Dr. Daniel Delgado is one of the leading voices on race and ethnicity at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. As a Latinx professor at a university where 75 percent of students identify as Latinx, he is a teacher, mentor, coach and inspirational role model.
In spring 2018, he served on the President’s Commission on Equity, the Latinx Heritage Planning Committee, and the Standing Liberty Community. Since earning his Ph.D. in sociology from Texas A&M, Delgado has focused on inequalities facing Latinos as well as inequities that are structurally embedded in law enforcement and urban spaces throughout America.
“I was fortunate to have two wonderful mentors at Texas A&M University in Dr. Rogelio Saenz and Dr. Joe R. Feagin,” Delgado said in a recent interview with Texas A&M-San Antonio.
“One day early in my doctoral program, Dr. Feagin sat me down and asked me what kind of professor I wanted to be. He said that if I wanted to just be a successful scholar, then he was not the right advisor for me. But if I wanted to be one who worked for social justice by helping students understand how power functions in society and institutions, then he would be a good fit.”
As an early-career researcher, Dr. Delgado worked in Boston, Massachusetts, where he served as a Latino Student Success Faculty Fellow, working with a small Latinx population from the Dominican Republic. He gained valuable insights into the challenges that teachers and students face when candidly discussing race and ethnicity at a predominantly white university.
“It required me to shed a light on the insidious and often invisible ways that power works through institutions to privilege some groups and disadvantage others,” he recalled. “This proved to be a very uncomfortable and unsettling realization for many of my students.”
The experience also stirred something deep inside Dr. Delgado.
“My mother and father taught me about the importance of ‘lift as we climb’,” he remembered.”
“My father did this because he recognized it was important for theLatinx student population to have Latinx teachers as role models,” he noted. “Similarly, as my mother worked her way up at a bank, she always made sure to help other Latinx gain access to opportunities they had earned.”
Since arriving at A&M-SA in 2017, Dr. Delgado has engaged in numerous activities and initiatives. Whether he is teaching in the classroom, mentoring a student or writing a scholarly journal article, he realizes that setting an example for students is an important part of his role as a faculty member.
“It’s imperative that if you’re going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk,” he expressed. “And I feel like my position at A&M-San Antonio allows me to do that.”
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