Casas, Jesus Manuel (1941-)

Jesus Manuel (Manny) Casas was born in the small town of Avalos, Chihuahua, Mexico. His rich racial/ethnic heritage includes roots in Spain and indigenous Mexico. His paternal great-grandmother was Apache, having been saved by Mexican wagon masters from U.S. cavalry raids on her village and subsequently taken to Mexico where she was raised by his great-grandfather's family. Something that ties him historically to California, the state in which he has lived most of his life, is the fact that in the 1800s his paternal great-grandfather spent a major portion of his life driving a wagon train from the north central part of Mexico to Sacramento, California, and back again.

Casas immigrated to the United States at a young age and was educated in the racially hostile environs of the U.S. educational system during the late 1940s and 1950s. Part of this historical period is best captured in Casas's own words from his 2001 published life story:

And so began Casas's lifelong devotion to advocating for immigrant families—particularly poor Latino/a families and children.

Despite the discrimination he experienced during his primary and secondary schooling, he graduated at the top of his high school class and went on to college at the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, he taught in the public schools for 5 years before going on to graduate school. He earned his Ph.D. at Stanford University in 1975. After 2 years as a counseling psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, he began his career at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Over the course of his more than 30 years as a psychologist, Casas has become widely recognized as a distinguished scholar of Chicano/a psychology. He is now the senior Chicano faculty member in the University of California system.

Though Casas is best known for his work in developing the field of Chicano/a psychology, he has also done considerable work in general multicultural counseling. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 17 (Society of Counseling Psychology) and Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues). He is also the recipient of many awards, most recently the National Latina/o Psychological Association Psychologist's Distinguished Contributions to Latino(a) Psychology Award in 2006, and he was honored as an elder at the 2007 APA National Multicultural Summit and Conference.

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