José Ángel Gutiérrez
José Angel Gutiérrez, is an attorney and college professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. He was a founding member of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) in San Antonio in 1967, and a founding member and past president of La Raza Unida Party, a Mexican-American third party movement that supported candidates for elective office in Texas and California, as well as outher Southwestern and some Midwestern states.
Gutiérrez is a 1962 graduate of Crystal City High School in Crystal City, Texas. He has also earned degrees from Texas A & M University at Kingsville (B.A. 1966), St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas (M.A. 1968), the University of Texas at Austin (Ph.D. 1976) and the University of Houston, Bates College of Law, Houston, Texas (J.D. 1988). He has done postdoctoral work at Stanford University, Colegio de México, University of Washington, and Centro de Estudios Económicos y Sociales del Tercer Mundo in Mexico City, Mexico.
After the fall of La Raza Unida Party, Gutierrez moved to Oregon in 1980 where he taught at Colegio Cesar Chavez in Mt. Angel, Oregon for a year and then at Western Oregon State College in Monmouth, Oregon from 1981-1985, where he also served as Director of Minority Student Services. In 1984 he unsuccessfully ram for Oregon State Representative. He was also very active in social service projects serving as Director of the Hispanic Services Project for the United Way of the Columbia, Willamette, Portland area and Executive Director of the Commission on Economic Development Subcommittee of the National Catholic Conference's Campaign for Human Development. In 1986, he left Oregon and returned to Texas to attend law school at Southern Methodist University in Dallas before transfering to the University of Houston.
Dr. Gutiérrez has received many honors including being named as one of the "100 Outstanding Latino Texans of the 20th Century" by Latino Monthly, January 2000, and "Distinguished Texas Hispanic by Texas Hispanic Magazine, October 1996. He received the Distinguished Faculty Award from the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education in June 1995, and the National Council of La Raza's Chicano Hero Award in 1994.
He founded the Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS) at the University of Texas at Arlington in 1994 and served as its Director until December 1996, at which time he became the Special Advisor to the President of the university until December 1998.
He has been elected and appointed to public office since 1970. He has served as an elected Trustee and President of the Crystal City Independent School District (1970-1973), Urban Renewal Commissioner for Crystal City, Texas (1970-1972), County Judge for Zavala County, Texas (1974-1978, re-elected 1978-1981), Commissioner for the Oregon Commission on International Trade (1983-1985), Administrative Law Judge for the City of Dallas (1900-1992), and member of the Ethics Commission for the City of Dallas (1999-2000).
His book publications include El Político: The Mexican American Elected Official (El Paso: Mictla Publications, 1972); A Gringo Manual on How to Handle Mexicans (Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico: Imprenta Velasco Burkhardt, 1974); A War of Words (co-authored) (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1985); The Making of a Chicano Militant: Lessons from Cristal (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998); and translator of Reies López Tijerina, They Called Me “King Tiger”: My Struggle for the Land and Our Rights (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2000); a revised and expanded edition of A Gringo Manual on How to Handle Mexicans (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2001); Chicano Manuel on How to Handle Gringos (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2003);We Won’t Back Down: Severita Lara’s Rise from Student Leader to Mayor (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2005); and Making of a Civil Rights Leader (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2005).
He also has written several articles and chapters over the years, the most recent being "Chicano Music: The Politics and Evolution to 1950," for an anthology edited by Lawrence Clayton for Texas A & M University Press, forthcoming; "Binacionalismo en el siglo XXI: Chicanos y mexicanos en los Estados Unidos," Fondo Editorial Huaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico, forthcoming; "Experiences of Chicana County Judges in Texas Politics: In Their Own Words," Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies, 20:1, Spring 1999; and, "Los dos Mexicos," Extensiones: Revista Interdisciplinaria de la Universidad Intercontinental, Mexico D.F., Mexico 4:1 y 2. 1997