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. Sanchos
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 peoples rights, and in women and adolescent
girls leadership training. She has also taught Azteca danza extensively
and has participated in the Indigenous Womens Wellness Conference
in Hawaii. She is currently Executive Director of the Los Angeles Indigenous
Peoples 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.
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