Elizabeth Astorga Gaxiola

Elizabeth Astorga Gaxiola is a Latina interdisciplinary scholar and first-generation college student. Born in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico and raised both in her home country and in Nogales, Arizona, located on the US/Mexico border. Her transnational identity has cultivated her research and teaching interests. She started her academic journey at Pima Community College. She later gained her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with a Spanish minor and her Master of Arts in Education with a focus on Indigenous and Multicultural Education and Language Planning & Policy, at the University of Arizona. She taught Social Justice in Education and Youth Activism in Social Movements undergraduate courses at the University of Arizona. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies Department at the University of Arizona with a focus in Social Justice & Diversity and Immigration and Education. Her minor is Mexican American Studies with a focus on borderland studies. Her scholarly interests are immigration, US/México border studies, structural violence against immigrants, immigration and education, youth activism in social movements, social justice and diversity, language maintenance and revitalization, artivism, and arts-based literacies and pedagogies.