Natalia Toscano

Ph.D. Student

ntoscano@unm.edu

Bio

She/Her

Natalia M. Toscano is a Ph.D. candidate in the inaugural cohort of graduate students in the department of Chicana/o Studies . Natalia is a proud transfer student who attended Santa Monica College and transferred to UCLA, obtaining her Bachelor’s degree in Chicana/o Studies and American Studies. As an undergraduate student, Natalia was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar where she conducted research on Danza Azteca as site of political and historical consciousness raising for Chicanx communities through the mode of embodied and collective learning. Following her undergraduate studies, Natalia obtained her Master’s in American Studies at the University of New Mexico (UNM). As a doctoral student, Natalia has supported various intellectual projects including the Crossing Latinidades Humanities Research Initiative, AfroChicanx Digital Humanities Project: Memories, Narratives, and Oppositional Consciousness of Black Diasporas, as a co-author with P.I. Dr. Doris Carega Coleman and was awarded the Crossing Latinidades Mellon Fellowship in 2022. Natalia, alongside her peers Gustavo Garcia and Ruben Loza, were granted the 2022-2023 Alfonso Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies award to support a Son Jarocho open access community workshops. Alongside these projects Natalia currently serves as a managing editor for the journal Regeneraciòn: A Xicanacimiento Studies Journal, to continue promoting critical scholarship in Chicana/o/x Studies.

Growing up in Oakland, CA, Natalia was raised in spaces of community advocacy and popular education. Her background in educational advocacy has fueled her participation in programs supporting access, retention, and graduation for historically excluded communities, including working class, first-generation, and students of color. In the spirit of building and strengthen pathways for educational access, Natalia has supported El Centro’s El Puente Research Fellowship program as a Graduate Research Fellow and demystifying the hidden curriculum of academia and supporting undergraduate research. Secondly, Natalia has supported transfer students through the New Mexico Humanities Now! Mellon Transfer Initiative. She has supported Ethnic Studies as a graduate student building curriculum for the departments ISEE College program and supporting APS teacher professional development in Chicana/o Studies.

Outside of the university, Natalia is a member of the Chicanx World-Making & Futurities Project, a (digital) humanities working group investigating and performing low-tech rasquache multi-media for Latinx and Chicanx readers, viewers, and listeners. She is also a member of the network Sexta Grietas del Norte, a constellation of individuals, collectives and organizations who adhere to the Zapatista’s Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle and principles of collective organizing. Through this network, Natalia accompanies the Zapatistas, the Congreso Nacional Indigena, and communities in rebellion both in the U.S., Mexico, and hemispherically who build autonomy and envision un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos. Natalia is a danzante, zinster, and jaranera.

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Research Interests

Natalia’s dissertation is tentatively titled, “Queremos Muchos Mundos: Chicanx Transnational Organizing and the Radical Imaginations for Autonomy”. Her dissertation explores the transnational relationship between Chicanx and Mexican leftists organizing and struggling against neoliberal projects of resource, land, and labor extraction. Centering how communities against this backdrop of domination, imagine and enact autonomy.

Research Topics