Holiday Campus Closure

Department Chair

Gabriel Gutierrez, Ph.D.


Department of Chicana/o Studies
Jerome Richfield Hall 148
Hours: M–F, 8 am to 5 pm

Phone: 818-677-2734 Fax: 818-677-7578

Send email

Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty

Christina Ayala-Alcantar Professor
  • Ph.D., Michigan State University
  • Office: JR 121B
  • Email: christina.ayala-alcantar@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.2737
  • Research Interests: Latinas and Education, K-12 Teacher Preparation, Teacher Educators, Critical Pedagogy, Latina Sexuality

Biography

Christina Ayala-Alcantar received her Ph.D. in 1998 from Michigan State University.

Her Areas of Interest include Latinas and education; K-12 teacher preparation; teacher educators; critical pedagogy; and Latina sexuality.

Martha Escobar Professor
  • Ph.D., Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego
  • Office: JR 144B
  • Email: martha.d.escobar@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.7216
  • Research Interests: Gender and Transnational (Im)migration, Citizenship and Nation-Building, Incarceration, Racialized and Gendered State Violence, and Feminist Critical Race Theory

Biography

Martha D. Escobar obtained her Ph.D. from the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego and is currently an associate professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge. Her teaching and research interests are gender and transnational (im)migration, citizenship and nation-building, incarceration, racialized and gendered state violence, and feminist critical race theory.

Escobar has published extensively on issues of (im)migration. Her book, Captivity Beyond Prisons: Criminalization Experiences of Latina (Im)migrants, considers the relationship of the U.S. prison system and (im)migration enforcement and the impact on Latina (im)migrants. She provides a comparative and intersectional analysis of how Latina (im)migrants are currently criminalized and connects this to the longer history of captivity of Blacks. Escobar argues that the racialized and gendered criminalization of Latina (im)migrants through the discourse of dependency is an essential aspect of neoliberal state governance that enables the expulsion of Latina/o (im)migrants when they are considered national threats or excess within the neoliberal labor market. By examining the gendered and racialized connections between prisons and (im)migration control, Escobar develops conversations between the prison abolition movement and the (im)migrant rights movement. She urges these movements to reflect on their connections and develop common ground from which to organize against racialized and gendered state violence.

Escobar’s new research focuses on the experiences of Latina/o “lifers,” Latinas/os incarcerated in California with indeterminate life sentences. She is particularly interested in examining the parole process from an intersectional perspective that analyzes how race, class, gender, sexuality, (im)migrant status, language, and physical ability impact Latina/o “lifers’” ability to parole.

In addition to her teaching and scholarship, Escobar is involved in various social justice efforts at CSUN. She is the co-director of Civil Discourse & Social Change, which is a university-wide initiative that combines education, community involvement and sustained activism to bring about transformative change. She is also an advisory board member for the Center for the Study of the Peoples of the Américas (CESPA), which participates in creating knowledge of peoples descendent of Latina American communities by engaging issues such as identity, displacement and (im)migration, U.S. foreign policy, and community resistance.

Martha Escobar Professor

Alicia Ivonne Estrada Professor
  • Ph.D., Literature, University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Office: JR 116
  • Email: alicia.estrada@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.2572
  • Research Interests: Contemporary Maya Cultural Productions, U.S. Central American Literature, Guatemala, Diaspora, Memory, Feminist and Cultural Studies

Biography

Education:

B.A., University of California, San Diego

Ph.D., University of California, Santa Cruz

Research Interests:

Contemporary Maya Cultural Productions, U.S. Central American Literature, Guatemala, Diaspora, Memory, Feminist and Cultural Studies

Alicia Ivonne Estrada has published on the Maya and Guatemalan diaspora in Los Angeles as well as on contemporary Maya literature, film and radio. She is co-editor with Karina O. Alvarado and Ester E. Hernández of the critical anthology U.S. Central Americans: Reconstructing Memories, Struggles and Communities of Resistance (Forthcoming 2017, University of Arizona Press). Estrada’s work has appeared in Romance NotesLatino StudiesRevista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, among other journals and anthologies. Her current book project is on the Maya diaspora in Los Angeles.

Alicia Ivonne Estrada Professor

Xóchitl M. Flores-Marcial Associate Professor
  • Ph.D., History, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Office: JR 143D
  • Email:xochitl.floresmarcial@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.2738
  • Research Interests: Zapotec History, Indigenous Intellectual History, Native Languages of the Americas, Indigenous Epistemologies, Indigenous Science and Technology, Digital Humanities, Indigenous Languages and Social Media, Pedagogy and Social Media

Biography

Dr. Xochitl Flores-Marcial is an interdisciplinary historian, she studies Indigenous Intellectual and Cultural History focusing on the Zapotec society of Oaxaca, Mexico. Her book project, A History of Guelaguetza in Zapotec Communities of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, traces the evolution Guelaguetza as a Mesoamerican social network of collaboration and exchange from the pre-Columbian period to the present. Currently, she is a board member and contributor of the Ticha Project, an online Zapotec-language platform and digital text module (winner of an American Council for Learned Societies Digital Extension grant for 2019-2020). Dr. Flores-Marcial was also the principal consultant for production and development of the internationally acclaimed Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibit Visualizing Language: Oaxaca in LA (Getty Foundation 2017-2018) which highlighted the transnational experience of Indigenous Oaxacans. As a member of the Zapotec community of Oaxacalifornia, she actively uses her scholarly work with indigenous languages to collaborate with community stakeholders, serving as a spokesperson and community leader both locally and abroad.

