My name is Rebekah Reneé Grado. I am the eldest

of two siblings (pictured above). Our family has been located in El Paso, Texas

for more than three generations, and our family members have either been born

in the United States or became naturalized citizens some two generations back. Unfortunately, due to what I suspect are the racial tensions present in the area pre-civil rights movement and an attempt to assimilate (or mollify said tension), neither the Spanish language nor its culture were terribly important to my upbringing. So now, professionally & personally, I am finding it necessary to learn a bit about myself, via my culture’s history and legacy (from its Spanish and Native origins, to Mexican history, up to the present day US/MX border relationship). I am also learning to read and speak the language in the process.

 

It is in the unique history of which I happen to be a part that I hope to secure footing in perusing avenues for academic inquiry. The theoretical movement that has thus far had the largest influence on my work is that of postcolonialism and its founding notions put forth by Homi Bhabha, Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak. What they have done with the legacies of various theoretical and critical schools of thought (like Semiology, Marxism and Critical Race Studies) for South Asia, I would like to do for Mexico and South America in ways that Chicano Studies and critics like Gloria Anzaldua have left to developing scholars, like myself, in the areas of literary criticism and beyond.