Maria Joaquina Villaseñor (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) is Associate Dean of Liberal Arts at Sierra College. Previously she was a Professor of Chicanx/Latinx Studies in the Department of Humanities and Communication and co-founder of the Ethnic Studies Working Group at California State University, Monterey Bay. Villaseñor is the co-editor of Latinx Experiences: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (2023), a co-author of The Historical Dictionary of U.S. Latino Literature (2017); a Latina life writer herself, her personal essays have been published in journals including The Acentos Review. Dr. Villaseñor’s family is from Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche, Mexico. She is a twin, a mother of twins, and a lifelong Californian.Christine J. Fernández is Associate Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture at California State University, Monterey Bay. Her scholarship focuses on Hemispheric connections between Latin America and the United States and its intersections with gender studies and life writing. Her work has been published in journals such as eHumanista, Studies on Latin American Popular Culture, and Hispania.

• Introduction Maria Joaquina VillaseñorPART 1: Historical Approaches and Memory in Latinx Life Writing 1 “A Race Equal To, If Not Better Than, Theirs”: 19th‑CenturyCalifornio TestimoniosRose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz2 With a Pencil in Their Hand: The Corrido as Life Writing Ric Alviso3 “I Will Never Deny What I am”: Masculinity in Oral Life Stories with Latine Vietnam VeteransTomás F. Summers Sandoval Jr.4 Fictional and Nonfictional Memory: Exploring the Liminal Spaces of History and Memory in Latinx Life WritingDaniel Luis Archer5 Genealogies in 21st‑Century Latina Life Writing: Memory, History, and StorytellingJennifer GeraciPART II: Migration, Exile and Borders in Latinx Life Writing6 Cartographies of Hispanic and Latinx Travel Writing: Discourses of Origins, Nations, and ExplorationChristine J. Fernández7 Women’s Auto/biography in the Mexico‑United States Borderscape, 1942–968: Elisa M. del Valle, Celia Trevino Carranza, and Consuelo Pena de Villarreal ElizondoPaulo Alvarado8 Latina/o/x Autobiographical Narratives of Exile: Examples from Cuba and ChileLucía M. Suárez9 Latinx Life Writers of South American Origin or Heritage Cynthia Martínez10 Coming Out as Undocumented Through Personal Narrative, 2006–2016Leah ButterfieldPART III: Chicana/Latina Feminisms and Life Writing11 How Latina Theater Found a VoiceLeigh Johnson12 Chicana Feminist Life Writing: Cherrie Moraga, Gloria Anzaldua, and Necessary Transgressions of GenreR. Joyce Z. L. Garay13 Undisciplining Academia through Feminista Testimonio WritingRebeca Burciaga, Dolores Delgado Bernal, C. Alejandra Elenes, and Judith Flores Carmona14 Chicanx and Latinx Feminist TestimoniosAna Roncero‑Bellido15 ¿Y Yo Tambien?: Sexual Assault Narratives in Chicana MemoirsMelissa Castillo PlanasPART IV: Inscribing Race, Gender and Sexuality in Latinx Life Writing16 Writing from the Wound: Contemporary Latinx Writing as Racial Identity in ProcessDominique Aurilla Vargas17 The Afro‑Latino MemoirTrent Masiki18 Mapping Motherhood, Parenting, and Queer Care as Rebirth in Chicana/Latina Life WritingMarivel T. Danielson19 LGBTQ+ Latinx Poetry as Life WritingEdward A. Chamberlain20 Disidentifications: New York City as Space for (Dis)Encounters in Latinx Queer LiteratureJosé Acosta‑Seda21 From Grindr Advice Column to Memoir: Latinx Life Writing Online and the Queer Latinx Care Work of John Paul Brammer’s “!Hola Papi!” SeriesJennifer M. Lozano and Katie R. PeelPART V: Latinx Life Writing: Signature Themes and Genres22 Vulnerability: Finding a Latinx Approach to Life Writing Ruth Behar23 Automitografia: Empowerment and Cultural Resistance in Chicanx Life Writing Juan Velasco24 Transformative Testimony and Lamentation: Latinx Protest Poetry as a New World of WitnessingFrancisco E. Robles25 Latinx Coming‑of‑Age Memoirs, 1961–2022Regina Marie Mills26 Latinx Life Writing in Comics and Graphic NovelsSamantha Ceballos