Job title:
Ph.D. Student
Department:
Graduate School of Education
Bio/CV:
Cristina S. Méndez (she/ella) is a Chicana educator, scholar, and poet. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley and is also a member of the designated emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization. Her research focuses on the lived experiences and sense-making of Maya Mam women lideresas who organize for the vitality of their language and culture, as well as for the wellbeing of their communities across Guatemala, México, and the United States. Cristina engages in collaborative research with Mam community members on projects of language reclamation through which she examines how reclamation movements offer the potential for coalition-building and pedagogical innovations for a decolonial future. She is currently a Graduate Affiliate at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at UC Berkeley. She was a 2023 Poetry and the Senses Fellow at the Arts Research Center.
