Dr. Stephen H. Lekson
Stephen H. Lekson is a southwestern archaeologist who has lead over 18 expeditions in the Four Corners area, Chaco Canyon, the Mimbres region, the Rio Grande, and the Hohokam area of southeastern Arizona. He received the Ph. D. from the University of New Mexico in 1988. He is the author two dozen books and monographs, and more than 75 scholarly articles and book chapters, and a frequent contributor to Archaeology and other magazines. His current research includes field projects in southeastern Utah and southern New Mexico, and museum projects on Hohokam, Mogollon, and Anasazi collections. He is Curator of Anthropology at the University Museum of Natural History in Boulder, Colorado.

Dan Castro

Daniel A. Castro, Ph.D., is a community college instructor and advocate of higher education. Donning the on-air personality of Sancho, a cool-talking, joke-telling hip cat, for many years he hosted the weekly "Sancho Show," on radio station KPPC. The program showcased Chicano music "over the airwaves of Aztlán." Besides "The Sancho Show," Mr. Castro has also created the Quetzalcoatl Memorial Scholarship Fund (an ongoing tribute to Sancho's son who was killed in a car accident at the age of eight) and the highly successful annual Chicano Music Awards concerts. He launched these fundraising activities more than 15 years ago with one thought in mind: to encourage people of all ages to stay in school and continue their education. Sancho’s impetus for promoting education in the Chicano community was an alarming dropout level among Mexican American high school kids and the noticeably few Chicano students on college campuses. He has taught at Pasadena City College, East LA College and is currently dean of Los Angeles Trade Tech College. His community work and academic achievement have earned him the prestigious Ford Foundation Education Fellowship in Washington, D.C. and a Coro Public Affairs Fellowship in Los Angeles. More information on Dan Castro and the Sancho Show can be accessed at SANCHOSHOW.COM.

John Keilch

John F. Keilch is a policy analyst and historian who lives with his family in Berkeley, California, and works for the University of California's Office of the President inOakland. He previously
worked as a campus planner at U.C. Berkeley, a faculty member at Antioch University, and the planning director for the Oakland Citizens' Committee for Urban Renewal, the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation, and La Clínica de la Raza. Mr. Keilch graduated from Stanford University and received graduate degrees from Stanford and U.C. Berkeley, where he studied American history and urban planning. His interest in the social and environmental history of
California and the Southwest emerged from his childhood in SanDiego and Phoenix. His lecture topics have included "Classic California: Queen Calafía's Island in Global History" and "Southwest Passage: The Shores of Aztlán and the Civilizations of Mex-America." He has
presented his slide show about Aztlán to the Bay Area Environmental History Group, the California Studies Conference, the Arizona Historical Convention, the Society for California Archaeology Annual Meeting, and the California Indian Conference. Mr. Keilch is currently preparing a book entitled "Aztec Odyssey: The Mexican Millennium and the American Dream."

Dr. Carlos Velez-Ibañez

Carlos G. Velez-Ibañez is Professor of Anthropology and Presidential Chair in Anthropology of the University of California, Riverside. He is also Director of the Ernesto Galarza Applied Research Center and former Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences in the same institution. He is the author and co-editor of five books as well as numerous articles including the award winning Border Visions: The Cultures of Mexicans of the Southwest United States (1996: University of Arizona Press) and soon to be published Transnational Latina/o Communities: Culture, Process, and Politics (with Ana Sampaio and Manolo Gonzalez-Estoy, 2002: Rowman and Littlefield). He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a former Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study, Stanford. He was raised in Tucson, Arizona and received his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Arizona, and his Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego (1975).

Dr. Joseph Sanchez

Dr. Joseph P. Sánchez is superintendent of the Spanish Colonial Research Center, a partnership between the National Park Service and the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Before his career with the National Park Service, Dr. Sánchez was a professor of Colonial Latin American history at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He has also taught at the University of New Mexico, Santa Ana College in Southern California and at the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara in Mexico. His publications include: The Rio Abajo Frontier, 1540-1692 (1987); Pecos: Gateway to Pueblos and Plains (1988), co-edited with John Bezy; Spanish Bluecoats: The Catalonian Volunteers in Northwestern New Spain, 1767-1810 (1990); História de la Nueva México, 1610 by Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá (1992) co-edited with Miguel Encínias and Alfredo Rodríguez; The Aztec Chronicles: The True History of Christopher Columbus by Quilaztli of Texcoco (1995); Explorers, Traders, and Slavers: Forging the Old Spanish Trail, 1678-1850 (1997) and, Don Fernando Duran y Chaves's Legacy: A History of the Atrisco Land Grant, 1693-1968 (1999). His most recent book, published in Mexico City, is Memorias del Coloquio Internacional El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (2000), coedited with José de la Cruz Pacheco. Dr. Sánchez is also founder and editor of the Colonial Latin American Historical Review (CLAHR). Internationally recognized, in May 2000, he was awarded the Medalla de Acero al Mérito Histórico Capitán Alonso de León by the Sociedad Nuevoleonesa de Historia, Geografia y Estadistica, Monterrey, Mexico, for his lifelong work in Colonial Mexican
history.

