The author of Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, he also wrote for the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Herald-Express, and La Opinion. He received numerous honors, including the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies' Distinguished Scholar Award. He devoted himself to a career as a historian after a bigoted academic counselor told him not to study history because "Mexicans do not have a history." He eventually established the Chicano and Chicana Studies Department at California State University-Northridge.