Xóchitl M. Flores-Marcial Associate Professor

 

Recent Projects 

  • Participant (2019) KCET television series Artbound Episode title: Dia de Muertos/Day of the Dead, 2019.
  • Grant/Exhibit Consultant (2015-2018) Library Foundation of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.

    Project Title: “Visualizing Language: Oaxaca in LA” Exhibit part of the Getty Foundation’s Initiative Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA “A Celebration Beyond Borders”.
  • Participant (2018) Alabra Films cinematic essay title: The Other Mexicans “Indigenous Mexicans in the United States”, premiered at the Palm Springs Art Festival, Fall 2018.
  • Participant (2017) Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. “(81) ArtMetroPolis: Shizu Saldamando - YouTube.” Artwork: Artist Educators (2016) by Shizu Saldamando. Location: Metro Expo Line: Palms Station Featuring LA Metro Art with Xochitl Flores-Marcial, Giant Robot, Eric Nakamura, Los Angeles Unified School District and Katherine Rose Allen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70QOngEy__4.
  • Participant (2016) KCET television series Artbound Episode title: Artesanos/Artisans “Bending Tradition: How Mexican Artisans Craft Los Angeles”.https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/artbound/episodes/artesanos-artisans.

Photo Credit: Professor Flores-Marcial (carrying her infant daughter on her back) delivering a lecture on Zapotec Intellectual History in Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico. Photo by Dr. Brook Lillehauguen 2019

Melisa C. Galván Associate Professor
  • Ph.D., History, University of California, Berkeley
  • Office: JR 143E
  • Email: mgalvan@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.7356
  • Research Interests: Latin America, Mexico (esp. 19th century), Borderlands, Political Economy, Port Studies, Transnationalism, Chicano/Latino history, and U.S. imperialism

Biography

Education:
B.A., History, University of California, Berkeley, 2005, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
Ph.D., History, University of California, Berkeley, 2013

Research and Teaching Interests:
Latin America, Mexico (esp. 19th century), Borderlands, Political Economy, Port Studies, Transnationalism, Chicano/Latino history

Dr. Galván is a historian of Mexico, with a specialization in the late colonial and early republican periods.  Her research interests lie in the history of Mexico's Northeastern borderlands, specifically the maritime and border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and her work has been published in both the United States and Mexico.  Her research embraces interdisciplinary and transnational frameworks, and examines the ways in which the region's development had a much wider impact on national Mexican immigration, trade, and diplomatic policies than scholars have previously recognized.  Dr. Galván is the recipient of research fellowships from the University of California's Institute for Mexico and the U.S. (UC Mexus), the Fulbright Foundation (Fulbright-Hays DDRA), and the University of California Chancellor's Fund.

In addition to her work as a historian, she has published two research methods titles with Routledge -- Writing Literature Reviews: A Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences and Proposing Empirical Research: A Guide to the Fundamentals -- and is under contract for a third work to be released in late 2021.

Melisa C. Galván Associate Professor

Peter J. García Professor
  • Ph.D., Ethnomusicology, University of Texas, Austin
  • Office: JR 145A
  • Email: peter.garcia@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.3491
  • Research Interests: Southwest Borderlands Music-Cultures including Native-American, Chicana/o, Anglo-American, Afro-American, and "New Mestizo" Immigrant and Indigenous Communities

Biography

Credentials

Dr. Peter J. García completed his Ph.D in Latin American ethnomusicology at the University of Texas at Austin 2001 with a research specialization in Southwest Borderlands music-cultures including Native-American, Chicana/o, Anglo-American, Afro-American, and "new mestizo" immigrant and indigenous communities. His dissertation supervisor was the late Gerard Behague and he also studied with ethnomusicologist Manuel Peña, anthropologist Pauline Strong, and ethnomusicologist Steve Slawek.

García's research interests and teaching include World Cultures and Music, Latin American Musics, Aesthetics, and Cultures, U.S. Indo-Hispano, Chicano, Afro-mestizo, Latin/o and Southwest Mexicana/o folk, classical, popular and protest musics including indigenous sacred dancing. García's publications engage decolonial theory, third world feminism, ritual and diaspora studies, borderlands "new mestiza/o" (differential) consciousness and musical activism, gender/sexuality and queer studies, semiotics, music (auto) -ethnography, the political economy of music, critical pedagogy and global/local perspectives on music.

