Speaking Out Is a Duty, Professor Says

For Rodolfo F. Acuna, being outspoken is a luxury that stems from his life as an educator.

“It’s an obligation,” said the 64-year-old historian and political activist. “I look at it as being something that you take on. It’s your vocation in life. You serve a function.”

Acuna, a longtime professor at Cal State Northridge, said his greatest moments include serving as founding chairman of the college’s Chicano studies program, which started in 1969, and the completion of his book, “Occupied America. A History of Chicanos,” which was first published in 1972.

“The more education you get, the more notoriety you get, the more of a duty you have to help out the society,” he said. Acuna successfully sued the University of California for age bias and was awarded $326,000 in 1996. Most of the money went to a new nonprofit foundation created to help cover the costs of others who may challenge injustices in the university system, he said.

“We feel that affirmative action is going to be whittled away to the point that it’s going to be useless,” he said.

Born in Boyle Heights and raised in different parts of Los Angeles, Acuna credited his hard-working parents, who arrived from Mexico in the early part of the century, with encouraging him to pursue his education.

A graduate of Loyola High School, he received a bachelor’s degree in social studies and master’s degree in history at Los Angeles State College (now Cal State L.A.) and a doctorate in Latin American studies at USC.

He has written numerous essays and books, the latest of which, “Sometimes There Is No Other Side: Essays on Truth and Objectivity,” is due to be published in January, he said.

Acuna continues to see what he considers unfairness, especially in the treatment of Chicanos.

“It’s just lack of justice,” he said. “It adds to the mystique that I beat UC. At least a half-dozen lawyers told me, ‘You’ll never beat them.’ ”