Editors
Dr. Yolanda Chávez Leyva
Project Coordinator and Website Administrator
Yolanda Chávez Leyva is a Chicana historian and writer. 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, the teacher, and she works to learn from the huehuehtlahtolli, the ancestral teachings of ancient Mexico. 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.
She specializes in border history, public history, and Chicana history. Leyva has directed two recent public history projects: an oral history project with the Socorro community and a “museum for a day” project involving UTEP graduate students and high school students. She is completing 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 is also working on a manuscript titled Calling the Ancestors: Historical Memory, Indigenous Identity, and Chicana/o History, which explores the ways in which Chicana/os have lost, denied, and reclaimed ourselves as indigenous people from this continent.
![Drew Dungan Drew Dungan](../_Files/images/imageComingSoon.jpg)
Drew Dungan
Contributor to Public Spaces
Drew Dungan is working on his Masters in Communication at the University of Texas at El Paso. He received his BA in Print Media Communication from UTEP in 2006. He has taught English at Da Vinci School for Arts and the Sciences and is currently teaching Communication 1301 Public Speaking at UTEP.
![Sara Ramirez Sara Ramirez](../_Files/images/imageComingSoon.jpg)
Sara Ramirez
Contributor to Public Spaces
Sara Ramirez received her B. A. in History with a minor in Political Science from the University of Texas at El Paso in December, 2006. She is a member of the International Honor Society and Professional Association in Education, Pi Lambda Theta. Sara is currently in her second year in the Education master’s program at UTEP. She is also enrolled in the Teacher Alternative Certification Program. Sara hopes to receive certification to teach secondary education as well as a Master’s of Education as an Instructional Specialist in Interdisciplinary Studies in May, 2009. She teaches Reading ESL/ELL to freshman and sophomore students at J. M. Hanks High School. After receiving her certification and master’s she will begin her career as a teacher in an El Paso area high school.
![Nayeli Adriana Vera Santillanes Nayeli Adriana Vera Santillanes](../_Files/images/imageComingSoon.jpg)
Nayeli Adriana Vera Santillanes
Contributor to Public Spaces
Nayeli Adriana Vera Santillanes was born in Arechuyvo, Uruachi, Chihuahua, Mexico and lives in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. She has a B. A. in History from the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez and is a first year student in the Masters in History at the University of Texas at El Paso. She is a historian because she likes the history of her city and her country.
![Eva Nohemí Orozco Eva Nohemí Orozco](../_Files/images/imageComingSoon.jpg)
Eva Nohemí Orozco
Contributor to Neighborhoods
Born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, she is a PhD student at the University of Texas at El Paso’s Borderlands History Program. She got her BA in history from the Universidad de Guadalajara. She wrote her undergraduate thesis on “Los generales cristeros Enrique Gorostieta y Jesús Degollado Guízar”. She has a Master's degree from El Colegio de Sonora. Her Master's thesis was on “Salvador Abascal y la colonia sinarquistas María Auxiliadora, 1942-1944.” She has worked for such Mexican institutions as El Colegio de Sonora, the Instituto Jalisciense de Antropología e Historia, and the Archivo Histórico de Zapopan, Jalisco. Finally and for over two years she was a reporter, an editor and member of the Documentary Department of two Guadalajara newspapers.
![David Romo David Romo](../_Files/images/imageComingSoon.jpg)
![Steve Edwards Steve Edwards](../_Files/images/imageComingSoon.jpg)
Steve Edwards
Contributor to Living History
Steve Edwards earned his B.A. in History with a concentration in Modern Europe at the University of Kentucky in 1971, an MBA from the University of Kentucky in 1977, and is currently working toward an MA in History at the University of Texas-El Paso. He is a veteran world history and world geography teacher, who retired from the Ysleta Independent School District in 2005 where he was a finalist for Teacher of the Year in 2003. During his teaching career, he served as department chair, small school liaison leader for the Galileo Observatory, and director of the engineering pathway at Riverside High School. Currently, he teaches history at the El Paso Community College. Among his research interests are working toward a redemptive identity for people of northern European descent structured outside the context of racism, Holocaust studies of the Roma and homosexual communities, and exploring bridges to create a positive United States presence in the international community
![Eduardo “Eddie” Garcia Eduardo “Eddie” Garcia](../_Files/images/imageComingSoon.jpg)
Eduardo “Eddie” Garcia
Contributor to Living History
Eduardo García is a native of the Juárez-El Paso borderland. His parents are migrants, and he currently resides in El Paso. Eduardo received his B.A. in History at the University of Texas at El Paso in 2007, where he is currently a Master of Arts candidate, focusing on borderland history. His interests in history are race, class, and power relations. As a lifetime resident of the U.S.-México border, he is a witness to the complexity of the border. Through history, he wishes to further understand and document the dynamics found there.
![Denise Loya Denise Loya](../_Files/images/imageComingSoon.jpg)
Denise Loya
Contributor to Living History
Denise Loya is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in History at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), focusing on Latin American history, borderlands, and transnational feminism. She earned her B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2001. Later, in 2006, she received an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from UTEP, focusing on Spanish and American Literature, and History, with a certification in Women’s Studies. She went on to work in the public school system as a teacher for four years, in her hometown of El Paso, Texas. After receiving her master’s degree, she began working for the Institute of Oral History at UTEP, where she currently serves as a graduate assistant for the Bracero Oral History Project. She is also employed by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History as an independent consultant for the same project
![Lina Murillo Lina Murillo](../_Files/images/imageComingSoon.jpg)
Lina Murillo
Tech Team and Website Assistant Administrator
Lina Murillo is a native Californian whose parents are immigrants from Bogota, Colombia. She received her B.A. in History with a minor in Raza Studies from San Francisco State University in 2007. She is part of the YWCA Oral History Project in the Paso de Norte Region. Lina currently resides in El Paso, Texas and is pursuing a PhD. in Borderland History at the University of Texas at El Paso.
![Michael Reese Michael Reese](../_Files/images/imageComingSoon.jpg)
Michael Reese
Tech Team and Photographer
Michael Reese was born in Omaha, Nebraska and grew up in South Dakota. He received his B.A. in theology at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, Texas in 2001. He then worked at a therapeutic wilderness camp for male juvenile sex offenders for two years. In 2003, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served with the First Cavalry Division in East Baghdad in 2004 and 2005. Reese is currently attending the University of Texas at El Paso and will earn his M.A. in history in May of 2009 and begin a career in secondary education
![Jaime R. Ruiz Jaime R. Ruiz](../_Files/images/imageComingSoon.jpg)
Jaime R. Ruiz
Tech Team and Website Assistant Administrator
Jaime R. Ruiz is a second year Ph D student at the University of Texas at El Paso’s Borderlands History program. He has a B. A. in International Relations from the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico and a M.A. in Latin American and Borders Studies from UTEP. His areas of interest are migration in U.S./Mexico borderlands, Latin American history (Argentinean history), and gender studies. He has worked for a non-governmental organization and the private sector. He also has been part of several projects within the History, Political Science, and Latin American and Border Studies departments at UTEP. He currently is a Teacher Assistant at UTEP's History Department.