Dr. García arrived on campus in Spring 2007 and was recently promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 2011. His monograph Decolonizing Enchantment: Echoes of Nuevo Mexicano Popular Musics is forthcoming from the University of New Mexico Press in Fall 2011 and is included in the Paso Por Aqui Series on the Nuevomexicano Literary Heritage. This book is a multi-sited ethnographic, oral historical, and at times reflexive investigation of the dialectic of struggle and change in transnational Southwestern Borderlands and U.S. Latina/o music-cultures. This work also features photographs by award winning photographer Miguel Gandert and Echoes an accompanying critical recording of New Mexico music by Enrique Lamadrid.

García was awarded a Fulbright García-Robles grant to complete ethnographic resesarch on the annual peregrinacion (pilgrimage) in Magdalena de Kino (Sonora) beginning in the Summer 2006. Throughout the fellowship, he was in residence at the Universidad de Sonora (Hermosillo) where he lectured and performed music concerts on campus during the Fall 2006.

His earlier field research on a Nuevomexicano or Indo-Hispano ritual dance known as la danza de los matachines, was published in 2009 in an edited volume titled Dancing Across Borders: Danzas y Bailes Mexicanos, co-edited by Olga Najera-Ramirez, Norma Cantú, and Brenda Romero. Oral historical research on Colorado borderlands singer Michelle Lobato examines Chicana grounded aesthetics, and was published as a book chapter called “Ay Que Lindo es Colorado” in Hidden Legacies/ Enduring Struggles: Ethnic Histories and Cultural Survival in Colorado (2010) edited by Arturo Aldama and Elisa Facio. García co-authored another forthcoming article with Enrique Lamadrid titled: "Performing Indigeneity in the Nuevo Mexicano Homeland: Antiguo Mestizo Ritual and New Mestizo Revivals, Antidotes to Enchantment and Alienation" which will be included in: Comparative Indigeneities of the Americas edited by Arturo J. Aldama, M. Bianet Castellanos, and Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera.

García also served as co-editor for another volume with Drs. Arturo Aldama and Chela Sandoval, which will also be forthcoming next year. Performing the U.S. Latina and Latino Borderlands challenges readers to engage the profound intercultural psychic, social, and transnational effects generated by U.S. Latina and Latino performance, from testimonio, music, dance, spoken-word, ritual, story-telling, teatro, improvisation, call-and-response, nagualismo and fashion to visual, body, digital and sculptural enactments. Each contributing author introduces readers to performance topics enlivened through a Borderlands Performance Studies method the editors identify as “de-colonizing performatics.” Although Latina/os in the U.S. represent the largest growing community after “non-Hispanic “ Whites, there exists a serious gap in information about Latin@/Chican@ and Indigenous cultural practices and identities. Contributors seek to rectify that lacuna in this thoroughly interdisciplinary volume that boasts established leaders and rising stars from cultural, visual and performance studies, folklore and ethnomusicology. Essays focus on performances generated out of Latin@/Chican@/Indigenous communities throughout the U.S. and intersect various transdisciplines including Latin@/Chican@, Latin American, American, ethnic, womens/gender, media, and queer studies programs and pedagogies.

Since his appointment to the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies in 2006, García continues teaching MUS310 Understanding World Cultures through Music and hopes to teach MUS307 Music From a Global Perspective for the CSUN Music Department. He was also selected to lead an Honors Section of MUS310 during the Fall 2011. García is also a concert and Latin jazz saxophonist, mariachi guitarist/vocalist, and regularly performs Chicana/o solo folk music from Mexico and the Southwest Borderlands. García is currently faculty advisor and co-director of the Mexican (Latin/o) Music Ensemble- a student performing and composition group that explores various forms of Latina/o musical styles and genres through original musical arrangements, compositions, and improvisation providing concerts on and off campus for the local Latina/o and Chicana/o communities. The group also performs for on-campus events and concerts in the Music and Chicana/o Studies departments, and as part of campus outreach to local area high schools.

In addition to serving as faculty advisor and co-director of the CSUN Mexican (Latin/o) Music Ensemble, García also plays saxophone, clarinet, and guitar in the group. The ensemble debuted at the annual on-campus "Dia de los Muertos" (November, 2010) and "End-Dependence" (September, 2010) day festivals, and for an on-campus Memorial service and procession for departed Professor Karen Duran (November, 2010). We also performed "Misa Hispana" by Mary Francis Reza and an entire instrumental set for the wedding sevice and reception of Luis Rodriguez and Elizabeth Gutierrez at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church on April 16, 2011. The music ensemble is also busy playing various cultural events and concerts including graduation celebrations, birthday parties or "las Mañanitas", and Mother and Father Day occasions. We are preparing to perform on the World Music Ensemble concert in the Music Department this Fall and have also been invited to play for the College of Humanities graduation ceremonies for Spring 2012 by Dean Elizabeth Say.

