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MAS Teachers' Academy Faculty 

UTSA MAS Faculty

Dr. Lilliana Patricia Saldaña is a Xicana activist scholar from Yanawana, occupied territory known as San Antonio, Texas, and is an Associate Professor of Mexican American Studies (MAS) at UTSA where she co-directs the MAS Teacher's Academy. Her research draws from Chicanx Studies methodologies, decolonial theories, and Chicana feminist thought to examine teacher identity and consciousness, epistemic struggles in education, and schooling practices. She has published in various journals and is co-editor of Latinas and the Politics of Urban Space with Dr. Sharon Navarro, and Entre el Sur y el Norte: Decolonizing Education through Critical Readings of Chicana/x/o, Mexican, and Indigenous Music with Dr. Marco Cervantes. Over the past eight years, Saldaña has collaborated on statewide organizing efforts to expand MAS in Texas K-12 schools through NACCS Tejas Foco MAS PreK-12 Committee. As a local scholar, she also serves on the boards of organizations like the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center which promotes social justice through cultural arts programming and historical preservation, and the Mexican American Civil Rights Institute (MACRI), which is dedicated to chronicling civil rights milestones. 
Dr. Gloria Vásquez Gonzáles is from Temple, Texas. She earned her Ph.D. in Culture, Literacy, and Language from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her research, “Las invisibles: Women of the Tejano music industry,” draws from Chicana feminist methodologies to center the voices of Mexican American women and how they negotiated their labor in a male-dominated scene that typically deemed their labor as clerical, rather than specialized. Dr. Vásquez Gonzáles is currently a Faculty Fellow with the Democratizing Racial Justice Project, funded by the Mellon Foundation, and is co-investigator with Dr. Sylvia Mendoza of “The West Side Sound Oral History Project,” a cultural preservation project that aims to document and display the community history involved in the creation of this music. In addition, she teaches undergraduate courses in the Mexican American Studies Program and is Co-director of the MAS Teachers’ Academy, of which she has served as graduate research assistant, coordinator, and faculty since its inception in 2015.

Doctoral Students 

Professor Olga Estrada is a fifth-year doctoral student in the Culture, Literacy, and Language program at UTSA. She is currently a Democratizing Social Justice fellow through the Andrew W. Mellon grant. As part of the Department of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality, she teaches Intro to Women, Gender, Intro to LGBTQ Studies, and Chicanx Queer Communities, Identities, and Theories. As an Anzaldúan theorist, her research interest is centered on decolonial Chicana feminist theory and epistemology. Her current research involves critical autoethnography to explore the experience of being a queer Chicanx in higher education. She has been a summer graduate research assistant for the MAS Teachers’ Academy for four consecutive years. 
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Josie Garcia is a doctoral candidate at The University of Arizona’s Center for the Study of Higher Education. Her research interests include college access and retention of historically underrepresented students. Garcia’s dissertation examines the perceptions of students who were enrolled in a Mexican American Studies dual credit course at a South Texas high school and how their experiences have influenced navigating college. Garcia has served as a pro-bono consultant for the academy for four years, contributing as a faculty/lecturer and organizer. 

Digital Strategist 

A Latinx LGBTQ Teacher from South Texas that utilizes TikTok to bring authenticity, advocacy, and action to her students, community, and culture. When she is not in the classroom sharing her passion for books with her students, she is engaging, learning and collaborating. She empowers young minds to think critically, respect differences, and become agents of positive change. Ms. Peña has been featured in various podcasts and articles while also partnering with Crayola and the Human Rights Campaign. Ms. Peña is excited in furthering her education in the MAS Graduate Certificate Program at UTSA. 
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Community Partner 

Aurelio M. Montemayor, M.Ed., (pronouns he/him/el) is IDRA’s Family EngagementCoordinator. Currently serving as the professional development team leader for IDRA, he brings extensive experience in working with school personnel, parents and students. His career in education spans four decades and has included teaching at the high school, middle school and elementary school levels. Mr. Montemayor believes in the power of community engagement for leadership development and effective education. He was the lead developer of IDRA’s Family Leadership in Education model. One sustained effort of the leadership process is with ARISE, a south Texas community organization, where a new Education CAFE (formerly called Community PTA) was organized that epitomizes the IDRA family leadership process. In 1970 he was co-founder of Colegio Jacinto Trevino, the first Chicano college. He also co-developed El Curso de la Raza, a three-day retreat to catalyze concientización and increase leadership in the Chicano Movement. Mr. Montemayor received a bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy from St. Edwards University in Austin and a master’s degree in bilingual education from Juarez-Lincoln-Antioch Graduate School of Education in Ohio.