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Return to topBuilding bridges between worlds is not something new for Jose Cuellar, director of the Cesar E. Chavez Institute for Public Policy and Chair of the La Raza Studies Department in the College of Ethnic Studies here at SF State. Intrigued by the African American rhythms of jazz and gospel music, Cuellar has performed as a musician while also studying the common bonds between cultures as an anthropologist. Known as "Dr. Loco" while playing his saxophone, Cuellar fuses Latin American, European, and African American rhythms. As Dr. Cuellar, he leads the Chavez Institute’s study of Mexican and Chicano cultures and fights for issues like environmental justice and workers rights that Cesar Chavez championed. Music has become a trademark tool for Cuellar as he reaches out to educate students and the public about the ties that bind together different communities.
Cuellar can remember exactly when music first became an important part of his life. "I used to go to the library in downtown San Antonio to shine shoes and when there was no business I would go down to a section that had jazz picture books," he said. There, Cuellar would spend hours absorbed in the world depicted in the pictures. This early exposure to African American culture and music blossomed into a career as a saxophonist. He played in various bands during high school, and afterwards, as he traveled the country as an airman in the United States Air Force. Stationed throughout the South during the turbulent years of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, the prejudice he faced the re as a "colored man"—as he called himself—instilled in Cuellar a new sense of social activism.
After leaving the Air Force in 1966, Cuellar moved to Los Angeles to study music. Instead, guided by his teachers first at Golden West Community College and then by professors at CSU Long Beach, Cuellar made the transition from musician to scholar. Though he studied anthropology, he planned on becoming a social worker who moonlighted as a saxophonist. But while in the Ph.D. program at UCLA, Cuellar finally gave up his career as a musician in order to con-centrate on his studies. He graduated from UCLA i n 1977 and went on to teach at Pomona College, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Stanford, before coming to San Francisco State in 1990 to teach as an associate professor in the La Raza Studies Department.
In 1994, Cuellar jumped at the chance to direct the Cesar Chavez Institute. He also saw that opportunity as a chance to bring music back into his life, and a way to combine education with entertainment. The centerpiece of his efforts is "Dr. Loco’s Rockin’ Jalepeño Band," a group that he started in 1988 with fellow professors at Stanford. During most performances Cuellar first lectures and presents a slideshow on the history of the music his band plays, and then performs. "Part of the agenda from early on was to do a slide presentation [and] talk about the evolution of this music. It’s kind of a mini class on the history of the music," he said. This combination brings to life his belief that an art form like music helps to foster common ties between cultures.
Facing all of the exciting possibilities that the dawn of a new millennium brings, Cuellar remains committed to his vision of the ties that bind together all Americans, no matter what color or culture. "My hope for ethnic studies is that we get the chance to teach each other our histories, our experiences. I hope that we can teach each other that which is unique about us as groups," he said.
--Chris Kilkes
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