García also co-edited the Arizona Biopower issue of the peer-reviewed on-line journal Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life providing insight into state sponsored biopower in the Arizona-México borderlands. When Arizona is brought up many scholars, educational and immigration rights activists across the U.S. just shrug and say “Arizona is crazy” or ”that is Arizona for you”. After leaving our academic appointments at Arizona State University as a means of protesting the ongoing anti-Latino/immigrant and official state sponsered thugery, both editors (Arturo Aldama and myself) strongly believe that Arizona is a bas-relief to a matrix of racialized biopower that seeks to criminalize and denigrate subjects based on fear driven paranoia about indigenous and mestiza/o peoples. We sincerely hope that this issue of Bad Subjects will make a positive difference in highlighting the racism, violence, and anti-immigrant hysteria coming out of Arizona today and point out the role that higher education has played in the copy-cat anti-Latino laws spreading across the nation.

During the Summer 2011, Dr. García was selected to participate in a Summer Institute "Ethnomusicology and Global Culture" June 21-July 2, 2011 at the Music Department at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. The Summer Institute provided García a wonderful opportunity to “re-think” and “re-theorize” his ongoing investigtaion based on field research on the Fiesta de San Francisco in Magdalena de Kino begun in 2007 under the Fulbright Garcia-Robles Granteeship to Mexico. My initial investigation analyzes the methodological implications within multi-sited ethnography and transnational ritualized peregrinación (pilgrimages). Engaging critical theory presented in Su Zheng’s book: Claiming Diaspora: Music, Transnationalism, and Cultural Politics in Asian/Chinese America, I wish to engage diaspora as part of a larger ritual system illustrating Mexican, Native (Pima/Papago and Yaqui) Indian and Mexican American spirituality and heritage exploring how ritual, pilgrimage, and festival mediate present social and political challenges over the border, immigration and how music and aesthetics express structures of feelings, memories and kinship, and regional heritage. Music in this way helps communities recuperate previous attachments to occupied homeland at the same time mediating imperialist nostalgia, linguistic terrorism, and displacement of cultural citizenship and dislocation of indigenous community. While at Wesleyan, García also developed a special section of MUS 307 (Music From A Global Perspective): Ethnographies of Film Music, Musical Scoring Techniques, Movie Soundtracks, and Global Cinematic Systems. This course explores global soundtracks, scoring techniques, and film history using approaches from ethnomusicology, cultural studies, and film criticism. Students will develop critical thinking and listening skills approaching movie soundtracks as film ethnographies.

http://semneh11.wesleyan.edu

Principal Faculty:
Eric Charry (Institute Director), Mark Slobin, Su Zheng, Wesleyan University

Guest Lecturers:
Melvin Butler, Peter Hadley, Maureen Mahon, Maria Mendonça, Alex Perullo, Sumarsam

The Society for Ethnomusicology and the Wesleyan University Music Department are pleased to collaborate for a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute in ethnomusicology. We will provide stipend support for the participation of twenty-two faculty from universities, four-year colleges, and community colleges, and three full-time graduate students. Three principal faculty from Wesleyan and six guest lecturers will lead the daily sessions over the course of two weeks.

What happens when music, people, and media move across the globe? What kinds of transformations take place? How has recent technology facilitated such transformations? These are some of the key questions that will challenge us as we look at case studies from around the world, introducing the selected NEH Summer Scholars to new and recent scholarship and developing teaching strategies for incorporating this focus into the curricula of both music and related humanities disciplines.

http://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2011/06/21/wesleyan-hosts-ethnomusicology-and-global-culture-summer-institute/

Dr. Garcia is also co-editor of one of the foundational reference textbooks on popular culture that is utilized in Latin American and U.S. Latina/o studies. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Latino Popular Culture was released in October 2004. This two volume academic reference tool is designed to provide general research based information on a variety of Latina and Latino popular culture topics and issues that have influenced North American culture.

He enjoys swimming, weight-lifting, reading, traveling and cooking.

 

Institutional Research

Since his appointment to the Chicana/o Studies Department in 2007, he was invited to speak on a panel along with Dr. Mary Pardo entitled: “Implementing Queer Chicana/o Latina/o Studies in the CSU System” at the 2nd National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies Joto Caucus conference at California State University –Los Angeles (October, 2008). This important panel considered the impact of sexuality and queer studies scholarship in Chicana/o Studies and the curricular impact that recent textbooks, media, and scholarship is making in Chicana/o cultural studies.

García is also working with Professor Lara Medina on an undergraduate track in Chicana/o Spirituality within the Department of Chicana/o Studies and is teaching graduate seminars on Chicana/o Arts, Humanities, and Qualitative Methodologies and Transdisciplinary Investigative Approaches. He is also offering two upper division courses in Chicana/o Studies including: CHS 418 Mexicano Culture and Chicana/o Musics and CHS 417 Aztlán 2012: Indigenous Time, Synchronicity, and Dancing Cultures to be offered during Fall 2011 and Spring 2012.

