Dr. Cynthia Orozco Video Capsule

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Biography: Cynthia Orozco, Ph.D.

Professor, History & Humanities – Eastern New Mexico University, Ruidoso

Dr. Cynthia E. Orozco is an award-winning and best-selling author, historian, museum and film consultant, and public speaker. She is Professor Emeritus in History and Humanities at Eastern New Mexico University, Ruidoso. She wrote Pioneer of Mexican-American Civil Rights: Alonso S. Perales and No Mexicans, Women or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, the University of Texas Press’ best-selling academic book between 2010 and 2020. Her book Agent of Change: Adela Sloss-Vento, Mexican American Civil Rights Activist and Texas Feminist won the Liz Carpenter Award for Best Book in Texas women’s history 2020 from the Texas State Historical Association. She also co-edited Mexican Americans in Texas History.

She has written over 100 encyclopedia articles including more than 80 for the Handbook of Texas. She has also written more than 100 articles and letters to the editor in Texas, New Mexico, and California newspapers.

She attended UT Austin and UCLA. At UCLA she served as Coordinator of the Women’s Unit in the Chicano Studies Research Center. Orozco co-founded the Chicana Caucus of the National Association for Chicano Studies.

She was named a 2023 National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholar, a lifetime achievement award. She is a two-time Ford Fellow; a Texas State Historical Association Fellow; a New Mexico LULAC Educator of the Year; and currently serves on the Executive Board of the Organization of American Historians. Governor Bill Richardson appointed her to the New Mexico Humanities Council. She received the ENMU Ruidoso President’s Award for Teaching and Service. She also managed the Leo Martinez campaign for Congress in the early 2000s. 

Orozco is completing a book about the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), this nation’s most significant Latinx civil rights organization, for its 100^th years of service in 2029.