Dr. Dulcinea Lara
Professor
Office: 242 Garcia Center
Dr. Dulcinea Lara was born and raised in a colonia in Southern New Mexico by parents who both have multiple-generations worth of roots in these lands. She holds a doctorate in Comparative Ethnic Studies from the University of California at Berkeley.She is the inaugural department head of the Borderlands and Ethnic Studies Department, a department struggled for by community, students, and faculty at NMSU since the late 1960s. Her research and public-facing work is multi-faceted and trans-disciplinary. It includes the co-creation of an Ethnic Studies museum exhibition, Pasos Ajenos; K-12 Ethnic Studies curriculum development in partnership with educators, students, and the New Mexico Public Education Department; a Peoples of New Mexico film series; and most recently a piece co-authored with her colleague, Manal Hamzeh, titled “Struggle on Struggle: Rooting in Ancestral Fugitive Resistance Victories to Build an Ethnic Studies Sumud Movement in New Mexico” a reflection work that builds land-based solidarity between Palestinians and New Mexicans in shared struggle. Dr. Lara’s areas of interest include visual cultural studies, decolonial studies in service to understanding Borderlands colonias, and museum and representation studies.
