Rodolfo "Rudy" Francisco Acuña (born May 18, 1932) is an American historian, and professor emeritus at California State Northridge. He is also a scholar of Chicano studies and the author of the 1972 book Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, a foundational Mexican American history survey.

Acuña was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1932 to Alicia Elías, who was from Sonora, Mexico, and his father was from Cocula, Jalisco.^{[citation needed]}

Acuña received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Los Angeles State College, now California State University, Los Angeles and later earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Southern California (USC).

In 1958, Acuña began teaching at San Fernando Junior High. He then transferred to Cleveland High School, where he taught social studies until 1965, when he received a tenured position at Los Angeles Pierce College. To support his doctoral studies at the University of Southern California, he also taught adult high school. During this time, he was active with the Latin American Civic Association and the Mexican American Political Association. In 1969, he became the founding chair of California State University, Northridge's Chicano/a Studies department, where he also began teaching.

In 1989, Acuña was a founding member of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, a civil rights advocacy group. Two years later, he traveled to El Salvador as a correspondent for the Texas Observer covering its presidential elections, seeking to understand "how accurate were the interpretations of historians of the past."

In 1990, Acuña sought a senior professorship in the Chicano Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Although the department had invited him to apply and he was the sole recommended candidate, a faculty review committee rejected his application. In 1992, Acuña sued UCSB for discrimination. The race discrimination cause of action was dropped by the judge, and the political cause of action had previously been dropped because it missed the statute of limitations filing. A jury found that Acuña had been discriminated against based on his age, but Federal Judge Audrey Collins refused to compel the university to hire him. Instead, she awarded him a monetary compensation of $325,000, which Acuña stated he and his wife would use to assist victims of employment discrimination in higher education. The For Chicana Chicano Studies Foundation gives an average of $7,500 annually in scholarships.

Acuña's archives are held in the Special Collections and Archives section of the Library at California State Northridge.