Ph.D. in Latin American and Latino Studies and Anthropology
I am a scholar of queerness, gender and sexuality, migration, memory, Latinx studies, dance studies, Indigenous Performances, P’urhépecha Studies, and queer Indigenous research methodologies. I am a queer Indigenous P’urhépecha and mestizo scholar (the son of a mestiza mother and a P’urhépecha father) originally from Tangancícuaro, Michoacán, México. I hold a bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education, with a concentration in History from Normal Superior Juana de Asbaje, a master’s degree in Teaching History from Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, and an M.A. in Latin American and Latino Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. In the spring of 2025, I completed my doctoral program in Latin American and Latino Studies and Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
My scholarship and poetry have been included in different collections in Spanish, English, and P’urhépecha, including the Genealogy Journal, Wicazo Sa Review, Pasados: Recovering Histories, Imagining Latinidad, and Los Angeles Review of Books.
I am a member and co-founder of the P’urhépecha Working Group Parákata-Tzintzún and the P’urhépecha Studies Collective.
Photo by Evan Ho
Research
In the last decade, my research has centered on the study of the P’urhépecha group in Michoacán and the United States. First, through my master’s program in Teaching History, I conducted an oral history research project with students from the Patamban’s middle school, with whom we collected histories of their town through the oral tradition. The histories were assembled into a book published by the Universidad Michoacana Press. I have also participated in different projects of recollection of histories of immigrants in my hometown, Tangancícuaro, as well as documenting the work of local artisans. In my current research, I focus on examining gender binary rituals and sexual narratives within P’urhépechas in Michoacán, the Pacific Coast, and the Midwest in the United States. I also analyze the counter-hegemonic responses queer P’urhépechas design to respond to homophobia and anti-gay violence within their communities in both sites of the border. For example, through danzas, customary practices, community service, or by migrating to urban areas.
Fiesta Cristo Rey Chiquito. Patamban, Michoacán. Photo by Mario A. Gómez Zamora