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Archives: Tribute to Julian Samora
Lamanna's Tribute
Obituary
Day in the Life
Voice in the Wilderness
Resolution from the Faculty Senate
Julian Samora, 1920-1996
by Richard Lamanna
Julian Samora, a much loved and esteemed colleague and friend, died February 2, 1996 at his daughter's home in Albuquerque, N.M. He was 75 and had been suffering from a rare disorder of the nervous system.
Julian was born in Pagosa Springs, Colorado in 1920. The harsh discrimination that he encountered through much of his early life undoubtedly played a crucial role in his determination to advance the cause of Hispanics and all minorities in American society.
He received a bachelors degree from Adams State College in Colorado (1942) and a masters degree from Colorado State University in 1947. In 1953 he became the first Mexican American to earn a Ph.D. in Sociology and Anthropology (Washington University, St. Louis), with a dissertation on "Minority Leadership in a Bi-Cultural Community."
Julian had a long and distinguished teaching career. He taught at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Michigan State University before coming to Notre Dame in 1959. In his 25 years at Notre Dame he served as Head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology (1963-1966), founder and director of the Mexican-American Graduate Studies Program (1972-1985) and Director of Graduate Studies (1981-1984). He also served as visiting professor at the University of New Mexico, 1954; Michigan State University, 1955; Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota, Colombia, 1963; University of California, Los Angeles, 1964; and the University of Texas, Austin, 1971.
Julian had little use for abstract theory--his work always had a practical dimension with clear policy implications. Among his numerous publications were: La Raza: Forgotten Americans (1966); Mexican Americans in a Midwest Metropolis: A Study of East Chicago (with Richard A. Lamanna) (1967); Mexican Americans in the Southwest (with Ernesto Galarza and Herman Gallegos) (1969); Los Mojados: The Wetback Story (1971); A History of the Mexican American People (with Patricia Vande Simon) (1977 revised in 1993 with Cordelia Chavez Candelaria and Alberto Pulido); and Gunpowder Justice: A Reassessment of the Texas Rangers (with Joe Bernal and Albert Pena) (1979).
In addition to his scholarly work, Julian was active as an advocate. He was a member of numerous commissions and boards dealing with public policy, including the President's Commission on Rural Poverty; the President's Commission on Income Maintenance Programs; National Upward Bound; the Indiana Civil Rights Commission; the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; and the National Assessment of Education Progress. He also served as a consultant to groups such as the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the U.S. Public Health Service, the Rosenburg Foundations, the Ford Foundation, the John Hay Whitney Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Institutes for Mental Health, the Bureau of the Census, the National Science Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution.
This remarkable record of scholarship and service did not go unnoticed. Julian was the recipient of numerous awards and honors. Among these were a John Hay Whitney Foundation Fellowship; a Sydney Spivack Fellowship; the La Raza Award from the National Council of La Raza, and an honorary doctor of Laws degree from Incarnate Word College in San Antonio, Texas. On the occasion of his retirement in 1985 he received a Special Presidential Award from the University of Notre Dame and the White House Hispanic Heritage Award. In 1987 he was appointed Martin Luther King-Rosa Parks Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan. Shortly thereafter, Michigan State University created the Julian Samora Research Institute in his honor to continue and expand his pioneering research into the Chicano experience in the Midwest. In a ceremony in Mexico City in 1990, the Mexican government awarded him its highest civilian award for non-residents, the Aguila Azteca (Aztec Eagle) Medal.
Of all his accomplishments, Julian was most proud of the more than 50 students of Mexican-American heritage he recruited and guided through his graduate program in Mexican-American Studies. Many received graduate or professional degrees and currently hold key positions on university faculties throughout the country including Colorado, Michigan State, Nebraska, New Mexico, Notre Dame, and Texas. As one of his former students noted, "He lured us away from the security of our barrios across the Southwest to the isolation of Midwestern academia. For Chicano students on that alien campus, his home became a home-away-from-home." Julian and his wife Betty literally opened their home and their hearts to the numerous students who were following in his footsteps in embarking on a career in the social science. Many of them, like Julian, had to overcome enormous odds in getting to where they were.
