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August 2, 2023

Roberto Cintli Rodríguez, Chicano Writer, Professor and Activist, Has Died at 69
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The prominent Chicano writer Roberto Cintli Rodríguez has died at the
age of 69. His books include "Justice: A Question of Race," which
chronicled his quest for justice after being brutally beaten in 1979 by
four sheriff deputies in East Los Angeles while he was on a reporting
assignment for Lowrider magazine. In 1986, a jury awarded him $205,000,
which he used to start a bilingual magazine. He later became a Mexican
American studies professor at the University of Arizona. He also served
as director of the Raza Database Project to track the killing of
Latinos, Asian and Indigenous peoples by law enforcement. He appeared on
Democracy Now! in 2021.

Roberto Cintli Rodríguez: "And then, again, it's all about
dehumanization. And I'm not exaggerating when I say I track this
violence to 1492, which means when Europeans came here, they decided
that the people here, like myself, that we were not human. Africans that
were brought here also were not human, according to them. In my opinion,
it's the same dynamic taking place today; otherwise, we wouldn't see
this massive amount of both the killings and the disparity."

Roberto Rodríguez speaking in 2021. He has died at the age of 69.


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