Jorge Argueta
Poet and award-winning author of dozens of popular books for children and young adults, including Caravan to the North, Sopa de frijoles/Bean Soup, and A Movie in My Pillow/Una pelicula en mi almohada. Learn more.

Mario Bencastro
Award-winning writer and artist. His books include Odyssey to the North, A Promise to Keep, Waves of the East River, and El Niño de Maíz / The Boy of Maize. Bio.

Wendy Bermúdez
Dual Language Immersion Coordinator, Arlington Public Schools

Jorge E. Cuéllar
Assistant professor at Dartmouth College and a scholar of politics, culture, and daily life in modern Central America. His research and teaching focus on Central American Studies, Cultural Studies, Race, Migration, and Critical Social Theory. Learn more.

Cintia Marizel Bernárdez García
A proud member of the Garífuna community of Santa Rosa de Aguan, Colón, Honduras. She has won many awards for her work as an educator, teacher trainer, social scientist, and writer. Her literary, anthropological and educational work aims to celebrate and preserve Garífuna cultural heritage, folklore, and history. Her children's books include Walȋha garífuna 1, Walȋha garífuna 2 (Leamos Garífuna 1 y 2), Colorear y aprender animales en lengua Garífuna, Wabahüda lau garífuna (Contemos en Garífuna), and Wagücha.

M. Yianella Blanco, Ph.D.
Assistant professor, University of California Davis​ School of Education. Bio.

Floridalma Boj Lopez
Dr. Flori Boj Lopez (she/her) is an assistant professor in the UCLA Department of Chicanx and Central American Studies. She uses a transborder approach to analyze the experiences of Maya migrants as they cross settler colonial borders and encounter distinct racial logics in the United States to deeply consider how they organize and respond to these structures of violence. She’s led professional development for educators in multiple states and continues to partner with projects that seek to bring Central American Studies to K-12 classrooms in Los Angeles. Read more.

Bree'ya Brown
Bree’ya Brown (she/her/ella) is a Panamanian American Digital Archivist at the University of North Texas. As a librarian archivist, Bree'ya focuses on the long-term preservation and accessibility of digitized and born-digital archival materials in a variety of formats. She also teaches Black Latin American courses with a concentration on human agency and the environment. Her research interests and publications center around Central American Studies, Library Science, and Archival Studies.

Marcy Campos
Marcy Campos is a volunteer with the Teaching Central America campaign. She has worked in Central and South America on participatory evaluation projects, the development of women’s leadership, and strengthening community-based organizations. She was on staff at the National Council of La Raza (now UnidosUS) and American University where she headed the Center for Community Engagement & Service and teaches a class called “The Latino Community of the D.C. Metro Area.” Bio.

Jennifer A. Cárcamo
Jennifer is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at UCLA and visiting scholar at Rutgers University in the Center of Latin American Studies. She is the director of the films Eternos Indocumentados and Children of the Diaspora.

Melanie Cerritos
Instructional Specialist, DCPS Early Childhood Education Division

Faye Colon
High School U.S. History Teacher

Ingrid T. Colón, Ed.D. 
Ingrid T. Colón is an education research program manager at UnidosUS. Her research focuses on the experiences of recently arrived immigrant families and their children in public schools, English learners, culturally and linguistically responsive classrooms, and dual language education. Learn more.

Ariana A. Curtis, Ph.D.
Curator for Latinx History and Culture at National Museum of African American History and Culture. TED Talk. Bio.

Anthony Fontes
Assistant Professor, School of International Service, American University. Bio.

Juan Pablo Gómez
Juan Pablo Gómez works at the Latin American Library, Tulane University. He has a Ph.D. in Latin American Cultural and Literary Studies from Ohio State University and an M.A. in Social Sciences from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO).  He has held teaching and research positions at the Institute of Nicaraguan and Central American History, at Central American University (IHNCA-UCA) in Managua, and at the Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences (AVANCSO) in Guatemala. His research interests include Central American and Nicaraguan history, culture, and memory.

