The Latina/Latino Studies Program is pleased to announce the faculty appointment of Dr. Lisa Cacho for the 2004-2005 academic year. Dr. Cacho holds a joint appointment with the Asian American Studies Program. During the 2003-2004 academic year, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities at the University of Illinois. Dr. Cacho holds a Ph.D. degree in Ethnic Studies from the University of California at San Diego. She has extensive experience teaching interdisciplinary comparative race courses, including immigration, community formation, racial/ ethnic identities, education, literature and culture, social movements, and anti-discrimination law.

The Latina/Latino Studies Program is also pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Rosalinda Barrera as Associate Provost in the Provost Office. During the 2004-2005 academic year she serves as also be the Interim Director of the Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society.

This year Dr. Angharad Valdivia was promoted to Research Professor of Communications in the Institute of Communications Research. She is the first Latina professor at the University of Illinois who has gone through the entire promotion process from assistant to full professor. Professor Valdivia is an affiliate faculty member
with the Gender and Women’s Studies Program, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Women and Gender in Global Perspective Program, and the Latina/ Latino Studies Program. Professor Valdivia’s research and teaching focuses on issues of gender, race and popular culture from a transnational perspective, especially among U.S. Latina/os and Latin Americans. She is currently working on a book with Jacqueline Bobo about women as media makers across the Latina/African American divide. She is
also working on a book, Gender of Latinidad, Latinidad on Latina/os in popular culture in the contemporary setting.

Dr. Lydia Buki was awarded a faculty fellowship for 2004-2005 with the Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society. The title of her research project is “Educational
Needs of Medically Under-served Latina Women in Central Illinois.” She also received the Early Career Award from the National Latina/o Psychological Association. Dr. Buki is the Secretary of the Section on Ethnic and Racial Diversity of the American Psychology Association for 2004-2006.

Dr. Wanda Pillow was promoted to Associate Professor. She has also been appointed the Director of the Native American Studies Program beginning Fall 2004.

Dr. Anne Martinez received a 2004- 05 postdoctoral fellowship from the Center for the Study of Race,
Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago. She is working on turning her dissertation into a book, tentatively entitled Bordering on the Sacred: Religion, Nation and U.S.-Mexican Relations, 1910-1929.