Mario T. García is a Distinguished Professor of Chicano studies and history at UC Santa Barbara. Born and raised in El Paso, Texas, Professor García received his PhD from UC San Diego in 1975 and joined the faculty of UC Santa Barbara that same year. For over forty-five years, he has trained scores of graduate students and worked to make the Department of Chicana and Chicano studies at UCSB one of the leading institutions in the field. Above all, he is widely recognized as one of the most prolific and influential Chicano historians. A Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author and editor of more than twenty books, including: Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880–1920 (1981); Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology, and Identity, 1930–1960 (1989); Memories of Chicano History: The Life and Narrative of Bert Corona (1994); The Making of a Mexican American Mayor: Raymond Telles of El Paso (1998); Blowout! Sal Castro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice (2011); Católicos: Resistance and Affirmation in Chicano Catholic History (2008); The Latino Generation: Voice of the New America (2014); The Chicano Generation: Testimonios of the Movement (2015); Father Luis Olivares, A Biography: Faith Politics and the Origins of the Sanctuary Movement in Los Angeles (2018). In this interview, Professor García discusses: his family background and upbringing; his educational journey from high school to attending UT El Paso; his graduate experience at UC San Diego and getting established in the academy; his reflections on the state of Chicana/o studies during the early years and how the field evolved over the decades; the aims and contributions of his scholarship in the field; the reception of Chicana/o studies in higher education and the field of history; as well as his thoughts on important works, themes, and high points in the field's development over the last fifty years.