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SIPA Faculty
Rodolfo O. de la Garza
International Affairs Building, Room 1432
Professor of Political Science
Phone: 212 854-2292
rod2001@columbia.edu
Biography:
Rodolfo de la Garza is Deputy Chair of the Department of International and Public Affairs and the Eaton Professor of Administrative Law and Municipal Science in the Political Science Department. He also leads the Project on Immigration, Ethnicity, and Race, which is a part of Columbia's Institute of Social and Economic Research and Policy. De la Garza also is affiliated with the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, a think tank housed at the University of Southern California that conducts policy research on issues affecting Latino communities. De la Garza is a vice president of the Institute, which will now have affiliations with Columbia, Claremont, and the University of Texas, Austin.
Professor de la Garza combines interests in political behavior and public policy. He is an expert on Latino political behavior and immigration. He has edited, co edited, and coauthored numerous books including The Future of the Voting Rights Act; Sending Money Home: Hispanic Remittances and Community Development, with Briant Lindsay Lowell (Rowman and Littlefield 2002); Latinos and U.S. Foreign Policy: Lobbying for the Homeland? (coeditor, Roman and Littlefield 2000); Bridging the Border: Transforming Mexico-U. S. Relations (coeditor, Rowman and Littlefield 1997); At the Crossroads: Mexican and U. S. Immigration Policy (coeditor, Rowman and Littlefield 1997); Awash in the Mainstream: Latinos and the 1996 Elections (Westview 1998); Making Americans, Remaking America: Immigration and Immigrant Policy (Westview 1998); Ethnic Ironies: Latinos and the 1992 Elections (Westview 1996); Latino Voices: Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban Perspectives on American Politics (coeditor, Westview Press 1994); Barrio Ballots: Latinos and the 1990 Elections (Westview 1994); and The Chicano Political Experience. He has also published in leading professional journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Latin American Research Review, Social Science Quarterly, and International Migration Review.
Professor de la Garza completed his PhD at the University of Arizona in 1972. He was the Mike Hogg Professor of Community Affairs in the Department of Government at the University of Texas, Austin where he has taught since 1980. From 1991 to 1992 he was a visiting professor in the government department and the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University. He has been recognized for distinguished teaching by the Colorado College in 1980 and by the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas in 1988.
De la Garza was named one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics by Hispanic Magazine in 1998. He has participated in the evaluation and design of community service programs, including increasing immigrant access to health services in California and in evaluating Texas's state-sponsored naturalization campaign. He has also chaired a series of seminars on Latinos and foreign policy that have emphasized increasing Hispanic involvement in international affairs. He served as a vice president of the American Political Science Association and received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Committee on the Status of Latinos in the Profession of the American Political Science Association in 1993. He has also served on the executive council of the Western Political Science Association. He was a founding member of the National Association of Chicano Studies and the Inter-University Program for Latino Research; he also directed the Inter-University Program for Latino Research / Social Science Research Council Joint Committee on Hispanic Policy Research. He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.
Research Interests: Latino Political Behavior & Immigration