I was born in Austin, but moved with my family to Denton, Texas, about forty miles north of Dallas and Fort Worth, when I was two years old. I lived in Denton until 2014 when my husband Brian and I moved to Fort Worth to start my ventures in the PhD program at TCU.

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I became interested in studying the black and brown freedom movements in Texas in large part because of my family history. My maternal grandparents, Olivia and Antonio Chávez, are from Sonora, Texas, a small town in Southwest Texas located about half way between San Angelo and Del Rio. As Mexican Americans, they grew up in a segregated neighborhood, attended segregated schools, and often faced the same kinds of Jim Crow discrimination and intimidation as black Americans. Having attended public schools, I learned of the civil rights movement in which African Americans participated, but never heard or learned of the history of discrimination that Mexican Americans faced and worked to resist in Texas. Such an egregious omission inspired my desire to illuminate the roles of black and brown activists who built coalitions to dismantle systems of oppression.

 

When not working, my husband and I love to travel, especially to national and state parks. I love to watch documentaries, read non-fiction (non-history) books, and play tennis, My favorite TV shows are Mad Men, Downton Abbey, ER, and a healthy plethora of reality TV shows on Bravo. 

 

Brian and I have been married since 2013. We have one son, Adrian, a dog named Marlowe, and a cat named Murphy.