Historian of race, ethnic relations Gutiérrez named center director

Ramón Gutiérrez, a historian of race and ethnic relations in American life, has been named Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture.

Gutiérrez, the Preston & Sterling Morton Distinguished Service Professor in History and the College, will begin a three-year term Tuesday, July 1, succeeding Waldo Johnson, Associate Professor in the School of Social Service Administration.

Gutiérrez, one of the nation’s leading Latino scholars, has received numerous academic awards, including a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship (“genius” grant), the John Hope Franklin Prize from the American Studies Association and the Frederick Jackson Turner Prize from the Organization of American Historians.

He is a specialist in Mexican-American history, Indian-White relations in the Americas, social and economic history of the Southwest, colonial Latin America and Mexican immigration. In addition to two monographs and numerous articles, he has edited, co-edited or co-authored 10 books.

His most recent project involves co-editing a forthcoming volume titled Mexicans in California: Emergent Challenges and Transformations. Gutiérrez serves on the editorial boards of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, American National Biography, Ethnic Studies and Ethnoscapes.

Gutiérrez previously was a faculty member at the University of California, San Diego. He received his B.A. in Latin American history from the University of New Mexico, and both his M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

An experienced leader and administrator as well as a teacher and scholar, Gutiérrez has served as Associate Chancellor in the University of California system, held a series of federal and presidential appointments, served on national governing and editorial boards, and directed numerous academic committees and research projects.

The Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture operates an interdisciplinary program of scholarship and debate around the topics of race and ethnicity, with a particular focus on how these ideas intersect other primary identities, as well as how they impact and shape people’s daily lives.

Faculty and students affiliated with the center pursue scholarly and creative projects that cross the traditional disciplinary boundaries and also include work on community activism.