Maribel Alvarez

Maribel Alvarez holds a dual appointment as Assistant Research Professor in the English Department and Research Social Scientist at the Southwest Center, University of Arizona. She teaches courses on cultural studies and serves as the University’s Public Folklorist, charged with interpreting the regional culture of Northern Mexico and the U.S. Southwest through research, exhibitions, symposia, and other public programs. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Arizona and a Masters Degree in Political Theory from California State University. She is currently writing a book on artisans, artisanal labor, and the marginal crafts or “tourist kitsch” of the U.S.-Mexico border. From 1996 to 2002, she served as the Executive Director of Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA), a multidisciplinary urban arts space in San Jose, California that she also co-founded. Under her leadership, MACLA became nationally recognized for its sophisticated innovation in community arts. In 2001, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts recognized MACLA as one of the 25 most effective alternative art spaces in the country. She was born in Cuba, grew up in Puerto Rico, has done ethnographic fieldwork in Northern Mexico, and has been involved in the Chicano arts movement for more than 20 years.