Biography

Professor Vazquez-Ramos has been promoting educational opportunities for the Chicano/Mexican and Latino population for more than 50 years. He has taught on Chicano/Latino education, history, immigration, politics, public policy, and U.S.-Mexico relations at the CSU Long Beach Chicano and Latino Studies Department, where he is also Coordinator of the California-Mexico Project.

As a student leader at CSULB in 1969, Professor Vazquez-Ramos was a co-founder of the Chicano and Latino Studies department, where he earned a B.A. in Mexican-American Studies and a Master’s in Psychology under now Congressman Alan Lowenthal. He has also earned a Master’s in Public Administration at Pepperdine University, and is working on his doctoral dissertation on “A Development Plan for Mexican Universities in the U.S.”.

In 2010, he established the non-profit California-Mexico Studies Center, Inc. to research, develop, promote, and establish policies and programs between higher educational institutions and cultural organizations that will enhance the teaching, mobility and exchange of faculty, students, and professionals between California and the U.S., with Mexico and other nations in the Western Hemisphere (www.california-mexicocenter.org).

As an innovator and immigrant rights advocate for decades, in 2014 professor Vazquez-Ramos also established the California-Mexico Dreamers Study Abroad Program, a precedent-setting model which has allowed over 160 Dreamers the opportunity to study abroad in Mexico through 6 travel-study classes, and returned them legally to the U.S. through DACA’s Advance Parole provision.

But most significantly this pilot project has pioneered a method that enabled Dreamers to adjust their legal status through marriage, and receive permanent resident visas upon return, as a model for other colleges and universities to replicate this opportunity for their students, and could enable thousands of Dreamers to return to their birthplace to meet their families, discover their homeland and study as adults.

On October 18, 2014, Prof. Vazquez-Ramos convened the Campaign to Promote Ethnic Studies (CPES) Summit at CSULB, with El Rancho USD Board President Dr. Aurora Villon and CSU San Bernardino’s Dr. Enrique Murillo. Through the CPES, he established the Long Beach Ethnic Studies Program with a 5-year funding commitment by the Long Beach Unified School District Superintendent, for up to 12 ethnic studies classes with CSULB credit per semester at all 6 LBUSD comprehensive high schools.

As the program’s administrative coordinator, he has grown the program to provide 15 Saturday College classes at LBUSD, the El Rancho USD and the Norwalk-La Mirada USD.

Professor Armando Vazquez-Ramos also worked at the CSU Office of International Programs (1993-1996) to promote California-Mexico exchange and North American Studies programs, and since 1998 he has led travel-study groups to Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela for students, faculty and union leaders; and the Public Policy Alternative Spring-break in Sacramento, focused on California-Mexico and higher education policy.

In 1999 he established the California-Mexico Project and through the Latino Political Roast raised scholarship funds for students to study abroad in Mexico and promote educational exchange. Thus, in 2008 Assemblymen Jose Solorio and Kevin De Leon co-sponsored Assembly Concurrent Resolution 146, to recognize the CSULB California-Mexico Project and directed the California Research Bureau to conduct the study “The California Research Bureau Report on California-Mexico Study Abroad Programs”.

He has promoted the establishment of Mexican universities in the U.S. and served as consultant to create extensions of Mexico’s Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM), Universidad de Guadalajara and Universidad de Colima in the L.A.-area, and has established collaboration agreements between CSULB and the UNAM, Universidad de Guadalajara and Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas.

Through these agreements, he has hosted several Mexican professors as Visiting Scholars at CSULB, has organized four California-Mexico Policy and Higher Education seminars at CSULB and 2 in Mexico City (2006 and 2012), he was the Grand Marshall for the 2015 CSULB Chicano/Latino Graduation, served as the 2016 University of La Verne’s Latino Graduation Commencement Speaker and led the celebration of the 2014 Chicano and Latino Studies Department’s 45th Anniversary.

Professor Armando Vazquez-Ramos comes from a union activist family with leadership roles since the 1970’s and he has been active with the California Faculty Association (CFA), California Teachers Association (CTA) and National Education Association (NEA) for over 25 years. In 2004, he co-founded the CFA’s Statewide Latino Caucus for the California State University System and served as Founding Co-Chair with Professor Gonzalo Santos and Coordinator of the Founding Conference.