He is currently mentoring Chicano undergraduate McNair Scholars and is masters thesis advisor for several Chicana/o graduate students and serving on numerous Masters thesis committees at CSUN. He also works closely with student members of MECHA de CSUN lecturing, performing, and facilitating on- campus and community sponsored events including Raza Youth Day, Dia de los Muertos, and Dia de la Familia. García also works closely with Professor Marta López-Garza as a member of the committee on "Civil Discourse and Social Change" a transdisciplinary campus wide curriculum featuring a series of lectures, guest speakers, documentary films, and workshops that might help bridge Chicana/o, Womens, Queer, American Indian, African Studies and other forward looking and critical areas of campus interested in encouraging and developing non-violent philosophies central to human rights struggles, political protests, civil discourse, and social change. This ground-breaking curriculum will be taking place on campus led by the Visiting Scholar, Reverand James Lawson, a close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who was in residence during the 2010-11 at California State University Northridge and will continue working on this initiative during the 2011-12 academic year.

Grants

Garcia was awarded a Fulbright García-Robles grant to conduct research on the annual peregrinacion (pilgrimage) in Magdalena de Kino (Sonora) beginning in the summer 2006. Throughout the fellowship, he was in residence at the Universidad de Sonora (Hermosillo) where he lectured and performed music concerts for undergraduate students during the Fall 2006. He returned to campus mid-year during the Spring 2007 semester.

Books

Decolonizing Enchantment: Echoes of Nuevo Mexicano Popular Musics is forthcoming from the University of New Mexico Press in Fall of 2011.

Performing the U.S. Latino Borderlands, an edited volume co-edited with Drs. Arturo Aldama and Chela Sandoval, which should be forthcoming next year.

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Latino Popular Culture was released in October 2004. This two volume academic reference tool is designed to provide general research based information on a variety of Latina and Latino popular culture topics and issues that have influenced North American culture.

Online Journal Articles

"Violent Ballads as Border Representations: The Aesthetics of Violence in the Mexican and Chicana/o Corrido" in Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life Issue #61, September 2002

"The United States Presidential Election 2008: Bill Richardson and the New Mestizo: A Case Study in Racial Contradictions in Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life Issue 79 2008

Public Lectures and Academic Conference Presentations

On May 3rd, 2011, Dr. García presented a Pre-Concert lecture prior to the Metales M5 Concert in the CSUN Valley Performing Arts Center as part of the Arts@Noon series in the Experimental Theater. This public lecture discussed Latin Holidays in Los Angeles from the Post World War II/Big Band "Swing" era through the paronoid period of McCarthysm and Cold War politics that included "rock 'n' roll," doowop, mambo, danzón, and later Latin soul and funk sounds.

García presented another scholarly paper: "Bailando Para San Lorenzo: Nuevo Mexico Popular Sacred Musics and Ritual Activism in Bernalillo Fiesta Time" at the 54th Annual Society for Ethnomusicology Conference "Borderless Ethnomusicologies" in Mexico City (November, 2010).

Memberships

  1. Society for Ethnomusicology
  2. The American Folklore Society
  3. National Association for Chicana/o Studies
  4. American Studies Association
  5. Society for American Music
  6. American Anthropological Association

Ramón García Professor
  • Ph.D., Literature, University of California, San Diego
  • Office: JR 144C
  • Email:  ramon.garcia@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.7213
  • Research Interests: Visual Culture, Literary Studies

Biography

Dr. Ramón García has a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of California, San Diego. 

Ramón García is the author of two books of poetry The Chronicles (Red Hen Press, 2015) and Other Countries (What Books Press, 2010), and a book-length monograph on the artist Ricardo Valverde (University of Minnesota Press, 2013).  The Chronicles was a finalist for the Latino International Book Award for Best Poetry Book in English in 2016. 

Dr. García’s poetry has appeared in a variety of literary journals and anthologies, including the Best American Poetry anthologyThe Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of US-Hispanic LiteratureAmbitThe American Journal of Poetry, Los Angeles Review, and Mandorla: New Writing from the Americas.  His scholarly work has appeared in  CriticaWide Angle; Chasqui:  Review of Latin American Literature and Aztlán:  A Journal of Chicano Studies.

He has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts residency fellowship from the MacDowell Colony and residency fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Ragdale Foundation. He has also been a recipient of a research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

https://ramongarciaphd.com/

Rosemary Gonzalez Professor
  • Ph.D., Psychological Studies in Education, Stanford University
  • Office: SQ 289B
  • Email: rosemary.gonzalez@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.7248
  • Research Interests: Achievement motivation; Child and Adolescent Development; Ethnic Identity; Multicultural Education Pedagogy; Resilience of Youth Placed “At-Risk”

Biography

Education:
Ph.D., 2003, Stanford University, Psychological Studies in Education

Areas of Interest:
Achievement motivation; Child and adolescent development; Ethnic identity; Multicultural education pedagogy; Resilience of youth placed “At-Risk”. 

