San Francisco State University

Benjamin Bratt is a distinguished actor, producer and activist who has spent his career highlighting the work of labor leaders and civil rights activists through film. His activism for Native American rights began at the age of six, when his Peruvian mother took him and his siblings to participate in the 1969 Native American occupation of the prison on Alcatraz Island to raise national awareness of issues facing Native Americans. Mr. Bratt continues to support the American Indian College Fund and serves as a board member of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Friendship House Association of American Indians and the Native American Health Center. He also has supported the Tribal Athletics Program and United Indian Nations.

Mr. Bratt attended Lowell High School in San Francisco and then went on to earn his B.F.A. degree at UC Santa Barbara in 1986. He later enrolled in the M.F.A. program at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Mr. Bratt’s acting work includes his breakout television role as Detective Reynaldo Curtis on NBC’s “Law & Order” as well as notable film roles in “Blood In, Blood Out,” “Miss Congeniality,” “Traffic” and “Love in the Time of Cholera.” He played a member of the Tlicho Nation in the film “The Lesser Blessed” and narrated “We Shall Remain,” a 2009 PBS miniseries about Native Americans. He also has been featured in several animated films, including Disney’s “Coco.”

In 2009, Mr. Bratt performed in “The People Speak,” a documentary feature film based on historian Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” that used dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries and speeches of everyday Americans.

Mr. Bratt’s interest in film is not limited to acting. He produced the 2009 film“La Mission” as well as the 2017 documentary film “Dolores,” which explores the life of Dolores Huerta, an American labor leader and civil rights activist. The film was directed by his brother, Peter Bratt.

Mr. Bratt has received a Screen Actors Guild Award, four American Latino Media Arts (ALMA) Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award nomination and a Blockbuster Entertainment Award. In 2002, he received the Rita Moreno HOLA Award for Excellence from the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA). 

In recognition of his professional achievements and ongoing efforts to increase awareness of the issues facing Native Americans, the Board of Trustees of the California State University and San Francisco State University are proud to confer upon Benjamin Bratt the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts.