The Queer Caucus created the Gloria Anzaldu´a Rhetorician Award to honor Anzaldu´a's impact on "studies of both rhetoric and queer theory" through forging "connections across difference and oppression in order to dismantle systems of privilege, whether that be heterosexism, heteronormativity, racism, sexism or ableism (as a…

Many young people in Newark, New Jersey, when they cross the invisible line that separates street from school, enter what constitutes for them an alien territory, a place where their values, experiences and their ways of talking and thinking are not acknowledged, respected, or welcomed. At the same time, schools are also one of the few places…

"An Introduction to Complexity Pedagogy: Using Critical Theory, Critical Pedagogy and Complexity in Performance and Literature" offers readers an introduction to the basic concepts of complexity science and how they might be applied in the teaching of composition, creative writing, performance, and literature. The book builds on Critical…

This study addresses common assumptions about women of the borderlands while embracing a transformative consciousness in understanding, making, and reclaiming the meaning of citizenship for Mexican American women from the Rio Grande Valley. This critical ethnography recognizes Chicana Feminist epistemologies as a form of knowledge. Therefore, this…

The Latino male experience in higher education often assumes a heteronormative masculinity framework without critically considering the experiences of gay Latino men as they negotiate heteronormative and heterosexist spaces within the institutional environment. Internalized masculinity constructs that begin within the familial space, and are…

This qualitative phenomenological study explores the experiences of eight undergraduate Latinas in a Predominantly White Institution in the Appalachian region using Gloria Anzaldua's insights on Borderlands and Mestiza consciousness. A vast majority of the studies focused on the Latinx college student population that takes place in states and…

In an increasingly hostile political and social climate undocumented students in the United States continue to struggle to find space for themselves within universities. This research project undertakes a goal of illuminating how undocumented students make sense of their experiences on university campuses despite facing difficult climates at their…

In this article, we suggest that just as there are barriers and challenges that are particular to Chicanas/Latinas in terms of student retention and persistence, so must the mentoring offered to these students take into account their particular social, cultural, and gendered contexts. In response, we argue for a model of "mujerista"…

As a response to the attacks on ethnic studies in Arizona and the move to ban certain books, this essay presents theoretical and pedagogical reflections from two professors and addresses the ways teacher preparation programs can offer a resistance. Based on the authors' experience in teacher preparation programs, one in the humanities and the…

In this essay I argue that the primary role that Gloria Anzaldua creates for herself as a writer and activist is that of the curandera of conquest, the healer of "la herida abierta" (the open wound) created by the borders imposed by capitalism, nationalism, imperialism, sexism, homophobia, and racism. After examining Anzaldua's "Prietita and the…

A purpose of this dissertation is to understand how pre-service teachers locate and problematize their whiteness within teacher education programs. This dissertation studied and attempted to locate these curricular "interventions" by analyzing selected teacher education program curricula, interviewing pre-service education students and…

This study identifies patterns in 11 English language young adult novels from the past three decades (1981-2011) which depict undocumented migration between Mexico and the United States. The increase in YA novels on this topic demonstrates rising public concern. These books offer sympathetic identification with border crossing youth. Eight of the…

Based on a collaborative ethnography with Lideres Campesinas, a state-wide farmworker women's organization in California, this essay explores how activists have created multi-issued organizing strategies grounded in family structures and a community-based social world. Building on Gloria Anzaldua's theory of nepantla, it illustrates how campesina…

It is confusing to be a feminist student. Deconstruction is "de rigueur"; reconstruction less so. Awareness rises while answers recede. Feminist students seek out learning experiences that disrupt, empower, and make them feminist students not only by what they learn, but also by how they learn, by the pedagogy in which they engage. Certainly there…

This article explores the need for alternative rhetorics that address systemic marginalization in American society and in the practice of rhetoric and composition. Specifically, three concepts from queer theory--"intersectionality," "copresence," and "disidentification"--are used as a basis for defining an alternative rhetoric. Then, in the bulk…