Dr. Jacobo D. Baca was born and raised in New Mexico. He is a land grant heir and was raised an acequia parciante, and has studied and taught courses about mercedes and acequias for nearly twenty years. He holds Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees in history from the University of New Mexico, where he wrote his dissertation Somos indigena: Ethnic Politics and Land Tenure in Modern New Mexico, 1904-2004, which examined changes in Hispano and Pueblo Indian land tenure in the Tewa Basin of north central New Mexico across three centuries. He teaches courses on immigration and assimilation for the Chicana & Chicano Studies Department and is also the Research Historian for the UNM Land Grant Studies Program and New Mexico Land Grant Council.