Velia Murillo
Administrative Support Coordinator
Office: King Hall C-4069
Phone: (323) 343 - 2190
Email: [email protected]
Biography coming soon.
Bianca Guzmán
Acting Chair / Associate Professor
Office: King Hall C-4069
Phone: (323) 343 - 2194
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.calstatela.edu/faculty/bguzman
Project: www.calstatela.edu/choices
Bianca L. Guzmán earned a Ph.D. in ecological community psychology from Michigan State University. Her primary area of research involves examining the socio-behavioral determinants of health in Latina/Chicana youth and women. She was awarded a grant by the California Department of Health to examine the sex behavior of ethnic youth. This project is an educational theater based program called the Choices CAMP School Project which employs CSLA students and other community organizers. Dr. Guzmán has also authored multiple articles in publications like the Journal of Community Psychology, the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology and the Journal of Health Communication. Dr. Guzmán along with the Choices CAMP School Project staff is continuously invited to speak at professional conferences. She is also the co-editor of a book published by NYU press entitled “Latina Girls: Voices of Adolescent Health in the U.S.” Finally, Dr. Guzmán is the mother of two young Latina girls.
Francisco E. Balderrama
Professor
Office: King Hall C-3059
Phone: (323) 343 - 2987
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.calstatela.edu/faculty/fbalder/
Biography coming soon.
Roberto Cantú
Professor
Office: King Hall B-3023
Phone: (323) 343 - 2195
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.robertocantucv.blogspot.com
Dr. Roberto Cantú received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from San Diego State University, and his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1982 in Hispanic Languages and Literatures. His doctoral dissertation was on Mexican historian Edmundo O’Gorman, written under the direction of Argentine philosopher Aníbal Sánchez-Reulet. He joined the Chicano Studies faculty in 1976, and in 1994 he began his joint appointment in the English department.
David Diaz
Professor
Office: FA - 230
Phone: (323) 343 - 5329
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.calstatela.edu/faculty
Dr. Diaz is an expert in both urban planning and environmental impact analysis. His research interest focus on the intersections of ethnicity and class in relation to federal and local redevelopment policy. He works with community based non-profit groups in relation to urban policy and gang intervention programs. Dr. Diaz obtained his Ph.D. in Urban Studies from UCLA. He is a contributing columnist to La Opinion, Los Angeles’ leading Spanish language newspaper.
Dr. Diaz is the author of, Barrio Urbanism Routledge, 2005, a pioneering project linking conventional urban policy issues, conflicts between the planning profession and Chicanas/os, and the historical urbanization of Chicanas/os in the Southwest. Dr. Diaz is also developing a field research project in the community of Lincoln Heights focusing on the cross-cultural issues related to the significant in-migration of working class Asians into a traditional Chicana/o barrio.
Dionne Espinoza
Associate Professor
Office: King Hall C-4035
Phone: (323) 343 - 5348
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.calstatela.edu/faculty/despino/
Dionne Espinoza received her B.A. at UC Berkeley and her Ph.D. at Cornell University in English with emphases in Ethnic Studies and Postcolonial/Woman of Color Feminist Theories. Her research and publications to date have focused on women's participation in the Chicano Movement of the 1960s & 1970s. She is the co-editor of Enriqueta Vasquez and the Chicano Movement: Writings from El Grito Del Norte (Arte Publico Press, 2006). Her areas of teaching in the Department of Chicano Studies include Chicana/Latina Studies. Chicana/o and Latina/o Cultural Studies & Social Movements, and Oral History Methodology. She currently Chairs the Advisory Committee on Women's and Gender Studies and also serves as Advisor for Programs in Women's & Gender Studies (located in Liberal Studies, where she is also faculty member). She is a past faculty advisor for Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) and current faculty advisor to Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS) de CSULA. She is committed to mentoring and to teaching "for critical consciousness." To relax after a stressful work week, she likes to watch 19c costume dramas, read pop culture "chisme" magazines, and go to step aerobics and zumba.
Ester E. Hernández
Associate Professor
Office: King Hall C-4035
Phone: (323) 343 - 5349
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.calstatela.edu/faculty/eherna17/
Dr. Ester E. Hernádez earned her Ph.D. in Social Science at UC Irvine and joined CSULA's Department of Chicano Studies in 2002. (Please see her webpage for an extended bio).
Michael Soldatenko
Professor
Office: King Hall A-3048
Phone: (323) 343 - 2198
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.calstatel.edu/faculty/msoldat
Biography coming soon.
Valerie Talavera-Bustillos
Associate Professor
Office: King Hall B-3023
Phone: (323) 343 - 2197
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.calstatela.edu/faculty
I am a first-generation college student from a working-class background, yet I am also a fourth-generation Chicana. These two ideas seem contradictory, if my family has been in the US for so long, then why am I the first to go to college? This question has puzzled me since I was in 8th grade at St. Helen’s Elementary school in South Gate. I knew that some of my family members were smart, yet why didn’t they do well in school or at least graduate? Why was my father nervous to speak to my teachers? Why did my mother and her father push me so hard to go to college? Once I experienced life at UC Irvine I realized why we were called “minorities” despite the fact we were on Mexican land! I saw how difficult it can be for students like me to get into college and this is what drove me to study Chicanas in education, how do they get here? Who helps, who doesn’t? My doctoral studies at UCLA, under the guidance and support of Professor Daniel Solórzano I understood the importance of equality and access to higher education for students of color. While Professor Solórzano taught me how to be a scholar, I also learned how important it is to be yourself, especially as a scholar of color and the responsibility it has to our community. His work in and out of the classroom taught me it was ok to bring your passion into your teaching, it is ok to show you care about your research, and especially the students you serve. I have earned tenure at Cal State LA, my academic home where Chicanas/Latinos are the majority of our students. It is with my personal experiences and my academic training that I am motivated to teach, to help students become critical thinkers, understand their role as scholars-in-training and how to best serve our community now and after they graduate.