Tribute to Gerardo Marín (February 19,1947-January 14,2018)

Abstract

Latino psychologist, Gerardo Marín, passed away on January 14, 2018. This tribute highlights biographical information and exposes upon his extraordinary life and career. Significant scholarly achievements are described including Gerardo’s immense impact as a Latino scholar in his native Columbia, the United States, and within the international community of Latino psychologists. Noteworthy areas of research are underscored including how they spanned his expertise as a Latin Americanist, U.S. Latino researcher, and multiculturalist. Gerardo’s many years as professor and senior administrator at the University of San Francisco are summarized with emphasis on his deep leadership and contributions to diversity and internationalization. Finally, personal reflections are offered by the authors, fortunate to call Gerardo Marín a friend and colleague.

Keywords

Gerardo Marín memoriam cross-cultural psychology Latin Americanist Latino scholarship multicultural psychology

The Latino Scholar

As part of the finishing touches to his final work, the 2nd edition of Multicultural Psychology, Gerardo Marín composed a brief biographical paragraph that highlighted key milestones and salient achievements in his remarkable life as a Latino scholar. He began by noting he was born in Pereira, Colombia, and raised in Cali, Colombia, and migrated to the United States with his family at 17 years of age. Soon after, he attended Miami Dade Community College for 2 years before transferring to Loyola University in Chicago where he earned a BS in experimental psychology in 1970. Remaining in Chicago, Gerardo attended graduate school at DePaul University and earned his MS and PhD in experimental psychology by 1979.

Regarding scholarly contributions, Gerardo noted that he had published over 130 articles, chapters, and books primarily on acculturation, culturally appropriate research methods, HIV prevention, and alcohol and tobacco use among racial and ethnic minority groups. Points of pride for Gerardo included the development of two of the most widely used acculturation scales for Latinos and serving as scientific editor for the Surgeon General’s report on tobacco use among ethnic and racial minorities. Gerardo underscored his career-long commitment to cross-cultural psychology and memberships in various international psychological associations that frequently honored his international contributions. Finally, Gerardo noted being awarded the Surgeon General’s Medal and an honorary doctorate from Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Hungary.

Gerardo’s concise list of notable achievements begins to capture his major contributions to Latino, international, and multicultural psychology that have influenced generations of students, researchers, academicians, and policy makers since the 1970s, a time when such urgently needed works were few and intellectually precious.

The Latin Americanist

Upon completing his MS in experimental psychology, Gerardo returned to Bogotá, Columbia, as Professor at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (1972-1975), as well as Universidad de Los Andes (1973-1976), where he immediately began advancing the field of Latin American psychology with several books and articles on research methods, community, and social psychology in Latin America, including the training of Latin American psychologists, before returning to the United States to complete his PhD in 1979.

Gerardo was a very fine man, scholar, mentor and international personality. I first met Gerardo in Bogotá many years ago, and after he finished his Ph.D. I hired him as a research associate at the UCLA Spanish Speaking Mental Health Research Center (SSMHRC) until he left for the University of San Francisco. (Amado Padilla, February 3, 2018)

The U.S. Latino Researcher

During his years (1979-1982) at the now legendary SSMHRC, Gerardo expanded the focus of his formidable research skills on U.S. Latinos, frequently collaborating with Amado Padilla, Harry C. Triandis, and his then wife and scholar Barbara Marín. His contributions to Latino psychology spanned critical areas such as the utilization of traditional and nontraditional health and mental health services, acculturation and biculturalism, stereotypes, and studies of the core Latino values that he lived on a daily basis: familism, collectivism, and simpatía. Furthermore, Gerardo continued publishing on Ibero-American psychology including the application of social psychology to community change in Latin America, psychology in Cuba, and research methods in the context of Latin America.

The University of San Francisco (USF) years

Gerardo served at USF between the years of 1982 and 2015 and held a variety of titles including Professor of Psychology, Senior Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Senior Vice Provost until his retirement when he was appointed professor emeritus. During his distinguished years at USF, Gerardo’s impressive productivity frequently coalesced around numerous important publications delving into pressing Latino health problems such as the prevention of smoking, drinking, and HIV, with several publications in the American Journal of Public Health. His firmly established expertise was recognized with his appointment as senior scientific editor for Tobacco Use Among U.S. Racial/Ethnic Minority Groups—African Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics: A Report of the Surgeon General (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 1998).

