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Claremont, Calif. (October 15, 2021)—Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis named �������� Professor José Zapata Calderón a Hispanic Heritage Month honoree. Solis, who represents the First District on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, posted a series of profiles on Facebook honoring First District leaders during Hispanic Heritage Month. Calderon is a �������� professor emeritus of sociology and Chicano/a-Latino/a Studies.

Solis recognized him as a scholar and community leader who combines his academic research and writing with community activism. 

“As the son of immigrant farmworkers from Mexico, he has had a long history of connecting his organizing and academic work with community-based teaching, participatory action research, critical pedagogy, and engagement,” her post says. “As a professor at �������� and a community organizer in the Inland Empire region, Calderón has advanced the building of community-based leadership in the development of a day labor center, the defense of immigrant rights, and the continued building of human rights coalitions.”

Solis goes on to cite his wide-ranging work in the community, including serving as president of the Latino and Latina Roundtable of the San Gabriel and Pomona Valley, as a board member of the Los Angeles County Board of Education (2013–15) and on the College for all Coalition, Coalition for a Better Los Angeles, and the Pomona Covid-19 Action Committee. Calderón founded the URBAN-Based Research Action Network and the American Sociology Association Latino and Latina Studies Section.

Solis highlighted a long list of other awards that recognize Calderón’s many contributions, to name a few:

• the National Association for Chicano and Chicana Studies Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award
• the “Dream Keeper Award” from the California Alliance of African American Educators
• the California Campus Compact Richard E. Cone Award for Excellence and Leadership in Cultivating Community Partnerships in Higher Education
• the United Farm Workers’ Union “Si Se Puede” award for his life-long contributions to the farmworker movement

He has published over 60 articles, including the recent article “,” in the journal The Assembly. His book Lessons from an Activist Intellectual: Teaching, Research, and Organizing for Social Change draws on his experience as the son of immigrant farmworkers from Mexico.

José Zapata Calderón joined ��������’s faculty in 1991. His courses and research cover a multitude of subjects, including urban and political sociology, race and ethnic relations, multi-ethnic coalitions, urban community development, critical ethnography, and participant observation, language rights, experiential and service-learning, and Chicanx and Latinx communities. He received an AA from Northeastern Jr. College, a BA from the University of Colorado, and a PhD in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles.