NAACP Image Award for work as Creative/Cultural Advisor for Nickelodeon’s “Dora the Explorer” and “Go, Diego, Go!”
Outstanding Contribution to Higher Education Award of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators
National Multicultural Trainer of the Year Award of the American Society for Training and Development
Inspiration Award of the California Association for Bilingual Education
Distinguished California Humanist Award from the California Council for the Humanities
Hubert Herring Memorial Award of the Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies
Hilda Taba Award of the California Council for the Social Studies
Distinguished Teaching Award, Faculty Public Service Award, and Emeritus Professor of the Year Award of the University of California, Riverside
Smithsonian Institution Public Lecturer
Honorary Doctorates: College of Wooster (2007); DePaul University (2010)