500 Ethnic Minorities
Efrain Sanchez-Hidalgo was the first Puerto Rican receiving
a doctorate, while in 1962 Martha Bernal was the first
Mexican American woman awarded the PhD degree.
Within the American Psychological Association, although
a woman was elected in early years as president (Mary
Calkins was the 14th president), it took nearly 80 years for
the first ethnic minority to be so elected. Kenneth B. Clark
served as president in 1971. Another 15 years was to pass
before the next ethnic psychologist would become APA
president—Logan Wright. Over a decade later, the author
was elected to the APA presidency.
ACTIVISM IN APA
It was 1963 when formal awareness of the relevance of ethnic
issues led to any active movement. APA Division 9, Society
for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, presented a pro-
posal to the American Psychological Association to study
problems encountered in education and employment associ-
ated with race. In response, APA formed the Ad Hoc Com-
mittee on Equality of Opportunity in Psychology.
Soon after, in 1963, the Association of Black Psycholo-
gists (ABPsi) was formed at the APA Convention in San
Francisco, a group which then presented a Petition of
Concerns to the APA Council of Representatives. This set of
concerns covered the limited number of African American
psychologists and students in the profession, APA’s failure to
address social problems and racism, and the underrepresenta-
tion of African Americans in the APA governance.
A slow series of actions by APA followed such pressures
from activists. APA and ABPsi organized a Black Visiting
Scientist program, and APA established the Commission for
Accelerating Black Participation in Psychology. By 1973, the
importance of systematic attention to ethnic education and
training was recognized at the Vail Conference, with the
recommendation that an office and board on ethnic minority
affairs be formed within APA. This same recommendation
was repeated in 1978 at the Dulles Conference. An Ad Hoc
Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs (CEMA) was formed
that year and the APA Office of Ethnic Minority Affairs
staffed the next year. In 1980, the CEMA was elevated to the
status of Board of Ethnic Minority Affairs. (In 1996, CEMA
was reinstituted as a continuing committee of the Board for
the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest.)
Two other events deserve mention as part of the gradual
changes within APA. The APA Minority Fellowship Program
was funded in 1974 by NIMH to provide fellowships for mi-
nority graduate students. This Fellowship has continued into
2001 and has been one of the most successful sources for sup-
porting minority graduate students. Also in 1986, Division 45
was officially approved as the Society for the Psychological
Study of Ethnic Minority Issues. This Division has become a
major home for many ethnic minority psychologists, and pro-
vides positions in its executive committee and officers for
minorities to serve.A PERSONAL HISTORYMy own development was shaped by a series of experiences.
I was invited to the National Asian American Psychology
Training Conference in 1976, an experience which forever
molded my own identity. I cannot express how powerful it
was to walk into a room and be surrounded not only by peo-
ple who all looked like me in being Asian Americans, but
who were also all psychologists! Deep in my heart, it felt like
a homecoming—an emotion of enormous importance as it
shaped my future.
Two events motivated me to pursue higher office in APA
governance. First, I was elected president of the Association
for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy (AABT) in 1993.
The next event was an encounter at an executive committee
meeting of the APA Division 45, the Society for the Psycho-
logical Study of Ethnic Minority Issues. A past president of
the Division encouraged me to be a candidate for the APA
presidency.
I ran three consecutive years, barely losing the first time
by about 16 votes I decided to use a third try as a “tie breaker”
and to live with its results. As fortune would have it, I became
the 107th president of APA, the third ethnic minority, and the
first Asian American.MINORITIES PROGRESS DURING 1999The year began with an unprecedented gathering of ethnic
minority leadership, as the First National Multicultural Con-
ference and Summit was organized by the four ethnic minor-
ity past or then-current presidents of APA Divisions: Rosie
Bingham, president, Division of Counseling Psychology;
Lisa M. Porche Burke, past-president and Derald Wing Sue,
president, Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic
Minority Issues; and Melba J. T. Vasquez, president, Division
of the Psychology of Women. The Conference was so suc-
cessful that extra room was required for additional regis-
trants, and even then many had to be turned away. In 2001,
the second Conference and Summit was organized, and once
more filled the registration to its maximum.