María Elena Durazo

Since 1989 María Elena Durazo has served as President of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union, (H.E.R.E.) Local 11, AFL-CIO ( representing some 8000 tourism workers and their families--largely Latino and immigrant) and is also Vice President of the H.E.R.E. International Union. One of 10 children born to migrant parents from Northern Mexico, she joined them as a field worker on the migrant trail from Southern California to Oregon. The family's hard work enabled her to enter St. Mary's College in Moraga, California. The family's history inspired her to become a leader in the fight for immigrants' rights and the political empowerment of the immigrant community. From 1978 to 1981 María Elena organized sweatshop employees for the immigrant based International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union in Los Angeles. She supplemented her organizing skills with legal ones for the L.A. labor law firm of Levy & Goldman (1981-82) and served Local 11 as an arbitration specialist and organizer (1983-87). She earned her law degree in 1985. Her election as President of HERE Local 11 in 1989 made her the first Latino to head a major union. Under her leadership, Local 11 has won significant citywide hotel contracts in 1992 and 1998, increasing wages and benefits for thousands of hotel workers in throughout Los Angeles. María Elena recently assisted John W. Wilhelm, the General President of H.E.R.E. International Union, to successfully rethink and revise the American Labor Movement's past anti-immigrant policies. For the first time in its history, the labor movement is calling for the federal government to grant amnesty for immigrants. It is no wonder that she has been described by Los Angeles Times columnist Al Martinez as "a combination of Cesar Chavez and the Terminator in terms of her desire to get things done."

Dr. Frank Meza, M.D.

Dr. Frank Meza received B.A. and M.A. degrees in Journalism from California State University at Northridge (1972 and 1974), an M.P.H. degree in Epidemiology from U.C.L.A. (1974) and an M.D. degree from UC Davis (1978). Since 1983 he has been a partner at the Southern California Permanente Medical Group. He has been Physician in Charge at the East Los Angeles Kaiser facility since 1990 and has served on the Kaiser Regional and National Diversity Committees from 1992 to the present and has been a Kaiser Hospital Staff Physician from 1981 to the present. He has served on the teaching faculty of the Kaiser Family Practice Residency Program, the White Memorial Hospital Family Practice, the University of Southern California Clinical Program and the California Hispanic Medical Education Task Force. Dr. Meza has been honored by the American Diabetes Association with the Health Advocate Award (1998) and by the Kaiser North California Latino Physician Trailblazer Award (1999). He has served on the boards of the National Board of Medical Examiners (1979) and the American Academy of Family Practice Board of Certification (1981). He was a founder and served as National Chair of Chicanos for Creative Medicine (1972-75) and was on staff at the Brown Beret Barrio Free Clinic (1969-70). In 1983 he co-founded the Aztlán Track Club and has served as the President of the Aztlán Athletic Congress from 1983 to 1999.

Sara Mendoza

Sara Mendoza is a community activist and an advocate of the indigenous community. She has counseled at the pregnancy prevention program of Proyecto Pastoral in East Los Angeles, has trained in workshops on human rights, Indigenous people’s rights, and in women and adolescent girl’s leadership training. She has also taught Azteca danza extensively and has participated in the Indigenous Women’s Wellness Conference in Hawaii. She is currently Executive Director of the Los Angeles Indigenous People’s Alliance and is a consultant for the Cross Roots Institute for Fundraising Training.

María Brenes

María Brenes received a B.A. degree in Ethnic Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. While at Berkeley she was active as a MECHA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano Mexicano de Aztlán) representative and organizer of the Third World Liberation Front at UC Berkeley. In 1999 the Third World Liberation Front held a series of sit-ins and a hunger strike which ultimately led the University to reconsider its policy on the Ethnic Studies program and infuse the program with more funding and an expanded program. She has also participated as a youth organizer for in the Xicana Moratorium Coalition in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an organizer for the Peace and Dignity Journey which every four years since 1992 has organized an intercontinental run from Alaska to Panama and from Tierra del Fuego to Panama as an effort to unite indigenous nations. She is currently a Master's Candidate at the Harvard Graduate of Education is Student Body President for the Graduate Program.