I am a father and a husband, a brother and a son, a teacher and a scholar, and a Chicano.

Teaching is my vocation. I view teaching as a collaborative process of fostering learning in and with others. In teaching, I strive to nurture a critical and empathic form of humanism, guided by humility and compassion, where we grow in our understanding of the world by learning how others made meaning of theirs.

I am the second of three children born to two Chicanos from East Los Angeles, and the grandson of Mexican immigrants who arrived to California in the early and mid 20th century. I’m a native Californian who grew up in the town of La Puente, lived a decade in Northern California, and now calls the L.A. Southland home (again).

I view the study of the past as a way to foster humanism and understanding in our present. I am less concerned with disciplinary boundaries than with works that speak to our continuing struggles for equity, for human dignity, for justice.

I am the product of education and a living testament to the kinds of transformative power education possesses. As a child, no one in my immediate family could call themselves a “college graduate.” Today, all five of us hold at least a Bachelor’s degree, four have earned a Master’s, and three of us have a doctorates. My commitment to teaching and learning is rooted to my first gen experience, and to the hope of an accessible education for all.

EDUCATIONAL HISTORY

I attended St. Joseph’s Elementary School and Bishop Amat Memorial High School, both in La Puente. I received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Claremont McKenna College in 1994, with a double major in History and Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). I then studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where I received both a M.A. degree (1996) and a Ph.D. (2002) in United States History.

I have taught in higher education since 1995, first as a teaching assistant at UC Berkeley, and then as an instructor, both at Cal and at Vista Community College (now Berkeley City College). I accepted my first tenure-track teaching position when I joined the faculty of California State University, Monterey Bay in 2002. At CSUMB I worked as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Humanities and Communication, or HCOM and served as the coordinator of the Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies Program.

In January 2006, I joined the faculty of Pomona College, the flagship campus of the Claremont Colleges. I hold a joint appointment in the History Department and the Intercollegiate Department of Chicana/o ~ Latina/o Studies, where I teach classes related to Chicane/Latine histories, race in the modern United States, oral history, and social movements of the Sixties.

Along with my wife and our three children, we strive to live peacefully and productively in our collective world.