TALES FROM THE CHIHUAHUAN DESERT:

NEH Summer Institute

A Summer Institute (Residential) for Secondary School Teachers (Grades 6–12) at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in collaboration with Center for Inter-American and Border Studies (CIBS) and Institute of Oral History (IOH)

July 16th – July 30th, 2023


Applications Closed

Institute Community


Dominguez Adriana UTEP 2016Adriana Dominguez is a Clinical Professor of Theatre and the Director of Audience Development for the Department of Theatre and Dance at The University of Texas at El Paso. She teaches Creative Drama, Leadership in Performing Arts Organizations, Women in Drama, Chicano Theatre, Feminist Theory and Drama, Theatre History and Literature I, and Theatre Practicum I-III. Adriana has participated in theatre as an actress, director, producer, designer, and teacher at the elementary, secondary, and university levels for over 20 years. She is the co-founder of both the Chican@/Latin@ Theatre Series and the Children’s Traveling Troupe, which serve to promote artistic connections with the community at no cost. She is also the director of the Department Summer Children’s Camps; collectively these projects reach over 5,000 community members each year. Adriana is a native El Pasoan and is proud to further integrate the arts into the classroom and community. When she is not busy at the theatre, Adriana enjoys reading, participating in local community events, and spending time with her family.




Liberal Arts Shepherd JJeffrey Shepard joined the Department of History at UTEP in 2002, after receiving his PhD from Arizona State University. Since then he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in U.S., Indigenous, Borderlands, Western, Environmental, and Public History. He has chaired several dissertation and masters committees on topics as diverse as colonial era Spanish masculinity, gender and the bracero program, Indigenous-African relations in the early Florida borderlands, Native peoples and legal borderlands, and the tri-racial dimensions of settler-colonial violence in nineteenth century New Mexico. Shepard's research interests include Indigenous peoples in North America, particularly the Apache/Nde’ and Native groups in the U.S. – Mexico borderlands: environmental history; biography; and art and culture as a form of resistance to militarizing the borderlands. His first book, We Are an Indian Nation: A History of the Hualapai People, was published in 2010 with the University of Arizona Press; and his second book, The Guadalupe Mountains National Park: An Environmental History of the Southwest Borderlands, is forthcoming in 2019 with the University of Massachusetts Press. He is presently working on a biography of Wendell Chino, who was president of the Mescalero Nation for nearly 40 years, and a leading advocate for Indigenous sovereignty after World War Two; and he is conducting research into the Apache Treaty of 1852, which he considers “an Indigenous borderlands treaty.” In addition, Shepard is the co-editor (with Myla Vicenti Carpio) of the book series, Critical Issues in Indigenous Studies, through the University of Arizona Press. He has received grants from the American Philosophical Society, the Andrew H. Mellon Foundation, The Charles Redd Center at Brigham Young University, and Texas Tech University. Since 2011, Shepard has served as the Director of the PhD Program in History, at UTEP.

 



CynthiaBejarano2013 smallerCynthia Bejarano, a native of Anthony, NM, received her BA and MA from New Mexico State University, and her Ph.D. from Arizona State University. State University, and her Ph.D. from Arizona State University. After she completed her Ph.D. in 2001, she joined the Department of Criminal Justice at New Mexico State University and in 2014 she joined the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. Her publications and research interests focus on border violence, youth cultures, immigration issues, and gender violence at the U.S.-Mexico border. She is the author of the book “Qué Onda?” Urban Youth Cultures and Border Identity, published by the University of Arizona Press in 2005 and the co-editor of an interdisciplinary anthology with Rosa-Linda Fregoso entitled Terrorizing Women: A Cartography of Feminicide in the Américas published by Duke University Press in 2010. This anthology is also published in Spanish by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, which includes work from scholars, activists, and attorneys from across the Americas. In addition to these larger book projects, she has 21 single and co-authored articles, essays, and chapters in journals and books like Frontiers; Aztlan, Race and Ethnic Studies; Criminology and Public Policy, Violence and the Body, and the Association of Mexican American Educators Journal.




DR JOSE RODRIGUEZ

José Antonio Rodríguez is a poet, memoirist, and translator. He was born in Mexico and raised in South Texas. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, McSweeney's, Paterson Literary Review, James Dickey Review and elsewhere. His books include the memoir House Built on Ashes, finalist for an International Latino Book Award, a Lambda Literary Award and a Foreword INDIES award; and the poetry collections The Shallow End of Sleep, winner of the Bob Bush Memorial Award from the Texas Institute of Letters; and Backlit Hour, finalist for the 2014 Paterson Poetry Prize. He's also part of the collaborative work Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives, a collection of artwork by Reefka Schneider, poems in English by Steven Schneider, and Rodríguez's Spanish translations. He is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, Macondo Writers' Workshop, and CantoMundo. Other honors include multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize, the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award from Paterson Literary Review, the Founders’ Prize from RHINO, and the Clifford D. Clark Doctoral Fellowship from Binghamton University, where he received a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing. He also holds degrees in Biology and Theatre Arts and is assistant professor in the MFA program at The University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley.



