassed the statute of limitation by a week. The charge of racial discrimination was dismissed after three years of litigation. In 1995, Acuña won his case on the grounds of age discrimination and was awarded $326,000. He used the funds to create a non-profit foundation.
At his advanced age, Acuña is at the end of a long career that has been filled with controversy. Through the 1980s and 1990s, conservative critics targeted him for his teaching. Schools across the country banned his textbook. In the early 2000s the Tucson Unified School District banned Occupied America and a slew of other Chicana/o texts in their effort to dismantle their Mexican American studies programs because administrators believed it taught Mexican American students to hate white people. They often cited Acuña’s writing as evidence. As of 2017, the Tucson case is currently being litigated. Although he has achieved so much in academics, Acuña still sees himself as an activist. He told an interviewer in 2014: “I don’t consider myself an intellectual. . . . When I received my PhD my father asked me ‘si eres doctor que curas?’ If you are a doctor what do you cure? My strategy has always been to take my cause of the moment to the edge of the cliff and be prepared to go over the cliff if necessary. Most so-called intellectuals look at this as irrational—for me it is necessary if I am to remain intellectually honest.”
Rodolfo Acuña’s archives are housed as the Rodolfo F. Acuña Collection at California State University, Northridge, Oviatt Library in their special collections and archives.