Raul Humberto Yzaguirre (born July 22, 1939) is an American civil rights activist. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as the president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza from 1974 to 2004 and as U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic from November 2010 to May 2013.

Yzaguirre was born to Mexican-American parents Ruben Antonio and Eva Linda (Morin) Yzaguirre and grew up in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Yzaguirre states that some of his first memories of social injustice involved what his grandmother called a “race war” in Texas. Mexican Americans lived under a curfew at that time and Yzaguirre's grandfather was almost lynched one night when coming home after dark from his second job.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s many Mexican Americans were deported back to Mexico as a way of decreasing unemployment in the southern states; discrimination also existed in areas of education and employment that would not be ended until the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century and beyond. Discrimination also touched Yzaguirre personally. Although his family could trace its Texas ancestry back to the early eighteenth century, due to his Hispanic ethnicity young Yzaguirre carried an identity card so that he was able to prove his status as an American citizen when confronted. This heritage, of being somehow a less-than-valid citizen, coupled with his parents' desire for their son to gain an education beyond their own high school diploma, fostered in Yzaguirre a drive to succeed. By age 15 he was already active as a community organizer, his first accomplishment an auxiliary of the Hispanic veterans' organization American G.I. Forum called the American G.I. Forum Juniors. Graduating from Pharr San Juan-Alamo high school in 1958, he then enlisted in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps, where he served for four years and earned certification as a registered medical technologist.

After leaving the Air Force in 1962, the following year Yzaguirre enrolled at the University of Maryland on the G.I. Bill, intending to begin a career in medicine. After one year, however, he decided to transfer to George Washington University, where he became involved in student and community activism in the capitol region. Marrying Audrey H. Bristow during his sophomore year, in 1968 Yzaguirre received his B.S. degree, and began his career in public policy. Going to school in the Washington, D.C. area had inspired Yzaguirre with the changes then going on in the federal government with relation to social justice. During the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson the president had begun implementation of his “Great Society” program, one of the most notable facets being the 1964 passage of the Economic Opportunity Act. Under this act, the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) was established to serve as a chief actor in Johnson's so-called War on Poverty. Believing that at the federal level of government his efforts would do the most good, Yzaguirre joined the OEO's Migrant Division as a program analyst. In 1969 he founded Interstate Research Associates, a firm specializing in Mexican-American and education-based studies that Yzaguirre built into a highly respected nonprofit consulting firm now based in Washington, D.C.; after serving as the organization's executive director, he left in 1973 to return to Texas.

In 1968, the Southwest Council of La Raza was organized with funding from the Ford Foundation. By 1972, the organization had changed its name to the National Council for La Raza and moved its offices to Washington, D.C. In 1997, the Ford Foundation, the NCLR's sole funding source, demanded a change in the organization's focus and direction by threatening to withhold funding and forced its president, Henry Santiestevan, out of office.

In 1974, Yzaguirre was elected the second president of the NCLR. The Ford Foundation was pleased with Yzaguirre and continued to be a top donor of the NCLR throughout his term.

Under Yzaguirre, the organization grew from a regional advocacy group with 17 affiliates to over 300 that serve 41 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. Yzaguirre expanded membership criteria so it was not limited only to ethnic Mexicans, but also included Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Argentines, Cubans, Venezuelans and all other Hispanic subgroups. This paved the way for the National Council for La Raza to open offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Antonio, and San Juan. Since then NCLR has added offices in New York and Atlanta.

Through his tenure Yzaguirre built the NCLR into a 35,000 members organization, with revenues exceeding $3 million, from a combination of contributions from American corporations, philanthropic foundations, federal funding, and private member donations.

On November 30, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Yzaguirre to be U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic. His appointment was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on September 29, 2010. He resigned his service in that post on May 29, 2013, and now resides in Mount Airy, Maryland.

He is a lifetime member and serves on the Member Selection Committee of the David Rockefeller-headed Council on Foreign Relations.[10] and was a member of the Independent Task Force on North America.

Raul Yzaguirre was honored by President Joe Biden with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in July 2022.

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