An interdisciplinary Chicana feminist teacher and scholar, Dr. Sara Ramírez connects with her Mexican heritage through analyzing and appreciating Chicanx literature. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Texas State University where she explores the representations and identities of Chicanx artists and their works. Dr. Ramírez comes from a working-class background, and she is a first-generation college graduate and daughter of immigrants from northern Mexico. She credits her parents as her first teachers who inspired her to pursue a career in higher education.

After attending K-12 public schools, Dr. Ramírez went to the University of Notre Dame where she earned her bachelor’s degree in English with a pre-med concentration. Initially, she entered college with the intention of attending medical school to jump-start her career in gastroenterology. However, she was enamored with English literature and reflected on her career path. Dr. Ramírez states, “I took the MCAT and began applications for medical school, but I realized I liked writing and thinking about literature a lot more.” She notes that Melville, Whitman, and Thoreau were some of her favorite authors to study during her undergraduate degree.

Encouraged by her undergraduate mentor Dr. Theresa Delgadillo, Dr. Ramírez decided to continue her English studies under the mentorship of Dr. Sonia Saldívar-Hull at the University of Texas at San Antonio’s graduate program.  Dr. Ramírez found her passion for Chicana feminist literature while working under the renowned scholars Dr. Saldívar-Hull, Dr. Norma E. Cantú, and Dr. Ben V. Olguín during her English master’s degree at UTSA. She also “trained with intellectual giants” during her second master’s program and doctoral program in Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her mentors included Paola Bacchetta, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Michael Omi, Laura E. Pérez, José David Saldívar, and Ronald Takaki. In her interview responses, Dr. Ramírez emphasizes her gratitude for her mentors, “I give you these names as one way to honor my academic and professional lineage. No one does this kind of work alone.”

Upon completion of her advanced degrees, Dr. Ramírez enrolled in a postdoc program at the University of Minnesota and applied to Texas State University to work as an English professor. At Texas State, she teaches numerous courses that highlight the narratives of Chicanx authors and women of color. In particular, she is looking forward to teaching an undergraduate course on women in literature in the spring of 2021 where she will “[travel] through time-space” with her students. This course is an extension of Dr. Ramírez’s ongoing research that she describes as an examination of the “sociopolitical and psychological significance of cultural productions by queer Chicanx artists, who strive to decolonize ontological assumptions through their works.”

Dr. Ramírez’s research is outlined in her manuscript that is tentatively titled Lo/Cura: Expanding Subjects of Trauma and Chicanx Cultural Productions, which samples and analyzes the creative works of Gloria E. Anzaldua, Virginia Grise, Adelina Anthony, ire’ne lara silva, Andrea Muñoz Martinez, and Sarah Castillo. Additionally, Dr. Ramírez is working on research that evaluates the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty of color in the United States. Because of the pandemic, she had to postpone her research in Galveston on a nineteenth-century Mexican-American visual artist who she believes is the inspiration for Luis Gonzaga in Jovita González’s historical novel Caballero.

Delainey Alexander, Department of English Teaching Assistant and M.A.in Technical Communication Student