Today, Lupe Quintanilla teaches at
the University of Houston, as she has for
more than thirty years. “I keep saying I’m
going to retire,” she says, “but I would
miss my students too much!” At the
university, she has developed several
dozen courses concerning Hispanic
literature and culture. Her cross-cultural
training for law enforcement officers,
which helps bring police and firefighters
and local Hispanic communities closer
together, is renowned° throughout
the United States. She has served on
a national board to keep the White
House informed of new programs in
law enforcement, been named one of
Texas’s “100 Most Influential Women of
the Past Century,” represented the U.S.
at the United Nations Institute of Justice,
been an ambassador to the World
Conference on International Issues and Women’s Affairs in Austria, and been
the author and subject of several books.
She has received numerous awards for
teaching excellence, and there is even
a scholarship named in her honor. Her
name appears in the Hispanic Hall of
Fame, and she has been co-chair of the
White House Commission on Hispanic
Education.