Patricia Zavella is an anthropologist and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Latin American and Latino Studies department. [1] She has spent a career advancing Latina and Chicana feminism through her scholarship, teaching, and activism. [2] She was president of the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists and has served on the executive board of the American Anthropological Association. [3] In 2016, Zavella received the American Anthropological Association's award from the Committee on Gender Equity in Anthropology to recognize her career studying gender discrimination. [2] The awards committee said Zavella's career accomplishments advancing the status of women, and especially Latina and Chicana women have been exceptional. She has made critical contributions to understanding how gender, race, nation, and class intersect in specific contexts through her scholarship, teaching, advocacy, and mentorship. Zavella's research focuses on migration, gender and health in Latina/o communities, Latino families in transition, feminist studies, and ethnographic research methods. She has worked on many collaborative projects, including an ongoing partnership with Xóchitl Castañeda where she wrote four articles some were in English and others in Spanish. The Society for the Anthropology of North America awarded Zavella the Distinguished Career Achievement in the Critical Study of North America Award in the year 2010. She has published many books including, most recently, I'm Neither Here Nor There, Mexicans' Quotidian Struggles with Migration and Poverty (Duke University Press, 2011), which focuses on working class Mexican Americans struggle for agency and identity in Santa Cruz County.
Patricia Zavella was born in 1949 in Tampa, Florida, the oldest of twelve children in a working-class family and often cared for her siblings. Her parents were both born in the United States and the primary language spoken in her family was English. Her father worked in the air force and they moved frequently when she was a child. Zavella was often one of very few Mexican-American children in the schools she attended. Her teachers were often amazed at Zavella's stellar performance in the classroom. At the age of ten, her family settled in Ontario in Southern California where there were more Mexican-Americans in her classrooms; this triggered her critical thinking about race relations and the Spanish language. [4] In 1968, Zavella went to Chaffey Community College, in Alta Loma near her family's home. There she was influenced by both Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez and became involved with the Chicano/a movement. This made her become a student activist supporting some of the first classes in Mexican-American studies. Her recollections of these early days of the movement are a vital part of this oral history. During August 1970 Zavella participated in the Chicano Moratorium along with approximately 25,000 other activists who protested in East Los Angeles against the Vietnam War. She began to claim an identity as a Chicana when she joined MECA [Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán].
Zavella completed her BA in anthropology at Pitzer College and after that she attended graduate school at UC Berkeley, where she earned her PhD in anthropology in 1982. [4] Her dissertation Women's Work in Chicano Families: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley developed into her first book. There was an influence in social movements on Zavella's identity formation and search for community-centered knowledge. Zavella was one of the first scholars to analyze the intersections of race, gender, class for Chicana women workers, a research approach that emerged from feminist of color activisms of the late 1960s and 1970s. [4]
Zavella's scholarship has been recognized as providing a base and a foundation for Latina and Chicana feminist studies. She is also interested in the movement for reproductive justice, family, poverty, sexuality, transnational migration by Mexicans, Chicana-Latina studies, feminism, ethnographic research methods. Her affiliations are Research Center for the Americas, Feminist Studies Department, Anthropology Department, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Community Studies Program. Her teaching experience cover the topics of migration, gender and health in Latina/o communities, Latino families in transition, Latina/o ethnographic practice, criminalizing the poor, migration, borders and borderlands. [6]
Patricia Zavella is an anthropologist and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Latin American and Latino Studies department. [1] She has spent a career advancing Latina and Chicana feminism through her scholarship, teaching, and activism. [2] She was president of the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists and has served on the executive board of the American Anthropological Association. [3] In 2016, Zavella received the American Anthropological Association's award from the Committee on Gender Equity in Anthropology to recognize her career studying gender discrimination. [2] The awards committee said Zavella's career accomplishments advancing the status of women, and especially Latina and Chicana women have been exceptional. She has made critical contributions to understanding how gender, race, nation, and class intersect in specific contexts through her scholarship, teaching, advocacy, and mentorship. Zavella's research focuses on migration, gender and health in Latina/o communities, Latino families in transition, feminist studies, and ethnographic research methods. She has worked on many collaborative projects, including an ongoing partnership with Xóchitl Castañeda where she wrote four articles some were in English and others in Spanish. The Society for the Anthropology of North America awarded Zavella the Distinguished Career Achievement in the Critical Study of North America Award in the year 2010. She has published many books including, most recently, I'm Neither Here Nor There, Mexicans' Quotidian Struggles with Migration and Poverty (Duke University Press, 2011), which focuses on working class Mexican Americans struggle for agency and identity in Santa Cruz County.
Patricia Zavella was born in 1949 in Tampa, Florida, the oldest of twelve children in a working-class family and often cared for her siblings. Her parents were both born in the United States and the primary language spoken in her family was English. Her father worked in the air force and they moved frequently when she was a child. Zavella was often one of very few Mexican-American children in the schools she attended. Her teachers were often amazed at Zavella's stellar performance in the classroom. At the age of ten, her family settled in Ontario in Southern California where there were more Mexican-Americans in her classrooms; this triggered her critical thinking about race relations and the Spanish language. [4] In 1968, Zavella went to Chaffey Community College, in Alta Loma near her family's home. There she was influenced by both Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez and became involved with the Chicano/a movement. This made her become a student activist supporting some of the first classes in Mexican-American studies. Her recollections of these early days of the movement are a vital part of this oral history. During August 1970 Zavella participated in the Chicano Moratorium along with approximately 25,000 other activists who protested in East Los Angeles against the Vietnam War. She began to claim an identity as a Chicana when she joined MECA [Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán].
Zavella completed her BA in anthropology at Pitzer College and after that she attended graduate school at UC Berkeley, where she earned her PhD in anthropology in 1982. [4] Her dissertation Women's Work in Chicano Families: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley developed into her first book. There was an influence in social movements on Zavella's identity formation and search for community-centered knowledge. Zavella was one of the first scholars to analyze the intersections of race, gender, class for Chicana women workers, a research approach that emerged from feminist of color activisms of the late 1960s and 1970s. [4]
Zavella's scholarship has been recognized as providing a base and a foundation for Latina and Chicana feminist studies. She is also interested in the movement for reproductive justice, family, poverty, sexuality, transnational migration by Mexicans, Chicana-Latina studies, feminism, ethnographic research methods. Her affiliations are Research Center for the Americas, Feminist Studies Department, Anthropology Department, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Community Studies Program. Her teaching experience cover the topics of migration, gender and health in Latina/o communities, Latino families in transition, Latina/o ethnographic practice, criminalizing the poor, migration, borders and borderlands. [6]