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| Enrique Ochoa, a history professor at Cal State Los Angeles, will join Cal Poly Pomona as the 2006-2007 Weglyn Chair on August 1. |
Author and educator Enrique C. Ochoa has been selected as the 2006-2007 Michi and Walter Weglyn Endowed Chair of Multicultural Studies at Cal Poly Pomona. He will join the university August 1.
Michi Nishiura Weglyn was a well-known Japanese American author, civil rights activist, artist and costumer designer. Her book, Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps, describes her experiences as an internee during World War II. In 1993, the Michi and Walter Weglyn Endowed Chair for Multicultural Studies was established at Cal Poly Pomona. In addition to a generous donation from the Weglyns to help fund the chair, Michi Weglyn dedicated all future royalties from her book for this purpose. The endowed chair is devoted to promoting the interdisciplinary study of ethnic and racial minority groups in the United States. The chair designs programs that prepare students with the knowledge and skills they need to meet the ongoing challenge of living and working in a culturally and ethnically diverse society.
Ochoa is a history professor at California State University, Los Angeles. His areas of specialization include Latin American, Mexican and Central American history; the United States and Mexico border; immigration; globalization; and Latanas/os in the United States. Ochoa is the author of Feeding Mexico: The Political Uses of FoodSince 1910 and the co-editor of Latino Los Angeles: Transformations, Communities and Activism with Gilda L. Ochoa.
He looks forward to working on a campus-community based project that combines research, teaching, and community interests in food, culture and power. Cal Poly Pomona's historic connection to agriculture and food research provides an opportunity to have the Eastern San Gabriel Valley and Pomona as a case study. Ochoa seeks to engage the compus and community in conversation about the ways global and local transformations in the production, distribution, consumption, and marketing of food interact with issues of race, class and gender.
Ochoa received his bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in history from UCLA.