Dr. Jesus Luna, professor emeritus of history and a pioneer of Fresno State’s Chicano and Latino American Studies program, died Tuesday in Houston, Texas. He was 70.
Dr. Luna joined the faculty of the then-La Raza Studies Program at Fresno State in 1976. He later headed the program before it was re-named, and retired from the University in 2009.
Dr. Alex Saragoza, a history professor in the Ethnic Studies Department at UC Berkeley who chaired La Raza Studies at Fresno State in the 1970s, said Luna was instrumental in the programs development.
“I trust that people will appreciate Chuy Luna’s legacy as one of those who advanced the teaching of Latino studies at Fresno State,” Saragoza said. “He brought a needed dimension to the program, given his knowledge of Mexican history. But he also had a visceral understanding of the diversity among Latinos.”
Dr. Luna received a Ph.D. in History from North Texas State University in 1973 where he was a Woodrow Wilson Scholar specializing in Latin American history.
He served as coordinator of the La Raza Studies Program at Fresno State from 1977-78 and 1980-82. After the name change to Chicano and Latin American Studies, Dr. Luna served as associate and full professor until the spring of 1990. Later that year he transferred to the History Department until he entered the Faculty Early Retirement Program, said Dr. Luz Gonzalez, dean of the College of Social Science that houses the two departments where Dr. Luna taught.
Dean Gonzalez announced his passing to the Latino Faculty and Staff Association this week and recalled that her first La Raza Studies course as a student at Fresno State in 1980 was with Dr. Luna. She said that Dr. Luna’s teaching style helped her fall in love with Mexican History.
“Nobody, and I mean nobody, brought history to life the way that he did,” said Gonzalez, who went on to become chair of the Chicano and Latin American Studies program before being named dean of the college in 2005.
“He loved teaching and it was evident by the way he glided across the chalkboard and lifted stories from the pages of our textbook. It never felt like a lecture, it felt more like a dialogue where we all had something to contribute and learn. I feel honored that during his tenure at Fresno State I knew him as his student, as a colleague in Chicano and Latin American Studies and as his dean,” she said.
Services are set for Jan. 9 and 10 in Edinburg, Texas.
See his full obituary notice
