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Sonya M. Alemán (she/her/ella) is an Associate Professor in the Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department and Mexican American Studies Program at the University of Texas, San Antonio. She is also Director of UTSA's Women's Studies Institute. She received her BA from St. Mary's University, an MA from the University of Texas, Austin, and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah. A Chicana from south Texas, she studies mainstream media representations of communities of color, alternative media content produced by communities of color, and manifestations of race, racism, and whiteness in the media. In addition, she is invested in improving the educational experiences of students of color. She draws on critical race theory and Chicana feminism to inform both her scholarship and pedagogy. She developed and teaches Texas' first class based on the life and career of Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla. She served as Editor of Chicana/Latina Studies from 2017-2022. She is published in Critical Studies in Media Communication; Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies; Review of Research in Education; Race Ethnicity & Education; and International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.
Rachel Yvonne Cruz, Doctor of Musical Arts, is an assistant professor at The University of Texas at San Antonio and a leading scholar in Mexican American music. In 2022, she pioneered a Mexican American Music concentration, currently the only program of its kind in the U.S. housed specifically within a Mexican American Studies (MAS) program. Cruz's commitment to preserving the contributions of Chicanas/xs and gender and sexual non-conforming musicians through traditional and creative scholarship-research and writing, original compositions, and recordings, notations and arrangements of others'; work- has driven her to create an archive that elevates these artists' voices within the historical narrative and secures their enduring legacy. Cruz is the award-winning author of The Art of Mariachi: A Curriculum Guide, and is contracted for her upcoming book, Latinx Music and the Arts: A Celebration of Generations and Genres. A passionate singer, songwriter, and educator, her greatest pride lies in her students' achievements, having mentored numerous ensembles and soloists to national recognition. She resides in San Antonio, TX, with her wife, Deborah, and their beloved fur babies, Chloe, Maggie, and Guero.
Yael Valencia Aldana, an Afro-Latinx/e poet and writer, is the author of Alien(s). Aldana, her mother, her mother's mother, and so on are descendants of the Indigenous people of modern-day Colombia. Her poem "Black Person Head Bob" won a Pushcart Prize, and her work has appeared in Torch Literary Arts, Chapter House Journal, and Slag Glass City, among others. She teaches creative writing in South Florida and lives near the ocean with her son and too many pets. Find her online at YaelAldana.com.
Romana Radlwimmer is an Assistant Professor at the University of Augsburg, specialized in Latin American, Latina/o, Brazilian and Iberian Literatures, Cultural Studies and Film. The literatures she investigates in the United States (and beyond) are mostly written in Spanish and Portuguese. Since 2007, she has been focused on US Latina/o Literatures, Luso-American Literature (Adriana Lisboa) and Chicana Theory (Norma Alarcón, Chela Sandoval, Norma Cantú, Sandra Cisneros, Lourdes Portillo, etc.) She has been presenting in the El Mundo Zurdo Conference in San Antonio since 2009 (a conference organized to honor the life and work of Gloria Anzaldúa) and has been a member of the organizing committee since 2015.
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