Dr. Yolanda Chávez Leyva
Dr. Yolanda Chávez Leyva is a Chicana historian and writer who was born and raised on the border. She specializes in border history, public history, and Chicana history and is the founding director of the Borderlands Public History Lab and co-founder of Museo Urbano. She also directs the Institute of Oral History. She served as the Chair of the Department of History (2010-2015) and is an Associate Professor. She has spent her life listening to and now documenting the lives of people who live on la frontera. Her life calling is that of temachtiani, Nahuatl for teacher, and she works to learn from the huehuehtlahtolli, the ancestral teachings of ancient Mexico. Dr. Leyva is currently revising a manuscript titled, Cruzando la Linea: Mexican Children on the Texas-Mexico Border, which investigates the ways in which the presence of children has shaped the border historically. She has published numerous articles on Chicana, lesbian and border history. In addition, she has published poetry in Ixhua, La Voz de Esperanza, and Cantos al Sexto Sol.