Alicia Gaspar de Alba comes from the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, where she lived until age 27. She has a B.A. and a M.A. in English from the University of Texas at El Paso, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. She started her doctoral work at the University of Iowa in 1985 but left after a year, then lived in Boston, Massachusetts for four years, where she worked as a braille transcriber and a parttime instructor of ESL at UMASS/Boston. She is a lesbian professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, currently serving as Chair of the Cesar Chavez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. She is also jointly appointed in the departments of English and Women's Studies. She is married to the artist, Alma Lopez, and they are one of the 18,000 gay and lesbian couples whose marriages are still legal in California.

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