Latinx Lab Team, 2025-2026
Dr. Mario Alberto Obando Jr., Director of the Latinx Lab for Storytelling and Social Justice and Associate Professor of Chicana/o Studies at CSUF (mobando@fullerton.edu)
Janel Navarro, Program Coordinator (janavarro@fullerton.edu)
Alan Mercado, Lab Graduate Student Assistant (latinxlab@fullerton.edu)
Ellie Hernandez, Lab Research Intern (latinxlab@fullerton.edu)
Latinx Lab Overview
Funded by the Mellon Foundation from 2025-2028, the Latinx Lab aims to institutionalize its activities within the university through intentional collaboration and partnerships with other campus projects and initiatives that support the indefinite growth of Latinx humanities on campus. Our campus collaborators include the Institute for Black Intellectual Innovation, the Lawrence de Graaf Center for Oral and Public History, and Pollak Library University Archives and Special Collections. Our off-campus collaborators include faculty at various institutions of higher education, and local community partners. Additionally, the Lab seeks to leverage its strategic location in Southern California to serve as a central hub for intellectual inquiry and collaboration for Latinx humanities projects through its grant activities. Within a context in which U.S.-Latinx texts are being intentionally removed from libraries and websites, the Latinx Lab seeks to create, collect, preserve and make accessible Latinx stories. Projects supporting this work include:
· Archiving Latinx Futurisms (ALF)– U.S. Latinx Science Fiction Collection, CSUF
· Latinx Archives Today (LAT) – the Zúñiga Research Collection, CSUF
· AfroLatinidad Research Pathway (ALRP)
· Latinx Oral History Collaborative (LOHC)
· Social Justice Summer Institute for Faculty (SJSI)
Addtionally, our current Lab has produced a collaborative special themed journal publication on the understudied topic of Latinx outdoor recreation through an environmental humanities lens and laid the groundwork for an edited book project on Jotería Studies. Phase 2 of the Latinx Lab will bolster projects focused on research for publication, including collaboration among scholars across educational institutions and the mentorship of junior scholars and graduate students. Topics will include archival research, Latinx science fiction, Latinx children’s and young adult storytelling, pandemic oral histories from Spanish-speaking local communities, queer and trans Latinx oral histories, AfroLatinidad, and expanding Latinx environmental humanities. Projects supporting this goal are:
· Tierra Viva Collaborative for Latinx Environmental Humanities (TVCLEH)
· Latinx Children’s & Young Adult (YA) Storytelling Project (LCYASP)
· Latinx Lab Studio (LatinxLab.Studio) (LLS)
