* Over the course of his professional career, Acuña has received Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation research grants; the Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association of Chicano Studies; the 2006 National Hispanic Hero Award from the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute; the 2007 Labor Strategy Center Award; the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Hispanic Institute; and the 2009 Lifetime Achievement award from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF).

* Black Issues in Higher Education recognized Acuña as one of the “100 Most Influential Educators in the 20th Century,” and LA Weekly once featured him as one of the top 100 “Shakers and Movers” in Los Angeles.

* Acuña has authored or co-authored the following books:

• The Making of Chicana/o Studies: In the Trenches of Academe (2011)
• Voices of the U.S. Latino Experience (2008) [with Guadalupe Compeán]
• Corridors of Migration: The Odyssey of Mexican Laborers, 1600-1933 (2007)
• U.S. Latino Issues (2003)
• Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings of Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales (2001) [with Rodolfo Gonzales]
• Sometimes There is No Other Side: Chicanos and the Myth of Equality (1998)
• Anything But Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary Los Angeles (1996)
• Sonoran Strongman: Ignacio Pesqueira and His Times (1974)
• Occupied America: The Chicano’s Struggle Toward Liberation(1972)
• Cultures in Conflict: Problems of the Mexican Americans (1970)