His groundbreaking book, Research With Hispanic Populations (Marín and Marín, 1991), published over 25 years ago, continues to guide Latino-focused researchers today in operationalizing constructs such as Latino ethnicity, increasing Latino participation in research, developing and adapting culturally appropriate measures, properly back-translating measures, and interpreting study findings in culturally appropriate ways. Gerardo also validated the Short Acculturation Scale, the most frequently used scale of its kind published in the Hispanic Journal of the Behavioral Sciences. To maintain such productive and influential scholarship as a professor turned senior administrator at USF was, to use one of his favorite words, “awesome.”

The Multiculturalist

A cross-cultural psychologist at heart, Gerardo significantly expanded and enriched his focus and knowledge into U.S. multicultural psychology by publishing a trio of books and several articles between 1998 and 2018 with his close USF colleagues, Pamela Balls Organista and Kevin Chun. In the 1990s, there was a dearth of textbooks available to use in courses centered on multicultural psychology or courses dedicated to the study of racial and ethnic minority groups. While a few books existed, these works did not quite reflect the evolving field of multicultural psychology that had grown considerably over the past couple of decades and could offer important contributions to the analysis of human diversity and behavior.

To fill this void, Gerardo together with Pamela and Kevin edited a book of classic and contemporary readings titled Readings in Ethnic Psychology (Balls Organista, Chun, & Marín, 1998). Readings was one of the first books to use the term ethnic psychology to refer to the psychology of ethnic and racial minority groups in the United States. Along with this body of knowledge was the recognition that acculturation was one of the key constructs in multicultural psychology, and the time had come to update earlier works and share key developments in its applications. Gerardo along with his colleagues held a large national conference in December 1998 at USF centered on acculturation. The conference featured many of the preeminent scholars in cross-cultural and multicultural psychology, and several presentations were later written up and contributed to the team’s bestselling book, Acculturation: Advances in Theory, Measurement, and Applied Research (Chun, Balls Organista, & Marín, 2003).

Within a few years, Gerardo, Pamela, and Kevin continued their rich collaboration by writing a textbook devoted to the psychology of ethnic and racial minority groups, The Psychology of Ethnic Groups in the United States (Balls Organista, Marín, & Chun, 2010). A fully updated and expanded second edition of that book was completed with a new title, Multicultural Psychology (Balls Organista, Marín, & Chun, 2018), shortly before Gerardo’s passing in January 2018.

The Person: Author Reflections

Kurt C. Organista

As a Latino psychologist, who attended college during the 1970s and 1980s, Gerardo’s work and that of his peers was foundational to my understanding of the social and cultural context of Latino health and mental health, and later to HIV prevention with Latinos, my major area of research expertise as a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Given my high respect and regard for Gerardo Marín the scholar, imagine my delight in getting to know him as a person.

I was fortunate to know Gerardo as a friend through my wife, Pamela Balls Organista, because both were professors of psychology and later administrators at the USF. Together with Gerardo’s beloved partner, Lois Lorentzen, Professor of Religious Studies; friends, Kevin Chun, Professor of Psychology, and his partner Anthony Ng; and our daughters, Zena and Zara Organista, we traveled the world together as an “academic family.” For example, we explored Argentina for 3 weeks after presenting research at the 2005 Interamerican Congress of Psychology. Stepping outside of the conference, highlights of this trip included enjoying the fabulous nightlife of Buenos Aires, visiting the sublime wine country of Cafayate outside Salta at the foot of the Andes, and touring the “Grand Canyon of Argentina,” El Parque Nacional Sierra de las Quijadas. Warm, shy, soft-spoken, perpetually pleasant, Gerardo’s immense enjoyment of such international travels was nothing short of zen-like in his ability to be present in the moment, fully engaged, and often simply describing the food, wine, and scenery as “Beautiful!” with that wide smile upon his face and twinkle in his eyes.

Pamela Balls Organista

The passing of my dear friend, mentor, and colleague, Gerardo, has led to reflections on his profound influence as an esteemed scholar, educator, administrator, and person in my life and in the lives of countless others. He did extraordinary and important work centered on creating a better understanding of and intervention with individuals and groups who contribute to the great diversity in our world. His passion was reflected in his travel to different parts of the world. He was effortless in his exploration of new environments and engagement with people. He traveled sometimes purely for pleasure with a zest for discovering and savoring memorable sites, events, tastes and other sensations, music, and art that people could offer. Many other times, he journeyed to share knowledge, provide service where needed, and develop immersive learning opportunities for students. He firmly believed that a globally engaged education is one of the best experiences for preparing youth to become more empathetic and aware of differences that make groups unique and similarities that draw us together in our human society.