Gabriel Gutiérrez Professor

Fermin Herrera Professor

 

Sandra de la Loza Assistant Professor
  • MFA, Art
  • Office: JR121C
  • Email:
  • Phone: 818.677.6591
  • Research Interests: Chicanx and Latinx Visual Art, Art of the Americas, Spatial Geography, Chicanx Popular Culture,  Research and Archival Practices in Contemporary Art, Queer and Feminist Studies, Popular Education and Community Organizing

Participating in Faculty Early Retirement Program (FERP)

Lara Medina Professor
  • Ph.D., History, Claremont Graduate University
  • Office: JR 114A
  • Email: lara.medina@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.6142
  • Research Interests: Chicana/o Religious/Spiritual Practices, Chicano/a Religious History, Religion and Social Change, Religion, Politics, and Art, Oral History, Family Histories, Chicana/o History

Biography

Education:
Ph.D., 1998, Claremont Graduate University in American History

Areas of Interest: Chicana/o religious/spiritual practices; Chicano/a religious history; religion and social change; religion, politics, and art; oral history; family histories; Chicana/o history.

Professor Medina received her Ph.D. in American History from Claremont Graduate University (1998) with an emphasis on Chicana/o history. Her research focuses on Chicana/o religious/spiritual practices; religious history; religion and social change. Her published work includes Las Hermanas: Chicana/Latina Religious - Political Activism in the U.S. Catholic Church (Temple University Press, 2004), "Nepantla Spirituality: An Emancipative Vision for Inclusion" in Wading Trough Many Voices (2011) and several chapters in various anthologies.

Lara Medina Professor

Academic Organizations, Scholarly Societies, and Artistic / Musical Groups / Professional / Advocacy Institutions

  1. National Association for Chicana/o Studies
  2. National Association of Hispanic and Latino Studies
  3. Cultural Studies Association
  4. American Studies Association
  5. American Anthropological Association
  6. American Sociological Association
  7. National Association for Ethnic Studies
  8. American Political Science Association
  9. Latin American Studies Association
  10. American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese
  11. American Historical Association
  12. National Women's Studies Association
  13. Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
  14. Society for Ethnomusicology
  15. Congress on Research in Dance
  16. International Traditional Music Society
  17. The American Folklore Society
  18. American Academy of Religion
  19. Hispanic Theological Initiative
  20. Mujeres Activas de Letras y Cambios Social
  21. Mujeres de Maiz
  22. National Council For La Raza
  23. Mexican American Legal Defense Education Fund
  24. Save Ethnic Studies
  25. Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life #81 Arizona Biopower Issue
  26. Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural
  27. Bienestar: Access, Education, Mobilization... Our Communities Solution!
  28. Interntational Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association
  29. Danza Mexica Cuauhtemoc
  30. M.E.C.H.A.de CSUN
  31. Ballet Folklorico Aztlán de CSUN
  32. Mexican (Latin/o) Music Ensemble

Theresa Montaño Professor
  • Ed.D., Education, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Office: JR 151A
  • Email: theresa.montano@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.6801
  • Research Interests: Latino Educational Equity, Critical Multicultural Education, Bilingual/ELL education, Teacher Education

Biography

Education:
Ed.D., 1996, University of California, Los Angeles in Education

Areas of Interest:
Latino Educational Equity; Critical Multicultural Education; Bilingual/ELL education; Teacher education.                 

Renee Moreno Professor
  • Ph.D., English and Education, University of Michigan
  • Office: JR 140
  • Email: renee.m.moreno@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.7110
  • Research Interests: Literature, Rhetoric and Composition, Race and Ethnicity, Traditions of Story and Storytelling

Biography

Dr. Renee M. Moreno is Associate Professor in the Chicano/a Studies Department at California State University, Northridge where she teaches composition and literature. She is a graduate of the Joint Program in English and Education at the University of Michigan and has held post-doctoral fellowships at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Notre Dame. Professor Moreno has served on the College Section Steering Committee of the National Council of Teachers of English and the Executive Committee of the College Composition and Communication Conference.  A 1993 recipient of the College Composition and Communication Scholars for the Dream Award, her research focuses on literature, rhetoric and composition, and race and ethnicity, and draws upon traditions of story and storytelling. She is currently working on a book length project with Artist and Professor Carlos Fresquez, entitled “They want us to march but we want to paint”: Chicano Artists in Denver (1968-1972), which recovers the history of the Chicano arts movement in the city.  Professor Moreno has been awarded several grants to support her research, including a research grant from the Colorado Humanities.

Alejandro Prado Assistant Professor
  • Chicana/o Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Office: JR 116
  • Email: alejandro.prado@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.2739
  • Research Interests: Critical Globalization Studies, Political Economy, Urban Studies, Labor Studies, China, Los Angeles, Food Politics, Critical Environmental Justice, International Solidarity, Chicanx Identity Formation

Rosa RiVera Furumoto Professor and Department Chair
  • Ed.D., Education, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Office: JR 148
  • Email: rosa.furumoto@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.6819
  • Research Interests: Environmental Justice, Chican@/Latin@ Parents' Critical Consciousness, Cultural Capital, School Involvement, Use of Chican@/Latin@ Children's Literature with Families for Purposes of Humanization

Biography

Education:

Ed.D., 2001 University of California, Los Angeles in Education

Rosa RiVera Furumoto Professor and Department Chair

Areas of Interest:

Chican@/Latin@ parents’ critical consciousness, cultural capital, and school involvement; use of Chica@/Latin@ children’s literature with families for purposes of humanization; and urban school militarization.

