Hugo Morales, who built a community radio station for California farmworkers into a national Latino public media network, will be the keynote speaker at CSU Monterey Bay’s commencement ceremony on May 16.

In 1976, Morales organized farmworkers, teachers, students and artists to launch Radio Bilingüe as a single public radio station for the large Latino communities of Fresno and the surrounding San Joaquin Valley.

At the time, Morales, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, was an adjunct professor of La Raza Studies at Fresno State. Ever since, he has been executive director of Radio Bilingüe and a pioneer and advocate for bilingual and minority-controlled public media throughout the country. The network now includes 11 stations in California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.

A Mixtec Indian from Oaxaca, Mexico, he was a child farmworker in Sonoma County. When he was appointed to the California State University Board of Trustees in 2012, he said, “My interest in education is part of my DNA. I know how an excellent college education changed my life, and I know the stakes now for students with the same hopes and dreams that I had for myself and my family.

“Radio Bilingüe itself is first and foremost about education and ensuring access to information for those who are underserved.”

His honors include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Edward R. Murrow Award – public broadcasting’s highest honor – and the Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Award.

CSUMB’s 19th commencement will take place at 10 a.m. in Freeman Stadium on the CSUMB campus with President Eduardo Ochoa presiding. Approximately 1,450 students will receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees; about 8,000 family members and friends are expected to attend.