Carlos Muñoz Jr. to speak about Latinos in America at Goshen College on Sept. 28

 

Lecture: Carlos Muñoz Jr., “Latinos and Multicultural Democracy in the USA”
Date: Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Rieth Recital Hall, Goshen College Music Center
Cost: Free and open to the public
Event sponsor: Goshen College Multicultural Affairs Office, Plowshares Project and the Campus Health and Wellness Committee

GOSHEN, Ind. – Carlos Muñoz Jr., one of this country’s most distinguished Latino scholars, will be part of Goshen College’s celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.) as he speaks about “Latinos and Multicultural Democracy in the USA” on Sept. 28 at 7:30 p.m. in Music Center’s Rieth Recital Hall. He will discuss Latino identity in the United States and the lost voice of Chicanos during the civil rights movement. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Muñoz will also speak earlier on Sept. 28 at 10 a.m. during the college’s convocation in the Goshen College Church-Chapel about “The Autobiography of Mexican Immigrants’ Son: Barrio to Berkeley.” This lecture is also free and open to the public.

Born in the “segundo barrio” in El Paso, Texas, and raised in the barrios of East Los Angeles, Calif., Muñoz is the son of poor working class Mexican immigrants. He is a professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, where he taught in the ethnic studies department and affiliated with the university’s center for Latin American studies and peace and conflict studies program. After 36 years in higher education, he has gained international prominence as political scientist, historian, journalist and public intellectual.

Muñoz played a prominent leadership role as a founder of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement.Since then he has served as a leading organizer of various multiracial coalitions, including the Faculty for Human Rights in Central America, Faculty Against Apartheid in South Africa and The Rainbow Coalition. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Multiracial Justice and Latinos Unidos, a grassroots community organization in Berkeley, Calif.

Muñoz has authored a number of pioneering works on the Mexican American political experience and on African American and Latino political coalitions. His book “Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement”won the Gustavus Myers Book Award for “outstanding scholarship in the study of human rights in the Untied States.” The book was a major resource for the 1996 PBS television series “Chicano!: History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement,” which Muñoz was the senior consultant for the project.

                                   

In 1996, Muñoz received the University of Michigan’s “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez and Rosa Parks Award.” In 1999, he received the Scholar of the Year Award from the National Association of Chicana & Chicano Studies. In 2001, the American Political Science Association honored Muñoz for his seminal scholarly contributions to the study of Mexican American and Latino politics.

 

Editors: For more information about this release, to arrange an interview or request a photo, contact Goshen College News Bureau Director Jodi H. Beyeler at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.

 

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Goshen College, established in 1894, is a four-year residential Christian liberal arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. The college’s Christ-centered core values – passionate learning, global citizenship, compassionate peacemaking and servant-leadership – prepare students as leaders for the church and world. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term program, Goshen has earned citations of excellence in Barron’s Best Buys in Education, “Colleges of Distinction,” “Making a Difference College Guide” and U.S.News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” edition, which named Goshen a “least debt college.” Visit www.goshen.edu.