Editors

Editors/Moderators

Photo of Lauren AraizaLauren Araiza is an associate professor of History at Denison University, where she also teaches in the department of Black Studies. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Lauren is the author of the book, To March for Others: The Black Freedom Struggle and the United Farm Workers (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). In this book she explores the black freedom struggle’s approaches to multiracial coalition-building during the 1960s-1970s by investigating the participation of civil rights/Black Power organizations in the strikes and boycotts conducted by the United Farm Workers, a union of primarily Mexican American farm workers led by Cesar Chavez. She has also published in the Journal of African American History and has contributed an essay to the edited collection, The Struggle in Black and Brown: African American and Mexican American Relations during the Civil Rights Era (University of Nebraska Press, 2011). Her current project examines the manifestations and implications of Black Power at women’s colleges in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

TheresaDelgadilloTheresa Delgadillo is a Professor of Comparative Studies at OSU. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles; an M.F.A. from Arizona State University; and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research and teaching interests include religion and spirituality in Latina/o texts and contexts; Latinas/os in the Midwest; African Diaspora and Latinidad. She has published two books: Spiritual Mestizaje: Religion, Gender, Race, and Nation in Contemporary Chicana Narrative (Duke University Press, 2011) and Latina Lives in Milwaukee (University of Illinois Press, 2015). Her new research focuses on Afro-Latinidad. Delgadillo has also published several articles and chapters in volumes. She has been active as Editor and Moderator for Mujeres Talk since its inception in January 2011.

CarmenLugoLugoCarmen R. Lugo-Lugo is a Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University. She engages in research involving Latinos in the US, “the War on Terror,” and popular culture. She has co-authored, with Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo, several refereed articles and book chapters on the rhetoric behind “the War on Terror” and its link to discourse surrounding various marginalized groups. They also have an edited volume, A New Kind of Containment: “The War on Terror,” Race, and Sexuality published by Rodopi Press in 2008, and two co-authored books: Containing (Un)American Bodies: Race, Sexuality also published by Rodopi Press in 2009 and Project(ing) 9/11: Race, Gender, and Citizenship in Recent Hollywood Films, published in 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Lugo-Lugo has also published several refereed articles and book chapters on the representation of Latinos and other minoritized groups within United States popular culture, and articles on US/Puerto Rico relations. And, along with C. Richard King and Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo, Lugo-Lugo co-authored Animating Difference: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Contemporary Films for Children, published in 2010 by Rowman and Littlefield.

VegaSujey_headshotWFrame1Sujey Vega is an Assistant Professor in Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research explores belonging and the every day lived experiences of Latina/os in the United States. Using ethnography, oral history, and archival analysis, Sujey’s research includes race/ethnic studies, social networks, gendered experiences, and ethno-religious practices. Her book, Latino Heartland: Of Borders and Belonging in the Midwest (June 2015, NYU Press), places in dialogue Mexican Hoosiers and non-Mexican (mostly White) Hoosiers of Indiana as they both come to terms with living in the same communal space. Dr. Vega’s current project historically locates the growth of Latina/o LDS members in the Phoenix area and the role the LDS Church plays in the lives of current Latino Mormons.

Previous Editors

(Terms of service on Editorial Board indicated in parenthesis at end of Brief Biography)

  • Inés Hernandez-Avila (Nez Perce/Tejana) is one of the six founders of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA). In her scholarly and creative work, she looks at ancient Nahuatl and other indigenous philosophical traditions, as well contemporary indigenous expressions that link spirituality and creativity with personal and collective autonomy. In 2009 she received the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award at the Graduate and Professional level. She is a member of the National Caucus of the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, and she is active with the Native Traditions in the Americas Group of the American Academy of Religion. She is a Co-Director of a three-year Social Justice Initiative funded by the Mellon Foundation. (September 2013 – April 2016)
  • Lucila D. Ek is an Associate Professor in Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She received her Ph.D. in Urban Education from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research centers on the bilingualism and biliteracy of Chican@s/Latin@s. Her work has been published in Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Bilingual Research Journal, International Multilingual Research Journal, Urban Review, and High School Journal. (August 2013 – December 2015)
  • Miranda Martinez is an Associate Professor at the Ohio State University in Comparative Studies. She is a sociologist whose work has focused largely on community-based movements and the Latino experience of urban space. Her book Power at the Roots: Gentrification, Community Gardens, and the Puerto Ricans of the Lower East Side was published by Lexington Books in 2010. In New York, she was active on issues of low-income housing and financial services. As an extension of her work on community based financial services and credit to low income people, Miranda is undertaking qualitative research that examines debt and credit management as part of a project of daily life that is implicated in peoples’ identity, personal agency and self-worth. (September 2013 – December 2015)
  • Sara A. Ramírez is Co-Publisher and Co-Editor for Third Woman Press: Feminist of Color Publishing. She is now a graduate of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in queer/women of color feminisms, and a lecturer in the Women’s Studies Program at the University of Texas at San Antonio.  (August 2012 – September 2013)
  • Diana Rivera is a Librarian/Bibliographer in Special Collections and Preservation at Michigan State University who specializes in Chicana/o Studies and Ethnic Studies collections and preservation. Since 1995, she has overseen the Cesar E. Chavez Collection at MSU, a multi-disciplinary, multi-format collection. Many unique Chicano and Latino themed materials purchased and housed in Special Collections are regularly exhibited in the Chavez display case. Rivera received her undergraduate degree in Racial & Ethnic Studies from MSU and her Library Science degree from the University of Michigan. Rivera routinely works with students and community members interested in aiding in the preservation of these resources and with faculty, students, and community members in using them for research. (October 2013 – February 2015)
  • Felicity Amaya Schaeffer is an Associate Professor in Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has a Ph.D. from the American Studies Department at the University of Minnesota and an M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Arizona. Her book, Love and Empire: Cybermarriage and Citizenship Across the Americas, was published by New York University Press (2013). Through an ethnographic account of the Internet Marriage industry between women from Guadalajara, Mexico and Cali, Colombia, this project explores the relationship between global economic shifts, the governance of citizenship, and intimate circuits of desire, love, and marriage. Her new research interests examine visual and surveillance technologies and the sexual criminalizing of immigrant bodies across the U.S. – Mexico border. (September 2013 – May 2016)
  • Susy Zepeda is a queer Xicana Indígena Assistant Professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at University of California, Davis. She is an interdisciplinary and decolonial feminist scholar, who received her Ph.D. from UC Santa Cruz in Sociology with designated emphasis in Feminist Studies and Latin American & Latino Studies. Her research and teaching interests include: critical race and ethnic studies, Xicana Indígena spirituality, critical women of color feminist methodologies, queer of color critique, and intergenerational healing. She is part of the Santa Cruz Feminist of Color Collective, who published the article “Building on ‘The Edge of Each Other’s Battles’: A Feminist of Color Multidimensional Lens.” Zepeda also published, “Queer Xicana Indígena Cultural Production: Remembering through Oral and Visual Storytelling,” in Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society that highlights the work of her upcoming book manuscript. From 2013-2014, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor with the Social Justice Initiative at UC Davis. (January 2014 – December 2016)