Gerardo would say our multiple diversities (e.g., races or ethnicities, gender identities, socioeconomic statuses, sexualities, religions) and their myriad intersections are central reasons for our communities and institutions’ richness and strength, here in the United States and throughout the world. Indeed, at USF, he was a leader in enhancing the diversity landscape of our university. He was responsible for securing multiple grants, most notably two James Irvine Foundation grants, that supported the development of multicultural extracurricular activities, faculty initiatives to diversify curriculum, weekend writing retreats to allow time for the scholarly research of underrepresented faculty, and the creation of the Irvine Dissertation Fellows program. Over the course of the 25-year history of the dissertation program, dozens of scholars of color were recruited to USF for a 1-year appointment that supported the completion of their final year of dissertation and allowed the fellow to obtain further teaching experience by instructing a class per semester, and most importantly, each fellow received mentoring from faculty colleagues. Close to half of the scholars were appointed full-time faculty positions at our university upon completion of the program. Upon Gerardo’s retirement in 2015, USF honored him by renaming the program, the Gerardo Marín Fellows Program. Through his leadership, USF was named the eighth most diverse university in the United States in recognition of the diversity of its students, faculty and staff, and university programming.

Gerado Marín was a prolific scholar and leader in the fields of Latino, cross-cultural, and multicultural psychology, and he excelled and was effective in all his academic roles. He was balanced in his academic prowess with his passion for his family whom he loved and was adored by dearly. In the many ways he generously impacted the lives of those who knew him and benefited from his wisdom and care, he was truly a positive change maker. Although having such formidable agency, he possessed a warm, gentle, and calm manner that exuded a humble and quiet confidence—perhaps it is because he lived his belief in the Jesuit mission of being “men and women for others” and held a strong orientation toward social justice. His grace yielded a purposeful life and a beautiful legacy that individuals rarely achieve. It compels us to carry his memory forth in the good work we aspire to do.

Photo credit: Photo courtesy of University of San Francisco.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Kurt C. Organista, PhD, is a Latino psychologist and professor of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. He teaches courses on social work with Latino populations as well as race and ethnic relations with an emphasis on Latino populations. He conducts research on HIV prevention with Mexican/Latino migrant laborers, and was the principal investigator on a NIAAA funded study to develop and test a structural-environmental model of HIV risk and resilience in Latino migrant day laborers (1R01AA017592-02) (2010-15). He is the editor of HIV Prevention with Latinos: Theory, Research, and Practice published in 2012 (Oxford University Press); and author of Solving Latino psychosocial and health problems: Theory, practice, and populations published in 2007 (John Wiley). He currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Social Work, Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, and as Associate Editor, American Journal of Community Psychology. He is also a trustee of The San Francisco Community Foundation as well as the Latino Community Foundation. Outside of work, he enjoys wine tasting with his wife Pamela, collecting rock and roll music, and spending time with his two daughters Zena Laura and Zara Luz.

Pamela Balls Organista, Ph.D., is associate dean for Social Sciences and Professor of Psychology at the University of San Francisco. Her research examines community-based prevention interventions and health issues in ethnic minority and underserved populations. Her publications include the following books: Multicultural Psychology, 2^nd Edition (Rowman & Littlefield, in press—for release in June 2018) and The Psychology of Ethnic Groups in the United States (Sage Publications) which she co-authored, and Acculturation: Advances in Theory, Measurement, and Applied Research (American Psychological Association) and Readings in Ethnic Psychology: African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanics/Latinos (Routledge) which she co-edited. She has extended her dedication to academic excellence and social justice through her many years of community service in the Bay Area. She enjoys spending time discovering new places and visiting familiar haunts with her beloved Kurt, beautiful daughters, Zena and Zara, and exceptional friends.

References

Balls Organista

Chun

K. M.

Marín

(1998). Readings in ethnic psychology. New York, NY: Routledge.

Balls Organista

Marín

Chun

(2010). The psychology of ethnic groups in the U.S. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Balls Organista

Marín

Chun

(2018). Multicultural psychology (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Chun

Balls Organista

Marín

(2003). Acculturation: Advances in theory, measurement, and applied research. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Marín

B. V.

(1991). Research with Hispanic populations (Applied Social Research Method Series, Vol. 23). Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (1998). Tobacco use among U.S. racial/ethnic minority groups—African Americans, American Indians and Alaska natives, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Hispanics: A report of the surgeon general. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.