Julian was a pioneer in so many ways. His early studies of folk medicine and the role of ethnicity in the understanding of sickness and health broke new ground in that field; his work for the Ford Foundation on population and fertility in the Third World was ahead of its time. His studies of immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border were also impressive. But, perhaps the most important achievements were his early recognition of the importance of social science research in changing policies and conditions that affected the disadvantaged, and cultivating a generation of social scientists who would continue his important work of exposing and overcoming the barriers to realizing the American dream. This I believe is his true legacy.
He successfully combined his scholarly work with a passionate interest in promoting social justice and preserving his Hispanic heritage. His success was in no small part due to his warm, generous, and unpretentious nature. In spite of his well deserved reputation here and abroad, he never forgot his origins and was equally at ease with all kinds of people: presidents and peons, scholars and activists, students and deans, Chicanos and Anglos, blacks and whites, North Americans and South Americans.
Dr. Samora, whose wife Betty died about ten years ago, is survived by a daughter, Carmen, of Albuquerque, three sons, John of Denver, David of Santa Fe, N.M. and Geoff of South Bend, IN, and three grandchildren.
On April 13, 1996 a festive memorial service combining both Spanish and Anglo traditions was held at the University of Notre Dame and was well attended by his numerous former students, colleagues, friends, and family members.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Julian Samora Scholarship Fund established in his honor at Michigan State University.
Obituary
Dennis Brown, Notre Dame Public Relations Department
February 5, 1996
Word has been received of the death of Julian Samora, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Notre Dame and a preeminent scholar in the field of Mexican-American studies. He died Friday in Albuquerque, N.M., at age 75.
A specialist in discrimination, civil rights, public health and rural poverty, Samora taught at Notre Dame from 1959 until his retirement in 1985. He chaired the Department of Sociology from 1963-66.
Samora cofounded the National Council of La Raza, one of the nation's leading Hispanic organizations, and served on numerous governmental and private boards and commissions, including the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the President's Commission on Rural Poverty. At Notre Dame, he directed the Mexican Border Studies Project sponsored by the Ford Foundation.
Samora's numerous books and publications include "La Raza: Forgotten Americans and Mexican-Americans" (1966), "Los Mojados: The Wetback Story" (1971), "A History of the Mexican-American People" (1977), and "Gunpowder Justice: A Reassessment of the Texas Rangers" (1979), all published by the University of Notre Dame Press.
Among the many honors bestowed upon him were the White House Hispanic Heritage Award in 1985 and the Aguila Azteca (Aztec Eagle) Medal in 1991 from the government of Mexico.
Born in Pagosa Springs, Colo., on March 1, 1920, Samora earned a bachelor's degree from Adams State College of Colorado in 1942 and a master's degree from Colorado State University in 1947. He received his doctorate in sociology from Washington University in St. Louis in 1952.
Prior to joining the Notre Dame faculty, Samora taught at Adams State College, the University of Wisconsin, Washington University, the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and Michigan State University. The Julian Samora Research Institute was established at Michigan State in 1989 and carries on his work by undertaking research of relevance to the Hispanic community.
Samora is survived by three sons, Geoffrey of South Bend, Ind.; David of Santa Fe, N.M.; and John of Phoenix; and a daughter, Carmen, with whom he lived in recent years in Albuquerque, N.M.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Julian Samora Scholarship Fund established in his honor at Michigan State University.
A memorial service at Notre Dame is tentatively scheduled for April 13.
A Day in the Life of Julián Samora
By Estevan Flores
April, 1985
[Tribute written for Julian Samora's 1985 retirement banquet.]
Who is Julián Samora?
To those who learn about U.S. Hispanic leadership from newspapers, he is no doubt a total stranger.