Richard Grossman                  
Instructor, Northeastern Illinois University, Department of History. Bio. 

Ana Sol Gutierrez
First Latina and Salvadoran elected official to the Maryland General Assembly. Bio.

Muriel Hasbun
Artist, Educator, Founder and Director at laberinto projects. Bio. Also see: Advisor Spotlight.

Stephanie M. Huezo, Ph.D.
Dr. Huezo is assistant professor of history at Fordham University. Her research focuses on community organizing, Central American revolutions, and immigrant activism. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Popular Education Liberates. Learn more.

Emil’ Keme (aka Emilio del Valle Escalante) is an Indigenous K’iche’ Maya scholar from Iximulew (Land of Corn, and the K’iche’ name for Guatemala), and professor of English and Indigenous studies at Emory University. He is a first-generation college graduate. His teaching and research focus on contemporary Indigenous literatures and social movements, Central American-American literatures and cultures, and postcolonial and subaltern studies theory. His books include Le Maya Q’atzij/Our Maya Word. Poetics of Resistance in Guatemala (2021; Spanish, 2020 and 2022) and Maya Nationalisms and Postcolonial Challenges in Guatemala (2009; Spanish 2008). Keme is a co-founding member of the binational Maya anti-colonial collective, Community of Maya Studies, Ix’balamquej Junajpu Wunaq’, and volunteers as a cultural advisor for the International Mayan League in Washington, D.C. He is also a trustee of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. 

Lauren Markham
Reporter, writing teacher, and author of The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and The Making of an American Life. (Available also in a young readers edition.) Her work most often concerns issues related to youth, migration, the environment, and her home state of California. Learn more.

Cindy Mata, M.Ed., M.A.
Cindy Mata is a proud Guanaca, who was born in El Salvador and moved to the United States as a young child. She is a former high school and middle school history teacher and is currently the director of the University of California, Irvine (UCI) History Project. Her current work involves providing high-quality professional development for history and Ethnic Studies educators in California. A particular area of focus of her work and academic pursuits focuses on how to best infuse Central American Studies in K-12 classrooms.

Paul Joseph López Oro, Ph.D.
Dr. Paul Joseph López Oro is the author of the forthcoming manuscript Indigenous Blackness: The Queer Politics of Self-Making Garifuna New York. This is a critical ethnography on how gender and sexuality shape the ways in which trans-generational Garifuna New Yorkers of Central American Caribbean descent negotiate, articulate, and perform at the intersections of their multiple subjectivities as Black, Indigenous, and Central American Caribbean Latinxs. 

Learn more about Dr. Paul Joseph López Oro’s work.

Yajaira M. Padilla
Professor of English and Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Her research centers on Central American cultural and literary studies and Central Americans in a U.S. Latino context. She is the author of Changing Women, Changing Nation: Female Agency, Nationhood, and Identity in Trans-Salvadoran Narratives (SUNY 2012), From Threatening Guerrillas to Forever Illegals: US Central Americans and the Cultural Politics of Non-belonging (University of Texas Press 2022), as well several articles and book chapters. 

Claudia A. Portillo
Co-founder, Central American Historical and Ancestral Society of California

Ana Patricia Rodríguez
Associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and U.S. Latina/o Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of Dividing the Isthmus: Central American Transnational Histories, Literatures, and Cultures. Learn more.

Patrick Scallen
Adjunct Professor of History/Latinx Studies, American University. Editor, Washington History Magazine.

Viky Sosa
ESOL teacher, Silver Spring International Middle School, MCPS

Miriam Elizabeth Villanueva is a Latin American historian with a specialization in Latin American dictatorships during the Cold War, with a particular focus on the Panamanian military regime's cultural policy to nationalize the Panama Canal during the height of the US-USSR conflict. Her approach to research incorporates interdisciplinary methods, cultural theory, and oral histories conducted over five years. Through her work, she aims to shed light on the experiences of Panamanian intellectuals and artists. Read more.