FRANK BONILLA

Frank Bonilla is Thomas Hunter Professor of Sociology, Emeritus at Hunter College of CUNY. From 1973 to 1993, Dr. Bonilla was the director of CUNY’s Centro de Estudios Puertorriquenos and Professor in CUNY’s Ph.D. program in Sociology and Political Science. Between 1988 and December, 1995 he served as Executive Director of the Inter-University Program for Latino Research. He continues to serve on its National Advisory Board. The IUPLR is a consortium of ten university-based research centers concerned with the situation of Latinos in the United States. Within IUPLR he has been the principal coordinator of the working group on Latinos in a Changing U.S. Economy. The group’s most recent volume, Borderless Borders: U.S. Latinos, Latin Americans, and the Paradox of Interdependence, was published by Temple University Press. During the 1996 spring semester, he was visiting professor at Princeton University’s Department of Politics.

From 1970 to 1973, Dr. Bonilla was Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a senior associate of the Institute of Political Studies. Between 1950 and 1970 he carried out extended research in Latin America and rose from associate to full professor in Political Science Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1963-70).

Professor Bonilla’s current research, writing and advocacy efforts are focused on promoting a vitalizing of Latino academics and policy research capabilities, a reconnection of these resources to their counterparts in the countries of origin of the principal Latino communities in the U.S. and especially bringing Latino voices and perspectives into the U.S. foreign policy arena. Work on substantive policy issues seen as vital to this effort includes economic and especially labor market dynamics, migratory movements, access to and diversification of higher education, notably in research agendas and practice, and coalition building within and across ethnic and other boundaries separating disadvantaged populations.