About

Micaela J. Diaz-Sanchez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theater and Dance at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Theater and Performance Studies. Her research focuses on Chicana/o and Latina/o Performance Studies, Visual Culture, and Cultural Studies, with particular emphasis on Afro-Latina/o Diaspora Studies, Chicana/o and Latina/o Theater History, Ethnomusicology, and Feminisms. Her work explores the intersections of performance, culture, and identity within these communities, contributing to a deeper understanding of their artistic and cultural expressions.

Research topics

• Art
• Humanities
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Political Science
• Gerontology
• Microeconomics
• Aesthetics
• Anthropology
• Economics
• History
• Medicine

Selected publications

• Review: <i>Mario Barradas &amp; Son Jarocho: The Journey of a Mexican Regional Music</i>, by Yolanda Broyles-González, Francisco González &amp; Rafael Figueroa Hernández

  Journal of Popular Music Studies · 2024

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Humanities
  • Humanities
  • Gerontology
  PublisherDOI

• CHAPTER 3 “Rebozos, huipiles, y ¿Qué?”: Chicana Self-Fashioning in the Academy

  University of Texas Press eBooks · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Art
  • History
  PublisherDOI

• Abject performances: Aesthetic strategies in Latino cultural production

  Latino Studies · 2020 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Aesthetics
  PublisherDOI

• <i>Bailando</i>: “We Would Have Been There”

  QED A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking · 2016-10-01 · 23 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Son Jarocho as Afro-Mexican Resistance Music

  The Journal of Pan-African Studies · 2013-07-01 · 46 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  AbstractSon jarocho is an Afro-Mexican musical tradition from southern Veracruz with prominent African diasporic elements. Its first archival documentation was via a colonial edict in 1776 banning El chuchumbe. lascivious body movements associated with the dancing ?1 chuchumbe communities of broken color was accompanied by lyrics that literally mocked colonial authorities. Similar to the dissemination El chuchumbe, the conga rhythm and dance transferred to Veracruz by way Cuba. transgressive performance this music by mulatos and mestizos in Veracruz fueled indignation by Catholic institutional forces and led to the prohibition sones like ?1 chuchumbe and the conga. This essay will explore these examples the son jarocho as an African diasporic form rooted in resistance.****As Chicana and Chicano scholars looking into Black Mexico and its cultural production, we unravel the Black musical-cultural legacy and make it explicit in our conversation the son jarocho, an Afro-Diasporic music from the sotavento region Mexico. Our positionality places us in an emic-etic dichotomy as practitioners and intellectuals the son jarocho. However, we share the etic perspective as outsiders from the region origin in Mexico. As practitioners the son jarocho in the U.S., we are connected as cultivators the music and particpants bi- national dialogue between Chicanas and Chicanos and practitioners the son jarocho in Mexico.Responding to the mandate this special edition on Black Mexico for Journal Pan African Studies, our goal is to make an intervention, thinking about embodied tradition as a contemporary articulation Afro-Mexican history. Prominent research on African-descended communities in Mexico privilege archival research/historical/historiographical approaches. Our point entry is the son jarocho, an Afro-Mexican musical tradition from the sotavento region encompassing the southern portion Veracruz into Oaxaca and Tabasco. We will begin this conversation with a trajectory the African presence in Mexico.A Brief History the Enslavement Africans in MexicoDuring the early colonial period (1521-1640), Africans and African-descended people outnumbered whites in New Spain (Mexico). rapid decimation Indigenous populations due to epidemics and inhumane labor practices had created a need for an alternative labor source. From 1580- 1630 the Mexican demand for enslaved African labor was at its height and the Caribbean coastal state Veracruz became one the largest ports entry for enslaved Africans in the Americas.1 Colin Palmer writes that almost half the enslaved sent to the New World between 1595 and 1622 went to Mexico, citing the peak years as 1606, 1608-1610, and 1616-1621.2 burgeoning mining industry along with a growing campaign for the humane treatment Indigenous populations spearheaded by Spanish Friar, Bartolome de Las Casas, coincided with the peak African enslavement in Mexico. In correspondence between the Spanish crown and colonial officials in New Spain, Viceroy Manrique de Zuniga expressed the preference for African people over Indian labor,[They] experience notable pressures and problems [because they] are used in the boiling house and at difficult and intolerable tasks that are more suited to negro slaves accustomed to performing such difficult jobs and [who are] not weak and frail Indians with little strength and stamina.3Enslaved Africans suffered under the most strenuous labor conditions on plantations, sugar mills, and mines. Palmer writes, The belief that, as workers, Africans were superior to Indians was shared by the Spaniards in New Spain and in the other colonies. often expressed belief was that one African was the equivalent to as many as four Indians where productivity was concerned.4 Despite a concentration the enslaved in the mining regions the northern states, Zacatecas and Guanajuato (as well as Michoacan, Tlaxcala, Jalisco) a large concentration remained in the port city Veracruz and surrounding rural areas. …

  Publisher

• Hacia Adelante: Pathways to College. A Guide for Latino Families [and] Hacia Adelante: Pathways to College. Una Guia Para Familias Latinas.

  2002-01-01

  article
  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Rosana G. Rodríguez

  1 shared

• Aurelio M. Montemayor

  1 shared

• Alexandro D. Hernandez

  1 shared

• Pam McCollum

  1 shared

• Anna Alicia Romero

  1 shared