image001Margaret Regan is the author of two prizewinning books on immigration. The most recent, “Detained and Deported: Stories of Immigrant Families Under Fire” (2015), which won a starred review in Publishers Weekly, looks at the fate of undocumented immigrants who are arrested long after they’ve established lives and families in the United States. “The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona Borderlands” (2010) investigates the tragedy of migrant deaths in the desert. Both were named Top Picks in the Southwest Books of the Year competition. A longtime journalist in Tucson, Margaret started writing about the border in 2000. She has a bachelor’s degree in French from the University of Pennsylvania and also studied French at the Sorbonne in Paris. She has twice gone to Guatemala, and studied Spanish in two tiny schools in the colonial city of Antigua. After working as a French editor for TV Guide magazine and as a children’s book editor at McGraw-Hill in New York, Margaret turned to journalism. She started as a reporter at the Express-Times in Easton, PA; she’s been writing for the Tucson Weekly since 1990. She has won many journalism awards for her border reporting, her arts criticism and her stories on the Irish immigrant experience. She reports regularly on the arts for The Buckmaster Show, KVOI Am 1030, Tucson. Her work has been published in the Washington Post, The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, Utne Reader, The Independent UK, Sojourners, Newsday, Black + White, Photovision and in many regional and local publications. She has appeared on NPR, WHYY Philadelphia, KPFK Los Angeles, Pacifica and many other TV and radio stations. She has appeared numerous times on C-Span's Book TV; her appearances include an hour-long lecture she gave in Chicago as well as a solo Q&A "Open Phones" session about immigration, for which she took questions from viewers around the nation. Her books have been adopted in many university classrooms, including the University of California Davis, Loyola University Chicago, Franklin Marshall College, James Madison University, Butler University, Northern Arizona University, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona.

 

 


 

victor m

Chief Victor M. Manjarrez, Jr. is the Associate Director of the Center for Law and Human Behavior (CLHB) at the University of Texas at El Paso. The CLHB has as three core pillars of research, education, and outreach which encompass: Behavior, law & the homeland security enterprise; Trade & Travel; Threat & Risk Management; Professional Development; Border Data Repository; and key Partnerships. It does so by facilitating interdisciplinary research in the area of law and social science. The Center aims to promote and facilitate the interdisciplinary and collaborative training of students at all levels through various initiatives supporting their involvement in the Center’s research. Chief Victor Manjarrez, Jr. served for more than 20 years in the United States Border Patrol and filled key operational roles both in the field and at Headquarters over the course of his extensive homeland security career. Many of his innovative border security methods and ideas are still the basic cornerstones for the U.S. Border Patrol that are still being utilized today. Throughout Chief Manjarrez’ career in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) he had been tasked with some of the most arduous jobs that the U.S. Border Patrol had to offer because of his skills in developing complex, efficient, and comprehensive border security programs. Due to Chief Manjarrez’ subject matter expertise in developing complex and innovative homeland security practices he was consistently recognized as one of DHS’ most dynamic and innovative operational leaders. Most recently in government, Mr. Manjarrez served in the Senior Executive Service (SES) as the Chief Patrol Agent of the Tucson Sector, the nation’s most dynamic, complex, and challenging sector and was named the lead Federal official in Arizona by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. In this capacity Mr. Manjarrez was responsible for over 4,000 employees and an annual budget of over $500 million dollars. Due to his leadership and innovative methods he was able to significantly reduce illegal border activity, resulting in reductions in local crime rates and violence, and improving the quality of life to the residents of southern Arizona. During his time in command as the executive officer of the sector he conducted operational briefings to senior level foreign and United States federal officials to include members of Congress. Earlier in his Border Patrol career, Mr. Manjarrez held numerous managerial and supervisory posts at headquarters and in other Border Patrol sectors across the country. Prior to serving as Chief Patrol Agent of Tucson Sector, Mr. Manjarrez served as Chief Patrol Agent in El Paso Sector; another of the U.S. Border Patrol’s most challenging sectors. In 2009, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano appointed Mr. Manjarrez as the Acting Director of Counternarcotics Enforcement (CNE), where he was the primary policy advisor to the Secretary for Department-wide counternarcotics issues and responsible for leading DHS in their efforts to monitor and combat illegal drug trafficking and international narco-terrorism. In May 1999, Mr. Manjarrez received the U.S. Border Patrol’s award for “Excellence in Management” during the 75th Border Patrol Anniversary event in San Diego, California. Dr. Manjarrez received his Bachelor of Arts in Social & Criminal Justice (Summa Cum Laude) from Ashford University. He also earned a Master’s of Art Degree (Cum Laude) in Homeland Security from American Military University. He earned his Doctoral degree in Educational Leadership and Administration from the University of Texas at El Paso. Dr. Manjarrez is also a graduate of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government Senior Executive Fellows Program, as well as a graduate of Harvard-MIT Universities, “Dealing with an Angry Public” Fellows Program.



WEBLeyva Yolanda

Dr. Yolanda Chávez Leyva is a Chicana historian and writer who was born and raised on the border. She is the Director of the Institute of Oral History, Director of the Liberal Arts Honors Program and  Associate Professor. She has spent her life listening to and now documenting the lives of people who live on la frontera. Professor Leyva specializes in border history, public history, and Chicana history. She is co-founder of Museo Urbano, a museum of the streets, that highlights fronterizo history by taking it where people are-- from museums to the actual streets of El Paso. She came to academia after a decade of social work in the Black and Brown communities of east Austin, with a desire to make academia and especially history relevant and useful to people. Her work has been recognized nationally. She is the recipient of the National Council on Public History "Best Public History Project Award" and the American Historical Association Herbert Feis Award that recognizes "distinguished contributions to public history." She has also received several faculty awards from UTEP and the College of Liberal Arts. In 2014, the government of Brazil invited her to conduct community dialogue training with new and emerging historical sites from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. She is currently interviewing community members who grew up or currently live in El Paso's southside barrios as well as former Braceros. She is the oral historian for the "Voices from the Border" series. She is also completing a manuscript on interpreting Latinx history in museums and historic sites, based on oral histories conducted with museum and historic sites professionals. She has curated, and co-curated, many museums exhibits with her students. Dr. Leyva has published numerous articles on Chicana, lesbian and border history. In addition, she has published poetry in Ixhua, La Voz de Esperanza, andCantos al Sexto Sol.  She blogs at http://www.fiercefronteriza.com