FRANCISCO H. VAZQUEZ

Dr. Vázquez was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and educated in the United States. His mother was born in Colorado and his father in Jalisco, Mexico and he has traveled between the two countries and the two cultures since the age of five. After going through an ESL program in San Pedro, California he attended Phineas Banning High School from which he graduated with honors. He then entered Claremont Men's College (now McKenna) where he received a B.A. in philosophy and continued his studies at the Claremont Graduate School where he was awarded a Doctorate in European Intellectual History.

 

After teaching and doing administrative work at the Claremont Colleges, he accepted the position of Chair of the Chicano Studies Department at Loyola Marymont University in Los Angeles. Four years later he was offered a position at a World College West (a private college in Petaluma) to direct the World Study and Mexico Program. This teaching position entailed living in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico in the Fall and Winter, and in Petaluma in the Spring, supervising a group of students doing language study and field research. During this time he established close relationships with the P'urhepecha people of Michoacan (also known as Tarascans).

After six years of changing realities every six months, especially after the birth of his daughter Sofia Erendira, he and his wife Rosa Maria decided to settle in Sonoma County. Starting at Sonoma State University in the fall of 1989, Dr. Vázquez has taught in the Departments of Mexican American Studies, History, English and in the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies. Presently he is a tenured Professor in the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies and faculty advisor of the Student Congress.