Funeral services were pending Tuesday for pioneering Cal State Northridge professor Rodolfo “Rudy” Acuña, founder of the school’s Department of Chicano and Chicana Studies and one of the academic fathers of the field of Chicano Studies in general.
Acuña died Monday at the age of 93, his family announced. No cause of death was provided.
The department’s Facebook page was already filling up with testimonials from Acuña’s former students Tuesday after the announcement of his passing.
“I had the honor of knowing him not just as a professor, but as a mentor during my time as the national student representative for NACCS,” one former student wrote. “I’ll never forget the evening in San Antonio when he and a few other professors treated us to dinner; he had the whole table laughing with his stories. It was in those types of moments that he made us feel like part of the professional community, not just students. While he will be deeply missed, his legacy lives on in every one of us fortunate enough to have crossed his path.”
Acuña received a bachelor’s degree in 1957 and a master’s degree in 1962 from what is now Cal State Los Angeles and a doctorate in Latin American studies from USC in 1968. He taught high school in the Los Angeles area in the late 1950s and ’60s.
Acuña was a prolific writer of essays, reviews, academic texts and children’s books. His 1972 book “Occupied America: The Chicano Struggle Toward Liberation” is one of the seminal works of the Latino political movement. It inspired Eva Longoria to enroll at CSUN for her master’s degree in Chicana/o Studies while she was starring on ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” according to the university.
Three of his books have received the Gustavus Myers Award for the Outstanding Book on Race Relations in North America. Acuña has also received the National Hispanic Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Center for the Study of Political Graphics Historian of the Lions Award, among others.