Participating in Faculty Early Retirement Program (FERP)

David Rodriguez Professor
  • Ph.D., Political Science, University of California, Riverside
  • Office: JR 143A
  • Email: david.rodriguez@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.2973
  • Research Interests: Chicano Politics, Political Economy and Theory

Biography

Education:
Ph.D. 1996, University of California, Riverside in Political Science

Areas of Interest:
Chicano politics; Political economy and theory. 

David Rodriguez Professor

                

Stevie Ruiz Associate Professor
  • Ph.D., Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego
  • Office: JR 144E
  • Email: stevie.ruiz@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.7355

Biography

Education:

B.A., California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

M.A., Latin American Studies (Geography emphasis), San Diego State University

M.A., Ph.D., Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego, 2015

Stevie Ruiz Associate Professor

Areas of Interest:

Stevie Ruiz’s interdisciplinary research and teaching focuses on environmental justice, comparative race and ethnicity, critical science studies, and cultural geography. He is currently working on a book project titled “Stewards of the Land: Race, Space, and Environmental Justice” (under contract with University of North Carolina Press). Selected Publications can be accessed here:  https://csun.academia.edu/StevieRuiz

Peer Reviewed Articles

 Stevie Ruiz.  “Contesting Legal Borderlands: Policing Insubordinate Spaces in Imperial County’s Farm Worker Communities, 1933-1940,” for Kalfou: A Journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies 7(2), Fall 2020. 

 Stevie Ruiz with Long Bui, “Unearthing Racial Histories of Sexology in the Global South,” Ethnic Studies Review 43(1), Spring 2020.

 Stevie Ruiz.  “The Double Life: Respectability Politics and Spatial Formation in Feminicide Films” in Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, Fall 2019/Winter 2020.

 Stevie Ruiz with Michelle Aranda Coss, Jesus Jimenez, and Renée Martínez.  “Indigenous Approaches to Climate Resilience:  A Roundtable Discussion with the ‘Digital Environmental Humanities Lab,’ for Invited Special Issue of “Imagining Alternatives,” in Resilience: A Journal of Environmental Humanities, Winter 2019.

 Stevie Ruiz.  “Redressing Injustice: Las Madres de Las Desaparecidas’ Fight Against Feminicide in Ciudad Juárez,” Epistemological Others, Languages, Literatures, Exchanges and Societies (EOLLES) in Groupe De Recherche Identités et Cultures (GRIC), Université Le Havre Normandie, France, July 2019.   

 Stevie Ruiz.  “Another University is Possible: Student Activism Against Colonial Education in the California State University system,” in About Campus, June 2019.

 Stevie Ruiz with Maira Areguin, Eduardo Estrada, Jesus Jimenez, Diane Lopez, Karla Sanchez, and Janet Valenzuela.  “Radicalizing the Digital Humanities: Reimagining Environmental Justice Research and Teaching,” for Invited Special Issue of “Toward Public Pedagogies: Teaching Outside Traditional Classrooms,” in Radical Teacher: A Socialist, Feminist, and Anti-Racist Journal on the Theory and Practice of Teaching no. 109, Fall 2017, 29-37.

 Peer Reviewed Book Chapters

Lisa Sun-Hee Park with Stevie Ruiz.  “Racial Minorities in the United States: Race, Migration, and Reimagining Environmental Justice” for Environmental Justice: Key Issues, Ed. Brendan Coolsaet.  London: Routledge, 2020.

Ana Sánchez-Muñoz Professor
  • Ph.D., Linguistics, University of Southern California
  • Office: JR 151C
  • Email: 
  • Phone: 818.677.4154
  • Research Interests: Language Variation and Change, Bilingualism, Language Acquisition, Situations of Language Contact

Ana Sánchez-Muñoz personal website

Denise Sandoval Professor
  • Ph.D., Cultural Studies, Claremont Graduate University
  • Office: JR 121A
  • Email: denise.sandoval@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.6489
  • Research Interests: Popular Culture and the Arts, Cultural Histories of Los Angeles, Oral History, Community Histories

Biography

Education:
Ph.D., 2003, Claremont Graduate University in Cultural Studies

Areas of Interest:
Popular Culture and the Arts, Cultural Histories of Los Angeles, Oral History, Community Histories                      

