Armando Torres Morales, UCLA Scholar And Activist On Latino Issues, 75
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Armando Torres Morales, 75; UCLA [University of California at Los
Angeles] scholar, activist on Latino issues
By Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Armando Torres Morales, a UCLA professor of psychiatry and
biobehavioral sciences, who researched issues of concern to the Latino
community and used the findings to advocate for change, including
increased mental health services and an end to abusive police
practices, has died. He was 75.
Morales died of cancer March 12 [2008] at his home in Stevenson Ranch
[California], said his son Rolando.
In his work as a psychiatric social worker, Morales was an early
proponent of increased mental health care services in the Latino
community. As the population of Latinos in Los Angeles County
[California] increased, the numbers using mental health services
remained low. The low usage, particularly among undocumented
immigrants who feared raids and deportation, did not bode well for the
future, Morales warned.
"In coming years, I think we will really pay the price for treating
people that way," he said in a 1977 Times article. "There will be
illegal aliens who have ended up having psychiatric breakdowns and
being hospitalized. The fear of deportation makes them fearful of
using state hospital services."
Morales worked to create facilities that would help draw in those in
need of services. From 1966 to 1969 he was director of Mental Health
Consultation Services, East Los Angeles Branch of the Los Angeles
County Department of Mental Health. And in 1972, working as a
consultant for the Veterans Administration, he set up a satellite
service in East Los Angeles [California].
By 1977 Morales was director of what was then known as the Spanish-
Speaking Psychosocial Clinic, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and
Hospital. From 1979 to 2000 he was director of the clinical social
work department and director of the Clinical Internship Training
Program at the institute.
By 1970 police brutality had become a major concern in the Latino
community. On Aug. 29 of that year, a large antiwar protest in East
L.A. turned into a riot, and Los Angeles Times columnist Ruben
Salazar, who was covering the events, was killed by a tear-gas
projectile fired by a sheriff's deputy. Morales and Salazar were
friends.
In the aftermath, organizers decided to confront the brutality issue,
said Rosalio Munoz, who was then chairman of the National Chicano
Moratorium Committee.
"We wanted to approach the issue as comprehensively as possible and
with a view toward bringing about change," Munoz said. "We began
working with Armando and working with others to start developing our
point of view and how we were going to be presenting the issues."
Morales' expertise and research carried the weight of an academic, yet
he stood with the community on the issue.
"He was meticulous with his research," Rolando Morales said. "People
would confront him on the radio and on television shows. He had so
much of his information documented they could not handle him. He was
an activist-scholar."
Six years after the Watts riots, Morales' research indicated that
police-community relations were at "the lowest point ever" in East Los
Angeles. In 1973, Morales self-published "Ando Sangrando: I Am
Bleeding," which examined conflict between Mexican Americans and the
police. That same year, former Mayor Tom Bradley appointed Morales to
the Civil Service Commission, but the Los Angeles City Council
rejected him because he lived in South San San Gabriel.
Morales, who was a member of the county Human Relations Commission,
advocated gathering statistics on the ethnic and racial composition of
shooting victims and police officers. He argued that the statistics
could influence police training.
"Studies have show that minority group members are the victims of
police shootings far beyond their proportion of the total population
or their proportion of total arrests," Morales said in a 1977 Times
article.
Born in Los Angeles on September 18, 1932, Morales graduated from
Roosevelt High School and later served three years in the Air Force.
After his discharge, Morales earned undergraduate degrees at East Los
Angeles College and what is now Cal State L.A. He earned a master's
degree in social work in 1963, and a doctorate eight years later, both
from USC.
In 1977 Morales co-wrote a textbook, "Social Work: A Profession of
Many Faces," now in its 11th edition. Over the years he was often
called as an expert court witness, including on the issue of riot
mentality in the 1993 Reginald Denny beating trial, and was a
consultant to parole officers.
Morales also played a role in a key legal case in Los Angeles known as
Serrano vs. Priest that challenged the fairness of public school
financing. Morales was a friend of Serrano and was on the board of the
Western Center on Law and Poverty, which ultimately argued the case on
behalf of Serrano's son and won. The ruling prompted the state to
provide more money for poorer school districts.
Morales' work influenced many, said Felix Gutierrez, professor of
journalism and communication at USC.
"His use of the university title as a base, his ability to gather and
present documented case studies and his soft-spoken yet hard-hitting
manner of presentation was an inspiration to many of us in the 1960s
and early '70s who were looking for ways to use our education to raise
and address issues affecting" the Latino community, Gutierrez said.
In addition to Rolando, of Oakland [California], Morales is survived
by his wife, Cynthia Torres Morales, and their daughter, Christina Mia
Torres Morales, of Stevenson Ranch; and another son, Gary , and
grandsons Vincent and Rocco Morales, all of Northville, Michigan.
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-morales26mar26,1,7009149.story
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