Desirée A. Martín
Desirée A. Martín is Associate Professor of English at UC Davis, with a specialization in Chicanx and Latinx Studies and further interests in media studies, life-writing and memoir, c20/21 American studies and U.S.-Mexico border studies. She is the author of Borderlands Saints: Secular Sanctity in Chicano/a and Mexican Culture (Rutgers, 2013), and has published both critical essays and hybrid creative-critical pieces. Her current book project, Fake Chicanx: Making and Breaking Latinx Identities, explores the idea that it is counterproductive and ultimately impossible to identify unified, cohesive Chicanx and/or Latinx identities. It argues that the range of practices and feelings that people use to refuse or challenge representations of “authentic” Latinx identities are, in fact, the very things that constitute the continually evolving identities of Chicanx and Latinx people.