Even Hispanics beyond the fringes of academia won't recognize the name with the alacrity that they will a name like Henry Cisneros or César Chávez, or even Lee Treviño.
And that's a shame.
Julián Samora is a man worth knowing. In these days of the Hispanic Upwardly-mobile Professionals (HUPIES), he is a throwback. He represents the best of the traditional Hispanic qualities.
Foremost, he is a teacher and a humanitarian. He is also 65.
This Saturday (April 13), students like me who learned through his teachings -- and even more through his example -- will gather in South Bend, Indiana. We will spend a full day praising him on his retirement, after 25 years of service, from the Department of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame.
We will come from all over the country to embarrass him with our praise.
We will recall that in 1953, he became the first Mexican American to earn a doctorate in sociology, and immediately blazed a trail of research and writing and community concern that we are still trying to follow.
At a time when there was no "Chicano movement," he battled through the institutional and often blatant discrimination of that era not only to make a place for himself, but for others.
For more than 15 years, he was the only Mexican American faculty member at Notre Dame. He was seen as a "crazy." Who else would try to educate Mexicans in that bastion of white Anglo Catholicism?
He lured us away from the security of our barrios across the southwest to the isolation of Midwestern academia. For Chicano students on that alien campus, his home became a home-away-from-home. Regularly, he and his wife would invite students for breakfast or brunch.
He paved the way for so many Chicano sociologists. Through his work with the Ford Foundation and the U.S. Office of Education, he secured the necessary funding -- more than $700,000 -- to open up graduate school opportunities at Notre Dame for individuals (not just Mexican Americans) interested in graduate study of the Mexican American or Chicano experience.
He helped more than 50 students earn their master's or Ph.D.'s or law degrees.
He wrote or edited seven books himself. He also opened the door for the publication of at least three books by the late Ernest Galarza by working through the Notre Dame Press. Almost all of us know Dr. Galarza's monumental contribution to the cause of the migrant farm laborer. But who acknowledges the behind-the-scene work?
A colleague likes to refer to Dr. Samora as "the silent warrior." It fits him so well. As another example, with others, he worked diligently and effectively to help the groundkeepers at Notre Dame in their struggle to form a union.
Born in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, he conducted research in his native state, in New Mexico, in Illinois, along the U.S.-Mexico border, and in Colombia.
In the 1950s, he was writing on minority leadership, language usage and acculturation, and on social change. He served on editorial boards of magazines, on foundation boards and on presidential commission. His research focus on the undocumented immigrant stimulated a generation of scholarship by such authorities as Dr. Jorge Bustamante Mexico's foremost expert, and U.S. scholars such as Dr. Gilbert Cárdenas, University of Texas, Austin; Dr. Juan García, University of Arizona; Dr. José Hinojosa, Pan American University; and Dr. Victor Ríos, University of Redlands.
In the long day and night when Dr. Samora's friends and former students collect to honor him this week, fittingly there will be learning sessions interspersed with the tributes and reminiscences. Culture issues and public policy will be discussed by experts whom Julián Samora helped create and mold. His day of tribute will not really be a day off for the Doctor. It will be one more opportunity to inspire others to follow in his path.
[In 1985, Dr. Estevan Flores was the director of Mexican American Studies at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, and an organizer of the retirement tribute to his former teacher, Julian Samora.]
Voice in the Wilderness: N.D. scholar devotes life to Hispanic ways
by Rosemary Horvath
[Reprinted by permission from the South Bend Tribune, Saturday, November 10, 1990]
While colleagues may describe Julian Samora as a scholar, pioneer and even the "Father of Hispanic Sociology," the 70-year-old refrains from categorizing his achievements.
"I was doing what I thought was important," says Samora, professor emeritus in sociology at the University of Notre Dame.
Many sociologists and government agencies think his work has been important too. This Monday, in fact, the Mexican government will honor him and two other Americans of Mexican descent with its highest civilian award for non-residents - The Aguila Azteca.
