IRVINE : Latino Concern Nets Honor for Professor

Watching Latino students come to campus for the first time brings back memories for Francisco A. Marmolejo, a history instructor at Irvine Valley College.

“When I see them, I remember my own experiences,” Marmolejo, 44, said. “I remember coming to a campus where few of the faces reflected mine and the culture didn’t reflect my culture. . . . There was a sense of isolation.”

For the past 13 years, Marmolejo has been working to ease this culture shock by organizing numerous diversity-awareness activities and fighting for the recruitment of Asian, Latino and African-American faculty members.

His efforts were recognized last month by the League of United Latin American Citizens, which named the Laguna Beach resident as one of its three Outstanding Hispanic Educators.

The league praised Marmolejo for “his involvement and his special contributions to education for Orange County Latino youth.”

Marmolejo has been a professor at Irvine Valley College since 1980, teaching such classes as Mexican and Chicano history as well as European history.

But many of his college activities take place outside of the classroom.

He regularly brings Latino music groups and speakers to the campus on Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence Day in an attempt to foster greater cultural understanding.

On a recent Columbus Day, Marmolejo helped organize a two-day teach-in that presented both the European and American Indian perspective of Columbus’ landing in America.

“We wanted to commemorate (the day) in a historically accurate way,” he said. “We didn’t want to show just one perspective.”

Marmolejo also spends considerable time attending academic conferences and professional association meetings as part of the college’s faculty recruitment efforts.

He attributed his interest in education to his parents. “They had very little formal education,” Marmolejo said. “They stressed to their family of nine children that there was nothing more important than the gifts of education. . . . That influenced me.”

Marmolejo holds a doctorate in European history and a master’s degree in medieval European history from Stanford University.

“Education is still the most effective (tool) for creating economic, political and social equality,” he said. “It’s the single best way to ensure that people are empowered.”