Dr. Xóchitl Chávez

Dr. Xóchitl C. Chávez is the first tenure track Chicanx assistant professor in the Department of Music at the University of California, Riverside. She is a scholar of expressive culture and performance, specializing in Indigenous communities from southern Mexico and transnational migration. Her current work focuses on second-generation Zapotec brass bands in Los Angeles, California and transborder relationships with their communities of origin in Oaxaca, Mexico. Dr. Chávez forthcoming manuscript tentatively titled, The Guelaguetza: Performative Crossroads, Ethnicity, and Greater Oaxaca documents the lived and performative movements of how Oaxacan communities in Los Angeles and Santa Cruz, California reproduce the annual La Guelaguetza festival, one of the most celebrated indigenous celebrations of communal dances and musical forms.

Dr. Chávez educational journey lead her to attend the University of Colorado, Boulder (BA), University of Texas, Austin (MA), and then the University of California, Santa Cruz where is earned a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology with a designated emphasis in Latin American and Latino Studies. She was a recipient of the University of California President’s Post Doctoral Fellowship (2014-2016) and a Smithsonian Institution Post-Doctoral Fellow (2013-2014). She collaborated with the Smithsonian Institution as a Digital Curator and Content Specialist for the Smithsonian Latino Center Live Mobile Broadcast Series (2014-2017) doing community-oriented work bringing live online transmission of various cultural practices direct from the community members homes in Colorado, New Mexico, California, and Mexico City. These broadcast series are now archived at Smithsonian Latino Center Mobile Outreach on YouTube and in Google Arts and Culture platform. Dr. Chávez is grateful for her longstanding relationship and work as a cultural and linguistic presenter for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival from 2010-2016

Digital Storytelling and Community Cultural Programming

Since 2014, she has also collaborated with the Smithsonian Institution as a Digital Curator and Content Specialist for the Smithsonian Latino Center Mobile Broadcast Series. Her current ethnographic documentary project entitled Booming Bandas of Los Ángeles focuses on second-generation Zapotec brass bands in Los Angeles County, which documents how women and youth now fill the ranks of musicians and new leadership. See samples of Dr. Chávez's work below.