The award, to be presented in ceremonies in Mexico City, honors those who set examples - those who soar above the ordinary, like the Aztec Eagle the award represents.
The award also marks the latest chapter in Samora's acclaimed 40-year career. But it's a chapter he takes in stride.
He won't speculate why the Mexican government singled him out for the honor. It's a typically humble response from a man whose sociological studies have become the basis for government policy. Over the decades, he has pointed out the injustices in the education of Mexican-American students, detailed the importance of the migrant labor force in the U.S. economy, and developed the idea of sanctions against employers who violate immigration law.
As for being called a pioneer in sociology, he hesitates to admit it. He supposes that someone else would have done his work if he hadn't.
As a matter of fact, he's stingy about detailing any of his achievements.
Samora is a polite man but he seems doubtful that even an interview is in order.
He instead attributes his popularity to the 50 students, all Mexican-Americans, he shepherded through a special graduate program at Notre Dame. Many of them received doctorates and many currently hold key positions on university faculties throughout the country.
The basement office at Hesburgh Library on the Notre Dame campus consists of two chairs, a desk covered with stacks of papers and two filing cabinets with much of the same. Most of his private collection, which not too long ago still flooded the office, has been donated to the University of Texas library in Austin.
Across from the desk is a ceiling bookcase cradling books that either Samora or colleagues authored. He often talks as if he's reciting chapters from a book, and some of the time, he is.
His subjects range from the importance of census-taking to the importance of voting. He recites passages from his books about classroom discrimination against Spanish-speaking children. He gives some personal accounts of discrimination as early as the 1920s, when he was growing up in a Mexican-American Family.
"Discrimination was in our past, not unlike the black except the black knew it was against the law to go to a white hotel," he says.
Samora recalls being turned away from hotels in Fort Collins, Colo., "Finally, some guy let me in a fifth-rate hotel down an alley. I wondered why. The next morning we were talking he said, "What part of India are you from?"
It isn't surprising that he knows the layout of his desk well enough that he can pull a page from a stack or reach for a book buried somewhere. The conversation is similarly precise.
His self-effacing manner only changes when he begins talking about growing up in Pagos Springs in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.
"What got me involved in research I've done is the discrimination-trying to prove I was equal."
Incensed at an early age about this discrimination, Samora would do something about it - from learning English quickly to receiving a college education.
"I made as much money as anybody. It was to try to show somebody - the Anglos - that I was equal to them but I've never been equal. Who wants to be the equal of George Wallace, for example?"
In his field, few have equaled Samora.
He came to Notre Dame in 1959, as a professor of sociology and anthropology. He chaired the sociology department until his retirement five years ago.
Over the last two decades Samora has consulted for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the U.S. Public Heath Service, the Rosenburg Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
In 1989, Michigan State University took Samora's name for its research institute that addresses the needs and concerns of Latinos in the Midwest.
Considered to be a "voice in the wilderness" in the 1950s and 1960s, Samora's research unveiled sociological underpinnings of the Latino culture. His research came at a time when most social scientists were focusing on the concerns of black Americans.
Samora views the civil-rights struggle as benefiting many ethnic groups.
"I gained self-esteem from the '60s. It produced pride. It did for blacks, and for Chicanos. It did for a lot of minorities," he says.
What set Samora's work apart, too, was his own ethnicity. In the 1950s, few Latinos belonged to the discipline. Among his early studies as a social scientist, he showed that providing medical services to ethnic minorities was more efficient if cultural traits are taken into consideration.
Other studies showed the inequality of the U.S. public school system and how it failed to respond to Mexican-American students. One study indicated that tracking minority students discouraged them from pursing higher education.
But many experts consider Samora's greatest contribution to be his ideas about U.S.-Mexican immigration issues. Some of his views ultimately would be reflected in the 1986 immigration law, which aimed to reduce illegal immigration by making it a crime to employ anyone who lacked proper identification. Employers who do so are to be sanctioned.
