María Elena Fernández

Born and raised in East Hollywood, the daughter of Mexico City migrants, María Elena Fernández is a writer, performer and professor. Her essays and poetry have been published in the anthologies Somos Xicanas, Voices from the Ancestors and Remembering Frida. Her full-length solo shows include Confessions of a Cha Cha Feminist and the poetry performance, Ancestral Body Navegante. Her most recent creative endeavor is as director and one of the writers and performers of the ensemble performance “Pachucxs Revisited” at Cal State Northridge (CSUN). She teaches history courses in the Chicana/o Studies Department at CSUN and is one of the featured historians in the PBS docu-series American Historia. (Photo credit: Alma Lopez)