Besides being an important author of sociological and anthropological essays on the Chicano experience, Octavio Romano stands as one of the pioneers in the legitimization of Chicano studies. Founder of Quinto Sol Publications in 1967, he was instrumental in creating cultural organisms through which Chicano thought and artistic production would take its place within the international community.

He was born Octavio Ignacio Romano-Vizcarra in 1923 in Mexico City and raised in National City, California (where he was a high-school dropout). Romano obtained his B.A. and M.A. at the University of New Mexico and his Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1962.

In 1967, while serving on both the California State Commission on Compensatory Education and the board of the Spanish Speaking People's Institute for Education, Romano, together with Nick C. Vaca, founded El Grito, a journal that was to have far-reaching consequences for Chicano studies...