Dr. Cynthia Bejarano
About
Education
Dr. Bejarano, a native of Anthony, NM, received her BA and MA from New Mexico State University, and her Ph.D. from Arizona State University, School of Justice Studies (Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in the School of Justice Studies) August 2001.
Research and Teaching Areas
Dr. Bejarano's publications and research interests focus on border violence, youth cultures, immigration issues, and gender violence at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Courses
- Women and Human Rights
- Gender and Migration
- Women Crossing Borders
Bio
Cynthia Bejarano, a native of southern New Mexico, is a Regents Professor in Gender and Sexuality Studies and the College of Arts and Sciences Stan Fulton Endowed Chair at New Mexico State University. Since joining NMSU in 2001, her research has focused on embodied border experiences with violence, immigration and migration, and gender-based violence and feminicidios at the U.S.-Mexico border. With Rosa-Linda Fregoso, she co-edited Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Américas (2010), published with Duke University Press. The anthology was also published in Spanish by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (2011). Cynthia has written extensively on feminicides and other forms of violence in El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and southern New Mexico. She is also the author of Que Onda: Urban Youth Culture and Border Identity (2005), and she recently co-edited with Cristina Morales, Frontera Madre(hood): Brown Mothers Challenging Oppression and Transborder Violence at the U.S.-Mexico Border (2024); both books are published with the University of Arizona Press.
In 2014, she served as a tribunal judge for the Tribunal Permanente de los Pueblos, “Feminicidio y Violencias contra la Mujer” in Chihuahua City, Chihuahua, México, and co-founded Amigos de las Mujeres de Juarez (2001-2010) an organization that worked with Mexican feminist and human rights groups including families of disappeared and murdered women to end this violence. She co-created and serves as co-principal investigator with Dr. Sylvia Fernandez of Fuerza Feminista: Intimate Recovery and Memory Archives, a digital humanities project that documents and contextualizes the feminist movements in the El Paso/Juarez border region by using transborder feminist approaches (2020-present).
Since 2002, Cynthia has also served as the founding principal investigator for the federally and state funded College Assistance Migrant Program at NMSU, which provides postsecondary educational outreach, access, recruitment and retention of students from farm working backgrounds. For twenty-three years, she and her CAMP colleagues have served 650 students and have worked for transformational change and social mobility for numerous farm working families across New Mexico and west Texas.
For her dedication in and outside of the classroom, she received the Donald C. Roush Excellence in Teaching Award, the Governor’s Award for Outstanding New Mexico Women, the Critical Educators in Social Justice (CESJ) Special Interest Group's Community Advocacy Award, and the Excellence in Teaching Award from the National Society of Leadership and Success. In 2024, she received the Bellas Artes y Culturas Hispanic Heritage Unsung Hero Award.
Transnational Solidarity Day
Dr. Bejarano, in collaboration with G&SS learners, started Transnational Solidarity Day in Spring 2015.
FRONTERA MADRE(HOOD) - A collection from 30 U.S-Mexico Border contributors
