Cynthia E. Orozco, Ph.D.

Cynthia E. Orozco, Ph.D.

Cynthia E. Orozco earned her BA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MA and Ph.D. from UCLA. She has taught at the University of Texas at San Antonio, the University of New Mexico, and Eastern New Mexico University–Ruidoso, where she is Professor Emeritus of History and Humanities.

Orozco is the author of several landmark works on Mexican American civil rights history, including No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement and Agent of Change: Adela Sloss-Vento, Mexican American Civil Rights Activist and Texas Feminist, which received TSHA’s Best Book in Texas Women’s History Award in 2020. Her latest book, Pioneer of Mexican American Civil Rights: Alonso S. Perales, profiles the principal founder of LULAC. She is also co-editor of Mexican Americans in Texas History and has contributed more than 80 articles to the Handbook of Texas.

In 2025, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) appointed Orozco its National Historian in recognition of her unparalleled scholarship on the organization’s history. Among her many honors, she is a Ford Foundation Fellow, a Fellow of the Texas State Historical Association, and has been named a National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Scholar. She also serves on the Executive Board of the Organization of American Historians and the Alliance for Texas History.