Jorge L. Chinea

Jorge L. Chinea, a Clinton Township resident and associate professor and director of Wayne State University’s Center for Chicano-Boricua Studies, has been recognized as an outstanding alumnus from among his more than 45,000 peers who have completed the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) since its inception in 1967. In honor of the program’s 40th anniversary, 40 distinguished alumni, including Chinea, were singled out for their outstanding accomplishments. He plans to attend a recognition dinner and ceremony scheduled for this October in Albany, N.Y.

The EOP was established in 1967 to combine access, academic support, and supplemental financial success to make higher education accessible for students who have the potential to succeed, despite poor preparation and limited financial resources.

Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Spanish Harlem, New York City, Chinea’s childhood was challenging as he faced the inevitable culture shock experienced by newcomers to the United States. Although he liked school, he could not speak English and soon dropped out in frustration. Fearful of what might happen to his younger brother, three sisters, and divorced mother, he sought protection by joining a youth gang. Fortunately, he learned of an urban renewal program that offered to train inner-city youth to take care of their communities. The Renigades of Harlem, as his former gang was known, began to clean up the neighborhood of trash, abandoned buildings, and drug dealers.

The experience motivated Chinea to get a high school equivalency diploma and later to apply for college.

Recruited by the Educational Opportunity Program at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Binghamton, N.Y., he completed a bachelor’s degree in Latin American and Caribbean Area Studies in1980 and a master in arts degree in Latin American history with a minor in Chicano Studies in 1983. He went on to earn a Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota in 1994, specializing in colonial Latin American history. Since then, he was been awarded fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Society for Irish Latin American Studies, among others.

Recognized in the 1996 edition of Who’s Who in the Midwest, he is the recipient of Wayne State University’s President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1999 and a Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award in 2006.

Chinea’s publications have appeared in Caribbean Studies; Revista Mexicana del Caribe; Mesoamerica; Journal of Latin American Studies; Colonial Latin American Historical Review; New West Indian Guide; The Americas; Ethnic Studies Review; and the Journal of Caribbean History. His book, Race and Labor in the Hispanic Caribbean: The West Indian Worker Experience in Puerto Rico, 1800-1850, was published in 2005 by the University Press of Florida. A past chair of the Caribbean Studies Committee, Conference on Latin American History, Chinea currently serves as a contributing editor for the Handbook of Latin American Studies.

Professor Chinea’s academic career at Wayne State University began in 1996 as an Assistant Professor. In 2002 he advanced to Associate Professor and was appointed Director of the Center for Chicano-Boricua Studies in 2003.

Wayne State University is a premier institution of higher education offering more than 350 academic programs through 11 schools and colleges to nearly 33,000 students.