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SF State Dean to Lead American Psychological Association’s Ethnicity & Race Division

Published

8 years ago

August 7, 2017

Oakland Post

By Matt Reed courtesy SF State News

Alvin Alvarez hopes to bring research on effects of racism into communities

Alvin Alvarez has spent more than 20 years as a psychologist looking into the ways people experience racism and how discrimination impacts people of color, particularly Asian Americans. Now he’s looking forward to spending the next few years promoting that kind of research on a national scale.

Alvarez, the dean of San Francisco State University’s College of Health & Social Sciences, has been elected president of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race. The honor is notable for both him and for SF State, Interim Provost Jennifer Summit said.

Alvarez will be president-elect for a year beginning in January, and then will serve as president in 2019. He said he plans to look for ways to use the APA’s professional expertise to serve people who are directly impacted by discrimination.

“The association isn’t just about professional development and professional service. It’s about how you take those skills and serve communities. How do you get that out there?” he said. “And that’s exactly what we do at SF State. A lot of us are training students to get out there and serve their communities. A lot of our research is community-based and is designed to have an impact on the community.”

For years, most research in the field was focused on how people become prejudiced, he said. It’s only in the last 20 years that people have started to scientifically look at the physical and mental health symptoms that stem from experiencing racism and discrimination.

At first, scholars focused on African-Americans, but others have begun examining how discrimination impacts people in other groups, such as women, Asian Americans, people with disabilities or members of the LGBT community. That research has found that discrimination can cause a number of health problems, from anxiety and depression to alcoholism and substance abuse to demonstrated links to suicide.

“We’re finding the same patterns, and it has a significant impact,” Alvarez said. “That’s important because if you don’t prove it empirically, then it’s harder to shape policy and it’s harder to make a case that a problem exists.”

The society was founded in 1986 as a way to integrate ethnic minority psychology into the APA. One of Alvarez’s duties will be to help organize a conference in Austin, Texas, next year for the society’s more than 1,000 members.

“As psychologists and therapists and scholars, as people with a lot of expertise in this, I think we have a lot to offer about how people can deal and cope with issues of race,” he said. “This group has a lot of clinical expertise, and it has a lot of research expertise that can contribute to that dialogue.”

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Oakland Post: Week of July 2- 8, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 2 – 8, 2025

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6 days ago

July 7, 2025

Oakland Post

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Trump Set to Sign Largest Cut to Medicaid After a Marathon Protest Speech by Leader Jeffries

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S.

Published

1 week ago

July 3, 2025

Oakland Post

By Lauren Burke

By a vote of 218 to 214, the GOP-controlled U.S. House passed President Trump’s massive budget and spending bill that will add $3.5 trillion to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S. With $175 billion allocated in spending for immigration enforcement, the money for more police officers eclipsed the 2026 budget for the U.S. Marines, which is $57 billion. Almost all of the policy focus from the Trump Administration has focused on deporting immigrants of color from Mexico and Haiti.

The vote occurred as members were pressed to complete their work before the arbitrary deadline of the July 4 holiday set by President Trump. It also occurred after Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries took the House floor for over 8 hours in protest. Leader Jeffries broke the record in the U.S. House for the longest floor speech in history on the House floor. The Senate passed the bill days before and was tied at 50-50, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski saying that, “my hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.” There were no changes made to the Senate bill by the House. A series of overnight phone calls to Republicans voting against, not changes, was what won over enough Republicans to pass the legislation, even though it adds trillions to the debt. The Trump spending bill also cuts money to Pell grants.

“The Big Ugly Bill steals food out of the hands of starving children, steals medicine from the cabinets of cancer patients, and equips ICE with more funding and more weapons of war than the United States Marine Corps. Is there any question of who those agents will be going to war for, or who they will be going to war against? Beyond these sadistic provisions, Republicans just voted nearly unanimously to close urban and rural hospitals, cripple the child tax credit, and to top it all off, add $3.3 trillion to the ticking time bomb that is the federal deficit – all from a party that embarrassingly pretends to stand for fiscal responsibility and lowering costs,” wrote Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY) in a statement on July 3.

“The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 17 million people will lose their health insurance, including over 322,000 Virginians. It will make college less affordable. Three million people will lose access to food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). And up to 16 million students could lose access to free school meals. The Republican bill does all of this to fund tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations,” wrote Education and Workforce Committee ranking member Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) in a statement. The bill’s passage has prompted Democrats to start thinking about 2026 and the next election cycle. With the margins of victory in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate being so narrow, many are convinced that the balance of power and the question of millions being able to enjoy health care come down to only several thousand votes in congressional elections. But currently, Republicans controlled by the MAGA movement control all three branches of government. That reality was never made more stark and more clear than the last seven days of activity in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.