Radio Bilingüe's Founder to be commencement speaker at CSUMB

Hugo Morales, who transformed a community radio station for California farmworkers into a national Latino public media network, will be the keynote speaker at CSU Monterey Bay’s commencement ceremony.

Morales, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, organized farmworkers, teachers, students and artists to launch Radio Bilingüe in 1976 as a single public radio station for the large Latino communities of Fresno and the surrounding San Joaquin Valley.

At the time, Morales was an adjunct professor of La Raza Studies at Fresno State. Ever since, he has been executive director of Radio Bilingüe and a pioneer and advocate for bilingual and minority-controlled public media throughout the country. The network now includes 11 stations in California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.

A Mixtec Indian from Oaxaca, Mexico, he was a child farmworker in Sonoma County. He was appointed to the California State University Board of Trustees in 2012, and his honors include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Edward R. Murrow Award, and the Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Award.

CSUMB’s 19th commencement will take place at 10 a.m. on May 16 at the Freeman Stadium on the CSUMB campus. Approximately 1,450 students will receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees; about 8,000 family members and friends are expected to attend.