Denise M. Sandoval, Ph.D is a Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge (2002 to the present). She received her doctorate in Cultural Studies from Claremont Graduate University in 2003, her Masters of Arts in Chicana/o Studies from California State University Northridge in 1995, and her Bachelor of Arts in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley in 1993. She was the guest curator/community researcher for two exhibitions on lowrider culture at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles: La Vida Lowrider: Cruising the City of Angels (2007-08) and Arte y Estilo: The Chicano Lowriding Tradition (2000). In December 2009, part of the exhibition La Vida Lowrider traveled to Guadalajara, Mexcio with the Department of Cultural Affairs LA as part of the Guadalajara Feria de Libros where the city of Los Angeles was the guest of honor. She was also a guest curator/writer for a virtual exhibition entitled Lowrider: An American Cultural Tradition for the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives. Her work on lowrider culture was featured in two different documentaries on lowriders (Automaniac and Modern Marvels) for the History Channel and she has written various articles for publication on the lowrider culture: “Cruising Through Lowrider Culture: Chicana/o Identity and the Marketing of Lowrider Magazine” in the book Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture & Chicana/o Sexualities (2003), entries on “lowriders” and “Cholos/as” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States (2005), as well as the chapter “The Politics of Low n Slow/Bajito y Suavecito : Black and Chicano Lowriders in Los Angeles, 1960’s to 1970’s” that is part of the anthology Black and Brown Los Angeles: A Contemporary Reader (November 2013). In May 2012, she co-edited a book with award winning author Luis J. Rodriguez titled Rushing Waters, Rising Dreams: How the Arts Are Transforming a Community for Tia Chucha Press which documents art activism in the Northeast San Fernando Valley. The book was awarded a bronze medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) in June 2013 and also was awarded the PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award in December 2013. Her most recent book project is titled White Washing American Education: The New Culture Wars in Ethnic Studies (October 2016), which is a co-edited two volume set published by Praeger, with contributed essays on issues in Ethnic Studies in both K-12 and higher education. The books were recognized as being one of the “Best Reference Titles of 2016” in the category of Social Science by the Library Journal. Currently, she is the guest curator for the exhibition The High Art of Riding Low: Ranflas, Corazón e Inspiración (July 2017 to May 2018) at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. The exhibition examines “the diverse and complex viewpoints of more than 50 artists who visualize, celebrate and interrogate the lowrider car through a selection of artwork that includes vehicles, paintings, sculptures, and art installations”.

She has been a professor in Chicana/o Studies/Ethnic Studies for over 18 years and teaches courses such as Introduction to Chicano Culture, History of the Americas, History of the Chicana/o and Third World Woman and La Chicana. Her research interests include popular culture and the arts, cultural histories of Los Angeles, oral history and community histories. 

Francisco Tamayo Associate Professor

Biography

Dr. Tamayo is, assistant professor, in The Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge—Writing Program. In this capacity, he teaches undergraduate writing courses with a Chicana/o Studies and Ethnic Studies epistemology. He received his doctorate from Washington State University (WSU) in English Studies, with an emphasis in Rhetoric and Composition. He is the former Chicana/o Latina/o Student Center Director at WSU and had an academic appointment with Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon, WA. Professor Tamayo research focus is on the connections between language and unequal relations of power, such as racism and issues of linguistic discrimination. In this context, he has been trying to understand his complex trajectory growing up as a transfronterizo and now as a writing instructor—where he continues—to live a transnational life “in transit” socially, culturally, racially, and economically. As a writing instructor, he argues that teachers of rhetoric and writing should not racialized students’ agency by only focusing on the linguistic challenges that writers in training bring to the writing classroom. He urges writing instructors to help students make connections among reading and writing and in living in the world within the broader context of a Chicana/o transnationalism.

Francisco Tamayo Associate Professor

Yarma Velázquez-Vargas Professor
  • Ph.D., Mass Communications, Florida State University
  • Office: JR 121B
  • Email: yarma.velazquez@csun.edu
  • Phone: 818.677.2737
  • Research Interests: Media Studies, Performance, Political Economy of Media, Puerto Rican Studies

Biography

Dr. Velázquez Vargas received her Ph.D. from the Florida State University (2008) in Communication Studies with an emphasis on gender, media, and queer studies. She has a Master’s in Advertising Management from Michigan State University and a B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. Her research interests include gender, queer studies, Latina studies and political economy. Her current research explores issues of media representation and sexuality. Moreover, her work examines the manner in which the representations of queer culture in television reinforce the binaries of sex, gender and sexuality.

Dr. Velázquez Vargas teaches Speech Communication and Media Studies courses. Her published work includes:  “Materialism, Disposal and Consumerism: Queer Eye and the Commodification of Identity” in Ideological Similarities Between Dating and Makeover Reality Television Shows, and "Marco Said I look Like Charcoal; A Puerto Rican’s Exploration of Her Ethnic Identity" in Qualitative Inquiry.  

Yarma Velázquez-Vargas Professor

Department Chair

Gabriel Gutierrez, Ph.D.


Department of Chicana/o Studies
Jerome Richfield Hall 148
Hours: M–F, 8 am to 5 pm

Phone: 818-677-2734 Fax: 818-677-7578

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