The Department of Ethnic Studies UC Berkeley

Bio & Research Interests

Dr. Carlos Muñoz, Jr. was born in the “segundo barrio” in El Paso, Texas, and raised in the barrios of East Los Angeles, California. He is the son of poor working class Mexican immigrants. He earned his AA from Los Angeles City Community College, his BA with honors in Political Science from California State University at Los Angeles and his PhD in Government from the Claremont Graduate University.  He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Ethnic Studies and Adjunct Faculty, Center for Latin American Studies, University of California, Berkeley. After 47 years of teaching in higher education, he has gained international prominence as political scientist, historian, journalist, and public intellectual.
Dr. Muñoz was the founding chair of the first Chicano Studies department

in the nation in 1968 at the California State University at Los Angeles and the founding chair of the National Association of Chicana & Chicano Studies (NACCS). He is a pioneer in the creation of undergraduate and graduate curricula in the disciplines of Chicano/Latino & Ethnic Studies. He is the author of numerous 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 1st edition of the book underwent 12 printings and has become the classic study of the origins of the Movement. A revised and expanded 2nd edition of the book was published in 2007.  The book was a major resource for the PBS television series Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Muñoz was the senior consultant for the project and was also featured in the series. The HBO movie, “Walkout” was based on that series.

Courses Taught

ES 41AC – Protest Movements From the 1960s to Present

ES 141 – Racial Politics in America

ES 190N – The Multiracial & Multicultural Roots of Mexican Culture (Study Abroad-Veracruz-Guanajuato) 

ES180N  – Forging the Mexican Nation  (Study Abroad-Mexico City-Oxaca-San Miguel Allende) 

CS180 – Spain and Latino Identity  (Study Abroad-Madrid) 

CS 24 – The Chicano Civil Rights Movement (Freshman Seminar) 

CS 70 – Latino/a Politics 

CS 101 – Paradigms in Chicano Studies 

CS 159 – Mexican Immigration

ES 200 – Critical Terms and Issues in Comparative Ethnic Studies

ES 230 – Social Movement Theories

Books

Awards & Honors

2015-2016  Edward A. Dickson Emeriti Distinguished Professorship

2013 Chancellor’s Public Scholar 

2007 The Pioneer Visionary Award by the National Black Student Leadership Development Conference 

2005 Honored by the Harvard Graduate School of Education for educating others and inspiring them in the pursuit of their goals

2003 Honored as one of 12 civil rights activists who accomplished extraordinary deeds that changed the face of the nation and gave birth to the modern Civil Rights Movement by the Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture, Community Works, The National Endowment for the Arts, The California Arts Council, and the Friends Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library

2001 Honored by the American Political Science Association for seminal scholarly contributions to the study of Mexican American and Latino Politics

1999 Scholar of the Year Award, National Association of Chicana/Chicano Studies

1996 The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, & Rosa Parks Award, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

1994-95 University of California Humanities Research Fellowship

1990 Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America for the book Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement