Armando Torres Morales, a UCLA professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, who researched issues of concern to the Latino community and used the findings to advocate for change, including increased mental health services and an end to abusive police practices, has died. He was 75.
Morales died of cancer March 12 at his home in Stevenson Ranch, said his son Rolando.
In his work as a psychiatric social worker, Morales was an early proponent of increased mental health care services in the Latino community. As the population of Latinos in Los Angeles County increased, the numbers using mental health services remained low. The low usage, particularly among undocumented immigrants who feared raids and deportation, did not bode well for the future, Morales warned.
"In coming years, I think we will really pay the price for treating people that way," he said in a 1977 Times article. "There will be illegal aliens who have ended up having psychiatric breakdowns and being hospitalized. The fear of deportation makes them fearful of using state hospital services."
Morales worked to create facilities that would help draw in those in need of services. From 1966 to 1969 he was director of Mental Health Consultation Services, East Los Angeles Branch of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. And in 1972, working as a consultant for the Veterans Administration, he set up a satellite service in East Los Angeles.
By 1977 Morales was director of what was then known as the Spanish-Speaking Psychosocial Clinic, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital. From 1979 to 2000 he was director of the clinical social work department and director of the Clinical Internship Training Program at the institute.
By 1970 police brutality had become a major concern in the Latino community. On Aug. 29 of that year, a large antiwar protest in East L.A. turned into a riot, and Los Angeles Times columnist Ruben Salazar, who was covering the events, was killed by a tear-gas projectile fired by a sheriff's deputy. Morales and Salazar were friends.
In the aftermath, organizers decided to confront the brutality issue, said Rosalio Munoz, who was then chairman of the National Chicano Moratorium Committee.
"We wanted to approach the issue as comprehensively as possible and with a view toward bringing about change," Munoz said. "We began working with Armando and working with others to start developing our point of view and how we were going to be presenting the issues."