Samora suggested as early as 1971 that a card and sanctions on employers would discourage Mexican residents from endangering their lives by crossing the border illegally to find jobs.
Samora, disagreeing with some Hispanic groups today, defends the idea of employer sanctions - believing they will curb exploitation of the migrant workers. Opponents have argued that employer sanctions may discourage hiring altogether, but Samora believes that without sanctions, "Employers could cheat people out of their pay and get away with it."
Samora's recommendations were a result of a three-year study in the late 1960s. The research team, funded by the Ford Foundation and led by Samora, studied immigration and the economy of the American companies located along Mexico's border.
Samora's earlier studies also showed the importance of the migratory labor force in the U.S. economy. He outlined his findings in an often-acclaimed 1971 book, "Los Mojados: The Wetback Story." It was written with the assistance of Gilbert Cardenas and Jorge Bustamante, both students in Samora's graduate program at Notre Dame at the time.
Cardenas is currently a sociology professor at the University of Texas in Austin, while Bustamante is president of a think tank in Tijuana that advises the Mexican government on border issues.
Bustamante also holds the Eugene Conley Chair in the department of sociology at Notre Dame and is just finishing teaching a two-week course dealing with border problems.
He spoke of Samora's tremendous willpower and achievements. He recalled a touching event from 1971, in which Samora walked into the classroom and announced he had a historic announcement.
"As of today," he said, "it is illegal to prohibit children from speaking Spanish in the school yard."
Bustamante says he still gets shivers thinking about that day because the court ruling had meant so much to Samora, who had worked hard to change the policy.
Samora had personal as well as humanitarian reasons to want a change. Samora himself had flunked the first grade because he spoke Spanish in an English-speaking elementary school. It had taken that first year of school to learn English.
"I think I've suppressed most of my childhood memories because the discrimination was so hard," he said. "You couldn't speak Spanish on the playground, let alone in school. If a teacher caught you speaking Spanish you went to the principal and the principal had a ruler and whacked you."
Is he satisfied about his influence on social change?
Samora answered, "No, because there's so much more to do."
Resolution in honor of Julian Samora
Passed by the Notre Dame Faculty Senate, March 7, 1996
Whereas Julian Samora was a professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame from 1959 until his retirement in 1985; and
Whereas he was the first Mexican-American known to have received a doctorate in sociology and anthropology (in 1953); and
Whereas he has been credited with helping to establish medical sociology as an independent subdiscipline; and
Whereas he "turned Notre Dame into a virtual magnet for Mexican-American graduate students" and his South Bend home "into a virtual Mexican-American student center" (the New York Times, February 6, 1996); and
Whereas he established Notre Dame's highly successful Hispanic Studies Program, from which more than one-hundred Mexican-American scholars graduated; and
Whereas he was one of the earliest and most prolific authors and supporters of the University Press and his most successful title, among many, was Los Mojados: The Wetback Story, published by the Press; and
Whereas he was a co-founder of the National Council of La Raza, widely regarded as the leading Mexican-American civil rights organization; and
Whereas, following his retirement from Notre Dame, Michigan State University created the Julian Samora Research Institute in his honor to continue and expand his pioneering research into the Chicano experience in the Midwest;
Be it therefore resolved that the Faculty Senate of the University of Notre Dame acknowledge with profound sadness the death of our former colleague, Professor Julian Samora, on February 2, 1996, at his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and
Be it further resolved that the Faculty Senate expresses its profound appreciation for Professor Samora's extraordinary contributions to the fields of sociology and anthropology and to the Mexican-American community, and for his compelling personal witness of dedication and service to students; and
Be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be transmitted to the Departments of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame for the attention of their faculty, students and staff; and
Be it further resolved that the Faculty Senate observe a moment of silence in respectful memory of Professor Julian Samora.